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Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case underwere listening podcast.
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Speaker 2: You can’t predict.
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Speaker 1: Anything brought to you by first Light. When I’m hunting, I need gear that won’t quit. First Light builds, no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer, no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at first light dot com. That’s f I R S T L I T E dot com. All right, everybody, we got a very special guest today who I’ll announce in one minute.
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Speaker 2: But uh, first off, oh did you just move that around? Krinn? No, cren, it moved around.
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Speaker 3: Uh.
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Speaker 1: The Christmas tour we staw our Christmas tour going Fayetteville, Arkansas has sold out, but uh here’s run through December seventeenth. Will be in Birmingham, Alabama. As the lyric, So this is the meat Eater. Meat Eater Live. The Christmas Tour December eighteen, Nashville Marathon Music Works, December nineteen, Memphis, Minglewood Hall. The twentieth is Fayetteville, but those are gone. They’ve been gone for a few days. Twenty one Dallas, Texas Theater, So Texas Theater in Dallas, twenty second Austin, Texas at the Paramount. What’s more, if you’re listening on Monday for the Monday Drop. On Tuesday, we’re having a special drop with a longtime associate, Ronnie Bame, who’s going to tell a dog story that’ll warm your little heart.
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Speaker 2: Okay.
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Speaker 1: Joined today by Congressman Ryan Zinky. Ryan Zink is a fifth generation Montana serves as representative for Montana’s first congressional district, so it covered sixteen counties. If you live in Bozeman, Butte, Missoula, callspell here in Montana, that’s your man. Zinki was first elected to Congress back in twenty fourteen. He served as US Secretary of the Interior under the first Trump administration. Is now serving his fourth term in Congress. UH First off, Congressman Zink, I want to thank you.
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Speaker 2: Again.
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Speaker 1: I haven’t thanked you in person. I want to thank you again for your leadership during the recent public land sales efforts, for articulating the side of it that I stand on very well and the.
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Speaker 3: Value of our public lands, the reason why we live out West, the reason why Teddy Rooseveld is revered.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, thank you because I know.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I recognize it, like you know that that stuff has to come at some kind of costs.
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Speaker 2: And but you come from a state where that stuff’s cherished and uh.
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Speaker 1: And you were very vocal up front, yeah, and laid out what you’re laid out what you’re at expectations, were laid out what your line was and held firm to it.
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Speaker 2: And I think we.
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Speaker 1: Had, you know, that land where I wanted to see it land, and my all my colleagues and friends wanted to see it land.
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Speaker 2: And I appreciate that.
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Speaker 3: Well, the fight for freedom is not over, and I don’t think the land battles over either.
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Speaker 2: No. Yeh.
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Speaker 3: Look, you know I grew up Montana. You know the reason why a lot of us live out West. And you know, I think it should be recognized too that we live out in West from a legacy of the great ones. You know, he had Roosevelt, you had Pinchot, you had mirror a lot of our our great thinkers in the conservation movement. We’re blessed to live in an environment we have public lands, and you know the extent of our public lands. Uh. You know, I’m a big management and Teddy Roosevelt guy, with a pin show. Look on public lands, it’s best used, best science, best practices, longest term, greatest good. That’s the model you use. And you know, during this last dust up, there’s a movement by a few that want to divest of America’s greatest asset, which is our public lands, and the divesting of it once you sell it, you’re not going to get back. But there’s also a process. When I was Secretary, I added, I subtracted, I exchanged public lands. There’s a process to it. I added Semnoso Wilderness in New Mexico. I added a number of parcels that were LWCF that provided either public access or corridors. I also subtracted around Las Vegas. There’s an acronym called Snipplema terrible acronym, but allows areas around Las Vegas when the county and there’s a whole procedure looking at it to divest in sections, and look, there’s sections the highest and best use of land you know, probably should be looked at. I’ll give you an example in Montana. There’s thirty acres a U. S. Forest Service property near Lima or Lima and you know, Lineless, a little small little town, but it’s right next to the school. At one time, I think the Forest Service is going to put a headquarters in there. They decided not to. It’s not used for recreation, it’s not used for habitat, it’s just thirty acres. I think the highest and best use of that piece of property should be looked at of transferring to the school. I did the same thing on an airport that needed a little more runway. I did it on a school that needed some extra yardage. But you know there’s a process to it. And let me take you a little journey. Because you know, most of the land in West was previously occupied by you know, a native tribe, and because a lot of that land is public land, is that they are given the right for cultural activities, for movement, for access to a lot of our public lands. When you take that out of the public domain and put it in private on those tribes, if it’s a treaty, which many of the tribes are a treaty tribe, they would lose that right. And by law you have to consult. And then let’s talk about water rights, because in the West whiskeys for drinking waters, for fighting, and when you divest of property, do you also divest the of the underwater, right do you divest also of the mineral rights in there? And if you’re going to divest the mineral rights, you have to look at what minerals are there, what’s the scope of the value so highest and best use. But also the government, you know, it doesn’t give something away for free. And and also there’s things like the Taylor Grazing Act. A lot of the BLM land on grazing is there at a discount because the Taylor Grazing Act make sure that the number of cattle on public land is controlled so it doesn’t overgraze. And also so we had a secure food production in this country. So when you’re talking about divesting a public land, there’s a whole process to it to include public comment. You know, just because public land is in New Mexico or Utah or Montana, it belongs to all citizens and therefore all citizens of the US should have a comment, you know, on it and be involved in it. So the whole process. What I didn’t like about about a number of things was this last assault I think on public lands, and there was no process to it. It didn’t have consultation and a fire sale on public land. If it’s for a debt, you’re not even on the target. You could sell everything, it’s not going to reach thirty six truellion dollars.
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Speaker 2: I saw that.
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Speaker 1: I saw that expressed in various ways, and I expressed it in various ways where the actual money into the treasury, it almost winds up being inconsequential.
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Speaker 3: And there’s a million acre ranch in Nevada. I think they want twenty three million dollars for it, all right, And it has water and it has buildings, you know, it’s a ranch. And then if you’re talking about housing, okay, housing is tens of acres. It’s called an apartment complex. It’s not hundreds of thousands of acres. And it’s not you know, when they say family housing, it’s not ranchets. It’s not luxury ranchets. So you know, I think we are fortunate to live in a great country, and we’re fortunate to have the outdoor experience we do, largely driven by public lands and access. Do we need to manage it better? Absolutely? Should we deem it acceptable for a force to burn down you know every season. And look, if you’re a climate change believer or denier, it doesn’t leave you. We leave you the responsibility of managing our public lands. Get rid of the dead and dying timber. Put in fire brakes where where they’re necessary, make sure you have diversity of species. Prescribe burns on the shoulder seasons rather right in the middle on when it gets hot. So I think you know, you look at where it is on appalling. You know, I’d love to share it with you and the viewers. Is that on the Democrat side of the equation, I think it’s ninety eight percent of the Democrats oppose selling the land on independence, you’re in the high eighties eighty nine. On the Republican side, only ten percent want to sell public land. The other don’t that don’t know about it. When you say public land sales, is it? Is it thirty acres in in Lima or is it you know, three million acres around Glacier Park? So you know it is for the Republican Party. I can tell you it would be an extinction event because I could write the advertisement you’re giving tax bricks the rich while you’re selling public land, you know, and it would be true. So stop it. That’s focus on managing public land. And if you look at a parcel of land that highest and best use. There’s a process to it. So go through the process, go through public comment, you know, make sure we’re not diminishing our federal estate from a point of view of public access for hunting, fishing, all those kind of things. Oftentimes exchanges, you know work work magnificently, or some land may be in a position where you don’t have public access to it all. All four corners are are are surrounded, and it may be a better deal for the public to exchange it for someplace that’s next to a river or access somewhere where you can enjoy the bounty of this great nation.
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Speaker 1: Do you mind, just by way of introduction to people that might not follow politics closely, do you do you mind walking through a little bit of your background. Your family’s been in Montana for a very long time, you know, and then you had a pretty storied uh you know, you had a storied military career and were involved in a lot of stuff. Yeah, involved in a lot of things that a lot of people heard a lot of things about over the last twenty years.
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Speaker 3: Well, I grew up in Whitefish. When Whitefish, Montana now a destination, but when I grew up It was a railroad logging town, you know, smaller town, about five thousand folks. Over a period of time that expanded into a destination. I played football. You went to the University of Oregon. I was a duck, played played ball with it for the Ducks. But in all honesty, i’d played before Phil Knight wrote the check for five hundred million. So I played with Daffy Duck on the side of my helmet when I went walked in the stadium. It wasn’t this big fear. Oh, it was a It was a Daffy Duck call. And then I joined in the Navy Seals, spent twenty three years. I was commander at Seal Team six.
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Speaker 1: Tell me real quick the inflection point, like, why did you join the military.
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Speaker 3: Well, to be honest with you, my folks are are not military. Our family in World War One, some of them fought on the German side, some of them fought on our side. But it was when I was at Oregon. It was a great alumni. Admiral Dick he commanded the Enterprise during Vietnam War, and he talked to me about about service, and he talked to me about the United States Navy seals, which he was a pilot, and he didn’t lie to me like recruiters don’t lie, they may not express the entire truth. Yeah, I remember his words distinctly, said, you know, if you don’t like it, you can leave at any time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember that like a cycle.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, as I was in Bud’s training getting tortured in the surf zone and going, you know what, Yeah, he’s right, you could quit any time. He wasn’t lying. Uh, but the seal training is you know, obviously very hard for for a reason. And then uh, I enjoyed, uh, being being a CeAl. I enjoyed being a commander. It’s just that, you know, the more senior become, the less and less time you’re actually in the field and the more time you’re flying what’s called a D four was a desk with four drawers. And it came to the point where, you know, I was a deputy commander of Special Forces in Iraq. My destiny was not to go back into command, but uh, you know, to do the staff and and there’s a god bless those people that want to do it. So I retired, and I hadn’t decided to retire. Was a state senator in Montana. And then I got this wacky idea to run for Congress and uh and was elected uh and then served a term, you know, learned a lot. And then President Trump and forty five asked me to be secretary. I enjoyed that, did that for a command tour for two years, and then took a wonderful absence away from Washington, d C. And then decided, because we got another another seat in Montana, to come back, go back to the front line on the fight for freedom. And and that’s where I am. I enjoy you know, representing Montana. Montana has you know, a lot of opportunity, really really good people. Well I has some issues, oh like like every every state. But I’m an optimist. I haven’t seen anything that’s not fixable. But there are some threats out there. And we talked a little about public Land. I don’t think that threat is doused. I don’t think that campfire is doust I think I think it has a chance of coming back. So we have to make sure that we do our part to make sure that that it doesn’t come back, and if it does, it remains unsuccessful. And in Davy Jones Box where alongs.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, you’re you’re you want to tell people about the Public Lands Caucus.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it’s bipartisan. Uh, we have twenty members, ten on on on each side.
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Speaker 2: Is that normal for a caucus to be?
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Speaker 3: Like?
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Speaker 1: I shouldn’t say normal because I know there’s some that are both. But is it is it?
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Speaker 2: Is it caucus? Is it preferential to be bipartisan? There are both?
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Speaker 3: There are both, uh, partisan and non partisan. This is a non partisan caucus because you know, again, public lands isn’t the Republican or Democrat or independent issues. It’s a red, white and blue issue. We all enjoy it. But I think it’s important to have both sides of the aisle. And it’s not just about selling public land. It’s about management issues. We have wildlife corridors that we have to look at and evaluate to make sure we protect. We have systems, we have watersheds. You know, what happens upstream affects downstream and in a system approach to make sure we have healthy systems our environment. And you know we live in a hyper Parisian world. You know. As a seal, I fought with Americans for Americans. I don’t want to fight against Americans. I think it’s repulsive that there’s so much anger out there that you can’t have a normal conversation. Look, we should be able to agree or disagree, but it’s not be disagreeable and kind.
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Speaker 2: Of quote yourself back to you.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I saw you speak a couple times in DC this year where you were honored by Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, where I’m a board member, and you had two things you’d said.
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Speaker 2: I told Crane abottom one you gave when you came to speak to us as a group.
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Speaker 1: You talked about this was before it got hot, but you said we need to turn the heat down. Yeah, and things got hotter since then.
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Speaker 3: I agree.
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Speaker 1: And then the other thing you said is you were talking about you said if you were talking about public lands, the public estate, and you had said, hey, if you have a hotel and it’s not being managed, well, do you sell the motel or do you change the management?
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Speaker 3: Exactly it is, you know, a great point, my great friends from Utah. I understand the frustration about getting a ticket on a county road. I understand the frustration of being locked out of public land of access. I understand the frustration of watching the forest burn down every year, and we burned more too, by fours last year we ever harvested. So I understand the frustration about mismanagement. But the solution, again using the hotel analogy, is not sell the hotel. Let’s get better management. And better management is going back to what best science, best practices, greatest good, longest term. That’s the conservation American conservation ethic that that Pinchot and Roosevelt and a lot of a lot of superb scientists over the course of time have adhered to. And I think we owe it to those that gave us the legacy to continue that process. And you know, kind of going back to the hyper partisan you know, how do you break through, Well, you find something we both agree on, right, and then you talk about it, and then you have a working relationship. Because Congress is a working relationship. It’s four hundred and thirty five different members from different different parts, but you got to work together in order to get things done. So you work together, and then if you find something that’s easy to work with together, maybe the next step is finding something a little more difficult. So then it’s relationships. But public land should be a rallying call for Americans because Americans revere our public lands, and where the debate is is sometimes how best to manage it? And I sit in the in the corner of the conservationists. That’s multiple use. If kind of my background is a boy scout when you when you have a campground, leave the campground and is good or better condition you find it so you can mine. But we’re not gonna mine like Butte. We’re not gonna mine like Virginia Beach or Virginia City. You know, you bring a paddle board up up the river and destroy the river. If we’re gonna minelet’s do it correctly. There’s new mind techniques and we need to mind. There’s there’s critical minerals rarer some Montana that are are wonderful that we need. But let’s do it right. Let’s go through the process. It’s not skip steps, but let’s go through the process and then make sure we have a reclamation plan that works. And I think all of us would would would get along a lot better if we looked at you know, multiple use and management side of it. And I do agree that you know, wilderness is set aside because wilderness those areas with the lightest touch. But it doesn’t mean no touch. I’ll give you example in Hawaii when it was secretary, when the Hawaiian volcano on the Big Island was was blowing up a lot of that cauldra is actually in proposed wilderness. And if you by the letter of the law, the superintendent down there would not allow me as a secretary to put scientific instrumentation on the type of that on the side of that cauldron because there was in a proposed wilderness. Now I had to take a visit out there, uh and and relook at that. But let’s say in our wilderness in Montana and the Bob Marshall. So what if you have an appearance of zebra muscles and the and the and the upper South Fork. Well, you know, I think when zebra muscles, I think you should use scientific instrumentation out there. And I think it’s okay to put a wheel in in order to eradicate and eliminate the threat early enough. We have pine beetle the devastation across. So you can use management techniques. You know, if you if you don’t like the sound of a chainsaw, clear and trail, then maybe a couple of times a year you got to be able to use electric chainsaws and clear the trail so people have access.
00:21:08
Speaker 1: We had a fisheries biologist on the show one time. Well, let me let me real quick, just catch people up on a point here. What we’re talking about is about two percent of the country is federally designated wilderness, and it sort of enjoys what I feel is the for my personal opinion, and enjoys kind of like the perfect layer of protection where it’s non motorized but you can still hunt it, right, and that picture like a park where you can hunt.
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Speaker 2: Well, it’s great.
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Speaker 3: And the Wilderness Act was a great compromise between conservationists between cattlemen. Uh and, And that’s why you can hunt on wilderness. That’s why you can they can graze in the fish camp yep. Uh And and you’re you’re limited to what you can do mechanically. You know, you can’t bring a week.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the fisheries biologist thing is they were they were working I think it was in the heat of wilderness area and they have these strains of cutthroat trout that’s fairly imperiled fish and fires yep will destroy whole rivers. And he was talking about when they were trying to get fish stock samples, couldn’t use helicopters, and he wound up.
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Speaker 2: They wound up. I think they thought.
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Speaker 1: About it a little bit, but in the end he wound up taking packstock and trying to figure out how to move fish with packstocks because he couldn’t beget a helicopter in there, you know.
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Speaker 3: And then and then you got in New Mexico. You got a lot of areas where where a guzzlers is required, which means that there’s not a lot of water out there. So there’s guzzlers out there that allow sheep to have access to water. So and in order to make sure that those guzzlers have water in them, you know, I don’t have a problem take you to truck and occasionally feeding the guzzlers. So you have wildlife out there.
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Speaker 2: But oh no, well.
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Speaker 3: You got you got to put it in a backpack, you know, one gallon at a time, and it stopped. Guys.
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Speaker 2: The point is the argument is it’s a slippery slope. That’s a slip.
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Speaker 3: Well, you know what, but a lot of things are a slippy slope. But you know, it’s about management. It’s about effective management, and and and have some degree of common sense to things. Uh, you know, in willness, I get the lightest, lightest touch because you want to look at the majesty of nature. But but nature can be pretty tough too. So if you have ravaging forest fires and it burns down every tree uh in the watershed, and it puts so much sediment and and silt in the in the watershed that the fish will die, you know, especially if you have you know, a species in trouble, which we do in Montana. You know, what’s the purpose? So do you did you prevent uh? You know damage? No? What you did? Is you you allow? How did it happen? So you can you can’t do management practices. It’s a scale of how much and no one, no one’s advocating you know, timber sales in wilderness. But certainly if you have a disease, if you have in the case of bill kill or or disease with aquatic invasive species, then and then I think you do need to be a judgment to get on it quickly and to make sure it make sure it doesn’t spread.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: Here’s here’s large Y.
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Speaker 1: I’m not large y A big part of why I want to talk to you, and I’m curious how you think about things. Is my personal tendency is to be something of an absolutist on wilderness protections. I have friends that are very involved in policy, very involved in the conservation world, and sometimes they’ll make this argument and you made it too, that.
00:24:57
Speaker 2: We can’t always just.
00:25:00
Speaker 1: There has to be some compromise in order to turn the heat down a little bit.
00:25:05
Speaker 2: And that was some of what you were talking about.
00:25:07
Speaker 1: Where there are people like people that advocate for public land, massive public land sell offs, have sets of.
00:25:14
Speaker 2: Frustrations, right absolutely, and.
00:25:16
Speaker 1: So like I’m open to at least I’d like to hear articulations of ways in which some of those frustrations can be addressed where we maintain the integrity of what we’re trying to protect. And then therefore, as you said, turn down the heat a little bit by having an open ear and being like okay.
00:25:39
Speaker 3: And this is exactly what the Public Lands Caucus is intended to do, to turn the heat down and discuss, you know, areas where we can agree.
00:25:48
Speaker 2: And it seems like fire is a big one, well, fire.
00:25:52
Speaker 3: Wildlife corridors management, I think fishing people, you know, Democrats and Republicans and independence we all hunt. We want to make sure our herds are healthy. All right, if you have you know, whether you know, pick a disease, blue tongue or or chronic waste disease. There’s a lot of things in there and that’s not natural. Is it natural? Or are we going to just let it, you know, let it, let it go to the end, or are we going to intervene? And this is where discussion should should be made. And also the Wilderness Act, well was nineteen sixty four. That was a product of compromise. Well, so is our constitution. And in nineteen sixty four America was a little different. Back in nineteen sixty four, we’re sitting in boze in Montana. I can show you pictures from nineteen sixty four. I was born here in sixty one. Bozeman has changed since then, and sometimes you got to upgrade the plan in order to protect your assets because things have changed. What’s changed in Montana during my lifetime is that when I grew up, there was never a problem with public access because there was was any fenses there, you know there there there was less people out you know, in the woods, you know, you know, people just most people lived in town or but there was never a problem with public access or hunting, and now there are. There’s a lot more fences set up. Public access is harder to find corners, you know, that’s that’s a big discussion. It wasn’t in corners when I grew up because no one was there. Now the discussion, so, you know, looking at it, upgrading the plan, so you know what’s important. Public access is important. System health is important, not just a segment of the river, but the river itself, not just a segment of the forest, but the health of the forest and the systems and wildlife corridors and flyways to make sure the systems operate. And that takes again going back to best science, best practices. You know, what’s the greatest good, what’s the longest term? You know, how to manage assets for the next one hundred years. And you know, we talked about a little about our you know, the legacy we were given, and I think the biggest challenge is how do we manage it for the next centerd years give them the change that’s happened since Roosevelt was president and over one hundred years ago, he faced different challenges of what we face today. We do face rural interface, forest fires, you know, diseases, invasive species. There’s a lot more on the plate about challenges, and not all of them are impossible, but I think we do got to look at innovative ways and maybe maybe find, you know, how to protect what I think are our greatest treasures. You know, how are we going to protect the herds? Because if you don’t protect you know, wildlife corridors, because you know, large game they transit between summer range and winter range and if that is blocked by sets offenses or highways or development, and then they lose that access to their feeding grounds too. So how do we look at the corridors? How do I identify the corridors?
00:29:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, you prioritize that when you were Secretary of the Interior and there was and that kickstarted, I mean a ton of work. Then do you do you feel like, what do you think is gonna happen with in like in Trump too, with the current administration, do you feel that there’s gonna be sort of a vocalization or rededication around some of the work that like that that you initiated on on corridors.
00:29:33
Speaker 2: I mean you get that kind of that conversation really came to life during those years.
00:29:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I like I like Doug Burgham. He’s, you know, from North Dakota, so he has kind of a Western tilt to his walk. North Dakota’s a little different Montana. But I’ve talked to him about wildlife corridors and reorganization, which I think is important. And a lot of times it’s not more money into the system, it’s better utilization of the funding. And I’ll give you an example, and we’ve got to follow me on this, but let’s say you have a trout and a salmon in the same stream. Happens everywhere in the West. Let’s say upstream you have a Forest Service holding a National forest and downstream you have a dam. I’ve just described every watershed in the West. So this is how we manage it. So the trout are managed by Department of Interior through US Fish and Wildlife Service. The salmon are managed by Department of Commerce through NOAH. The National forest surface is managed by Department of Agriculture through US Forest Service subsurfaces Department of Interior through Bureau of Land Management. Our dam system downstream that directs the flow, the temperature. It’s either the Department of Army through the Army Corps of Engineers like Libby or its Department of Interior through Bureau of Reclamation like the Dam and Hungry Horse. Even though they’re almost you almost can see each other. So let’s say you want to put a redo a bridge, or put a pipeline in or a dock system, you literally have to go through multiple departments with different agencies, with oftentimes conflicting regulation in one hundred and sixty three different regions. Even the regions don’t line up. The regions from Bureau of Reclamation is not the same region as Department or Bureau of any affairs. They’re not even geographically the same. So it’s not exactly you know, putting more resources in is reorganizing it so you can make better decisions. So you don’t have seven different biologists from seven different agencies on the same acre of ground the same section of river giving different views and a conclusion that that either doesn’t move forward or it it’s not a consensus. And thus we were stuck in the mud and we don’t get things done. Decisions. We have the we have the technology on decisions to make a decision yes or no within a reasonable amount of time. But because just the organization of it and how we’re set up. A lot of these decisions wait and wait and wait and wait and wait. If you’re if you’re trying to you know, extract a resource, there’s a lot of fra frustration on that side. You’re trying to protect the resource, there’s a lot of frustration on that side too, So we can do it better.
00:32:45
Speaker 1: Uh, let’s jump to one that’s heating up right now. A lot of conversations about the roleless rule. I hate to see the like, not hate to I really don’t want to see the Roless rule thrown out. Uh, just I want to hear but people know what I think from your perspective, right, from from your perspective, like, like, aren’t there some fixes and some adjustments that could be made to alleviate.
00:33:20
Speaker 2: Some of the concerns?
00:33:22
Speaker 1: Yes, like without like again, I don’t want to lecture people on what I think about the Roles rule.
00:33:27
Speaker 2: I think like the Roles Rule does a great job of protecting those last bastions of undeveloped landscapes.
00:33:38
Speaker 1: But again, you know, in your role here, you are, you have a lot of constituents. You’re answering to a lot of you know, a lot of people with a lot of concerns. I would love to see that there was a way to more surgically address concerns as they come up, rather than just saying like to hell with it, which I feel like we’re sinding the role this rules a little bit like to hell with y’all.
00:34:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, and all right, when one is, I’ll hand over to you. When the roadless road rule was put in, there wasn’t any public comment on that one either. That was that was President Clinton, we’re gonna do the roadless rule. I don’t remember any public comment, So I think there’s public coming on the way out. I think, you know a blanket. We’re just gonna undo every roadless and make them roadless again, make them roads. I think that is not best science, it’s not best practices, it’s not based on longest term, greatest good. I think there’s there’s no doubt some roads that probably should be opened up that provide access. Remember, not everyone is in great shape. There’s a lot of older folks that they don’t walk so well that maybe would like to drive. There’s a snowmobile out there. They don’t.
00:34:51
Speaker 1: There’s a lot of promise you I was gonna stop talking about it. But I don’t picture running out of roads like I’m not I’m not a there’s like, there’s no such thing as a road preservation is because there’s always going to be a bunch.
00:35:06
Speaker 3: Of those well all right, and uh and and let’s say northwest Montana, there’s a lot of existing roads that when they shut the roads down they probably should have been opened up. They went they went too far, and then and over a period of time, if roads overgrow and then you do have a fire, you’re putting a lot of firefighters in danger because you’ve got to have you gotta have access for machinery and stuff like that. But again, the right step I think is and they’s we’re going to do all this or all this. I think there’s a logical you know midway that’s that’s evaluate the road system, that’s evaluate we should have open up you know, public access because public access is important. Uh. And public access isn’t always you know, two feet. I can tell you there’s a lot of veterans that would wish they had two legs that can’t walk very far. There’s a lot of older folks that don’t have the ability to walk that far. But you know that they used to, uh and so I think you can manage it, you know, well, but this, you know, one side or the other, I think leads to you know, tension. So I do think it’s important to look at public access and evaluate fairly. Look at our roads when when they were made roadless, there was no comment when when when if the rule is overturned based on coming what roads are you going to overturn? I think that’s a legitimate discussion. I think we should have these discussions about where and why and what purpose. Not every place, you know, some places have other alternative access points, uh and and a lot of places of you know, the road probably shouldn’t have been in there in the beginning. So I do think you got to carefully look at things, and that’s you know, some of these discussions. You know, it isn’t it isn’t clear where I have to have it one way or other. Do I have to have you know, zero people in it or or zero machinery in the wilderness. Well, it depends on what the machinery does. If it’s scientific instrumentation on the side of a cauldron in Hawaii, so you can evaluate the subsurface channels of lava penetrating and threatening, you know, human life. I think that’s a fair the put put that thing if you if you don’t like to looking at it, then make it look like a rock.
00:37:34
Speaker 2: Listen.
00:37:34
Speaker 1: I I man, I understand those areas, like those examples of things that happen where it winds up being it almost becomes like a uh those areas where like some level of absurdity is demonstrated.
00:37:51
Speaker 2: It drives a lot of frustration, you know what I mean.
00:37:54
Speaker 1: It drives like in places that where like the one I brought up, where you know, there’s almost an irony to it, like someone trying to preserve a strain of cutthroat trout being hindered in their activities because of the roadless rules, so like, and then you’re trying to preserve the integrity, like you’re trying to work on behalf of the integrity of the very thing that’s preventing you from working on the integrity or whatever I’m trying to say.
00:38:20
Speaker 2: And I get all, I get those.
00:38:21
Speaker 3: And then you have a fire, right, they have a massive fire, and you have so much settlement that the trout you’re trying to protect are gone. Yeah, and and and those are those are are real cases. So I think judgment matters and have a little latitude for the commander to make a decision based on ground truth, situation and train dictate. So on the roadless rule, I think it should be looked at, evaluated, a public couplic public comment. Uh, there’s no doubt that’s that. There are some places that the roads network should be replaced, probably repaired. So if you need to get in there with fire truck equipment, a can so you can evaluate it and enjoy your public landca it’s jewrs snowmobiles, you know across Montana. I’ve never seen a problem or damage from a snowmobil during the summer. I like a lot unless a snowbill hits a tree, doesn’t do a lot of damage out there. And the four strokes are are are pretty quiet and quite frankly, the game if if they’re up that high, where the snowpacks that high, the game is not there. So as you know, you hunt and.
00:39:29
Speaker 2: I have a couple of snowbills.
00:39:30
Speaker 3: You do.
00:39:32
Speaker 1: Wild and scenic river work, so you recently I’m a little lost awhare like how the process plays out, but proposing wild and scenic status for stretches on the Gallatin and Madison.
00:39:45
Speaker 2: What does that do? Like, what give me your thinking on that? Like? What does that do? Is it? Is it a symbolic gesture like.
00:39:51
Speaker 3: You know, all right, and it’s looking at the gallat and you know, and and and and those basins in the matter. One is that when you when you put protection on rivers, so you’re you’re set back, making sure the flow doesn’t get doesn’t remains, et cetera. In the In the case of the River Act, it started at the county level. They first came to my office in DC, the group behind it, and said, Oh, I got this great plan. We’re going to do all these rivers, thousands of miles of rivers, is gonna put them on protection. And said, well, what do the counties think about it? Oh, we hadn’t talked to the county commissioners.
00:40:31
Speaker 2: Ah, well, going right to the big dog.
00:40:34
Speaker 3: You know what, uh, you know, I’m a congressman, former former you know, secretary. I go to the county commissioners because the county commissioners of the front line, you know, their their sheriff is voted in, the county commissioners are voted in. There the front line and if you want my support, you got to go to the county commissioners and get their support too. And they did, you know, good on them. They went in, they worked it, They got county commissions. They they adjusted the scope where you had all sides. You had the government side, you know with me, and you had the county commissioners, and you had the local the local enthusiastic groups. You know there there are a lot of them that all got together and said this is the right plan. And then because I’m a representative and I represent people and I’m glad to do it, is if everyone agrees you know what, we’ll go forward. Because I also think it’s important enough to make sure that your kids had the same experience on the Madison and the Gallaton as you did. The reason why we live in Montana is because the Gallaton isn’t the Sacramento River. That we understand how important it is on flows and temperature and species in riparian banks and all that, you know, should be and looked at as part of Montana our legacy that we’re going to also be behind for the next generation. So I’m glad to do it. The process is, it starts in the House we’ll get a committee hearing on it. It’s not a contentious issue because I think we did it right. We went at the front line and it’s uh, you know, frontline driven, and then I’m sure that Senator you know, she and Danes, well we’ll pick it up on that side. So I’m actually fairly optimistic that the scope is right and you had a consensus on it, and it protects you know, two beautiful rivers and I think that you and I spend a lot of time on rightfully so because they are gorgeous rivers, and I just want to make sure that again your kids and your grandchildren can have the same experience.
00:42:34
Speaker 2: What’s the timeline on something like that look like that, Well, we’re.
00:42:37
Speaker 3: In government shutdown right now, so I’m sure not not not much as moving at the at the moment, but I’m pretty optimist that it’ll move forward. You things take time, Uh, good things take take more time. But you know, I think I think we’re on a good role because we did it right.
00:42:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, on right right, meaning that that procedure high that local commission.
00:43:02
Speaker 3: You know, people in Utah got really upset when monuments were put in place that they had no say. Matter of fact, not only did they not have a say, they had just the opposite. They were stoniestly against it. Both the State House, the State Senate, and the representation all were against that, and yet happened. And you’ve gotta you gotta, you gotta be sensitive the state’s rights, even though it’s federal property and and monuments. For everyone’s listening, you know, the president’s authority to designated monument. Teddy Roosevelt really pushed it. And it’s called the Antiquities Act, and it’s delightfully short. It’s it’s only about a page and as four conditions. One, you have to have an object to protect that object by by law, by definition is sign as historic, prehistoric, you know, or geologic. Example, historic would be Battleground geologic, the Devil’s Tower, which, by the way, that’s what I was gonna throw out that that’s the first monument. Like Teddy Roseil, I visited that place amazing.
00:44:11
Speaker 1: And secondly, it’s very understandable when you look at it, it’s like, yeah, I know where you’re going. You’re like where it’s like that thing?
00:44:17
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:44:17
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, the monument at the time was twelve hundred acres, so there’s a pushback is a landgrap but again you have to have something something that to preserve. And secondly, it has to be on federal land. You can’t designate a monument on state or private land. It has to be federal. So some of the recent designations and monuments also were on state and private land, which is illegal and I think also important.
00:44:48
Speaker 1: Well because they were those places were encompassed within the encompassed.
00:44:51
Speaker 3: But what happens is you start restricting access. You you start changing prescription on grazing, on time, and so you put a lot of pressure on either the state for income because a lot of state properties like Montana best and highest use the schools, generate income from the property. Or as your private land rights, you do have some right to the enjoyment of your property, and when that’s diminished because of a government either it’s a action, then that’s a taking. But it lastly, is smallest area compatible to protection of the object, and that’s important. For instance, if you’re going to designate a battlefield a monument, then it would be logical and the extent of that battlefield would be where the battle took place or very close by. It’s not in the case of Bear’s Ears, which was a famous one. It’s not fifteen hundred square miles. Then you go, well, fifteen hundred square miles, and for listeners that remember Bearsiers, it.
00:46:04
Speaker 2: Was, oh, this is quite a toll.
00:46:06
Speaker 3: So President Clinton went in and he designated Bearziers. I didn’t see the property, but Bearziers was about fifteen hundred square miles of which eight hundred thousand acres was wilderness. Now tell me in a wilderness what protections in the wilderness? You don’t have none. And then there was an entirety of a national forest in there that had no monuments. I mean it had no areas of known existence of anything historical, no Indian artifacts, no dwellings. What it was was there could be, there could be.
00:46:45
Speaker 2: What is that?
00:46:47
Speaker 3: So you can’t designate the monument of what could be? And it’s small or sty compatible. So when I did a review with the state of Utah and with the governor and locals, I I looked at it and I made the recommend recommendation. Then President Trump is that on the eight hundred thousands of wilderness, return it back to wilderness. It has all the protection it needs. On the national forest. Return it to National Forest the rest of it a reasonable boundary. Uh. And the boundary that I recommended was larger than Bryce Canyon and Zion Park combined. And still there was there was pushback from it. But at the end of the day, it was the right decision. You’ve got to follow the law on monuments.
00:47:38
Speaker 4: Same thing with but you got you got absolutists like you got absolutes like like like like, I’m kind of well, you got absolutists like me who would look, would look and be like, maybe.
00:47:54
Speaker 2: Uh, I’m gonna I’m gonna.
00:47:56
Speaker 1: Admit like a certain level of manipulation here where you’d look and you’d be like, I I.
00:48:03
Speaker 2: Like the the goal. I like the goal of preserving untouched landscape.
00:48:10
Speaker 1: And and if this is how we got to get there, then this is how we got to get there. And I understand that that winds up, you know, being something that’s that’s legally exposed, and it’s an approach that’s legally vulnerable, as we see with a lot of these ping pong issues that aren’t acts of Congress.
00:48:28
Speaker 3: Well, and it’s interesting the Bears Ears. You have two sections of the Great Navo Nation, the Navajo Nation in Utah was against the monument, primarily because they didn’t want notoriety. They do a lot of ceremonial, you know, events on that land, and they were staunchly against the monument. They Navajos and Arizona, where you just had the oposite of you. They wanted the monument, and they they viewed the monument as a step towards a national park, or they viewed the monument as a step towards a reconciliation of a land return, and so that was kind of their their view. At the end of the day, I viewed it in the terms of what was written in the law as that, yes, there is app there’s ZOONI, there’s a there’s a lot of historical and geological features that I think they would qualify. I wasn’t President Obama, so I gave President Obama deference. I wasn’t President he was, so he decided that he would sign it, and so I gave deference of it within the law. But again, the boundaries that I proposed is still in litigation, by the way, were larger than Zion and Bryce Canyon combined. There’s not one inch, by the way, that left the federal state, not one inch of land left the federal state is how it was designated in for what use and when. But that’s an example. I think you’re rightfully brought it up. There’s there’s people that will give no quarter on either side because either they think it’s a slippery slope or the government doesn’t have the right or states rights. There’s a lot of people that are lined up that that get angry when’t you even have a discussion about it. And you know this leads to the largest thing is we need to get the anger out of the discussion. It’s the distraction of getting things done. And and look at what’s what’s the purpose? The purpose is to maintain and preserve and protect our outdoor legacy, to improve public access where we can, and to manage our forests and our wildlife, to make sure that the herds are are healthy into the future and our force remain the same. Uh. You know that’s that’s the goal, right and and and and how do you reach the goal? Well, you work together to do it. You you look at that at threats and there are you identify what’s the source of the threat. Why do people want to sell land?
00:51:07
Speaker 2: Why?
00:51:07
Speaker 3: Why why are people so angry? Is it because of housing costs, well, housing costs are high. But and housing it’s say you have a million dollar home, which impostman. Yeah, it’s hard to believe it. There’s hardly any home that’s not a million dollars.
00:51:24
Speaker 1: But yeah, look at a million homes someone coming from So I’m not I’m not like picking on or I’m just pulling the state out of you know, thin air, like someone coming from Missouri. And if you said, hey, point out a million dollar homes, well they’re not going to be pointing out a million dollars.
00:51:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, and even Missouri, you know, so fort of a cost of a home is permitting, and and permitting includes curbs and sewer and water. Right, then you have construction costs. Materials are not coming down, you’re then you have to have some profit. Uh. And then you have land costs. Of that group, land costs generally and oftentimes are are the least the least expensive part. And again we talked about if it’s public housing we want, that’s tens of acres, it’s not. It’s not hundreds or hundreds of thousands of acres. Right, And if the purpose is to provide housing, then then yeah, but if you don’t have infrastructure. Then building a house in the middle of the dirt farm without without water and sewer, it’s not going to get very far. So you have to, you know, look at it and evaluate. You know, what’s the purpose again. You know, if you sell land public land. Once you sold, it’s gone, you’re not going to get it back. George Will said that you’re not making any more land. So I think again again, the point is, I think you look at things, evaluate highest and best use, and go back to the American conservation ethic that gid us to this point of why we have the federal state we do.
00:53:09
Speaker 1: I want to move to one where I believe you and I are in perfect agreement.
00:53:16
Speaker 3: That’s scary.
00:53:17
Speaker 1: Grizzly bear delisting absolutely, and why it fits in with some of the theme of what we’re talking about for listeners. Grizzly bears were listed for Endangered Species Act protection very.
00:53:32
Speaker 2: Early on in the Act.
00:53:35
Speaker 1: When they were listed, we, I mean, the American people, all the system agreed on what recovery would look like.
00:53:44
Speaker 2: They put numbers to it.
00:53:47
Speaker 1: Grizzly bears reached that agreed upon recovery threshold.
00:53:53
Speaker 2: Thirty years ago. I’m a little bit lost in time twenty.
00:53:57
Speaker 1: Five years ago, thirty years ago, they they hit the numbers that everyone agreed would be recovery. A thing about the Endangered Species Act. I think that only two percent of the things that go on the Endangered Species Act come off because they recovered. Things might come off because we realized they were extinct. Things might come off because we realized that they weren’t actually warranted in the first place. But rarely does an animal just rarely do we recover an animal. We did with peregrine falcons, we did with bald eagles. When we when bald eagles hit recovery, it was a big celebration. They were removed from the Endangered Species Act protection. But somehow with grizzlies we hit recovery and they won’t delist them, and and and speaking to the frustrations, is it winds up making a mockery of the Endangered Species Act, and it turns the Endangered Species Act into a thing where people hear it and they reflexively go oh brother, yeah, Like it breeds the frustration because you’re like, we set up, we set up plan, we achieved the plan, and then someone says, nope, I’m moving the goalpost because I don’t want to live in a world where someone might do something bad to a grizzly bear.
00:55:20
Speaker 2: So I no longer care about what the Act intended. I just cared about using it as a legal weapon to protect my own personal interests.
00:55:28
Speaker 3: Well and in Danger Species Act, by the way, Dick Nixon, people forget about that. Yeah, Dick Nixon and uh in space, in Danger Species Act, Clean and Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. It was all Dick nixonble No, he had Democratic Congress. But you know Dick Nixon, all right, he’s a He’s the one that signed it.
00:55:47
Speaker 1: I had someone there to explain to me that he didn’t actually care about any of that stuff, and I didn’t.
00:55:51
Speaker 2: I didn’t look into it.
00:55:52
Speaker 3: He signed it. But you know, on two points. One is is when is you rightfully point out the Endangered Species Act, the solid idea about it is absolutely essential to protecting species and make sure we leave a legacy. But it can be abused, and when it is abused, that creates anger and frustration.
00:56:16
Speaker 2: And people just want to be done with the But.
00:56:18
Speaker 3: It spills out into other species, right because if they if they see the grizzly bear, which has recovered. I mean, if you go to Wilvando, every outbuilding has you know, hot wire on it. They had had a tourist camping right next to the restaurant and got mauled killed.
00:56:37
Speaker 2: You see it.
00:56:38
Speaker 3: You know you can’t go out there in a bike anymore with a b begun. We have too many grizzlies. There’s the right number of grizzlies. Let’s go by science and manage the grizzly. And then there’s then they have somehow concocted. Now there’s three separate species of grizzlies. There’s the Continental. The Continental, there is the Greater Yellowstone, and there the Yak, and each of those are different. The study was completed on the Greater Yellowstone that population has recovered. When I was Secretary, I led the effort, took it off the list, and then was put on back on the list when I left the Continental. That study has recently been completed that species are recovered, and those are the ones that are in Levando in the Northwest, and the Yak there was never endangered because the way the Endangered Species Act is, you only count the ones that are in North America, only count the ones that are in the United States. We don’t, we’re blind. The ones that are in in Canada, well, this the northern or the Yak grizzly Only a small section of their habitat is actually in the US. Most of the habitat is north. But all of a sudden, if if the numbers in the in the South, the smaller, you know, the smaller section where they live, if that numbers can’t prommegate the entire species, then they remain in the list. And it’s nuts with.
00:58:04
Speaker 2: No acknowledgement of the habitats.
00:58:06
Speaker 3: With no acknowledgement, and you got and if you’ve been up there, the forests are dead. They have the canopy. Everything below the canopy is dead because the tree density is too great. They’re dead and dying trees. There is no grasses. Grizzly bears don’t eat grass, and underlets do. But if less there’s grass, you know, there’s nothing to feed on. Pretty you know, pretty much they’re having the transit hundreds of miles for food. Uh and their food oftentimes in the Northwest, and Libby happens to be a garbage can because garbage cans are available because there’s food. There’s no food out there, but you know, it’s a management issue, and we should celebrate that the species has recovered. I mean we we all should do a barn dance and celebrate and then go, all right, these are the numbers we’re gonna We’re gonna monitor that species very closely. It’s just off the list. This is the numbers that we’re going to target it to and manage. Just like we manage elk herds, we manage cattle, we manage things. The only thing, the only two things we seem not to manage are grizzly bears and wild horses and burroughs. Yeah, and both of them become dude.
00:59:13
Speaker 1: I don’t even put that on our list. But that’s another one. But we’ll not we can avoid that one. But let’s stand grizzlies for a minute, because what like one of the things like being an optimist, you know, try to be an optimist.
00:59:24
Speaker 3: I look, I’m an optimist.
00:59:26
Speaker 2: We should be well, I.
00:59:27
Speaker 1: Look, and I’m like, you got republican you know, you got a republican government Montana.
00:59:33
Speaker 2: You got a republican governor Idaho. You get a republican government Wyoming.
00:59:37
Speaker 1: We have a Republican delegation, We have a Republican in the White House. I’m like, perhaps in the next four years would be great. It seems like everything’s really aligned to delist the Grizzly Bears and hand them back to state management.
00:59:52
Speaker 2: Is that enough timers is just too legally complicated.
00:59:55
Speaker 3: No, I I think we should in can we have a little problem with a couple of judges.
01:00:02
Speaker 1: Like it’s like a person a person a person in Missia, person in Mozilla.
01:00:07
Speaker 3: He’s from Malta.
01:00:09
Speaker 2: I know, but it’s like it’s like a god. It’s like a godlike position.
01:00:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, every time it’s always moved the bar. But I look, you know, you don’t you don’t give up. It’s the right thing to do because the numbers in the science behind it is that it’s truthful. So I do think and it’s not you know, republic and Democrats not really quite frankly, the way I see the world, you know, I’m kind of red, white and black.
01:00:32
Speaker 2: I know.
01:00:32
Speaker 1: But what I’m saying is what I’m saying is, uh, the power, the power.
01:00:37
Speaker 3: Should align to get things done when we don’t need to.
01:00:41
Speaker 1: Like without fully understood like what And I know everybody has their own priority about just saying when I looked at it, I’m like, that would be a great outcome here. You know, there’s other things I care about that will be compromised, but would love to see this come through. But it’s like you gotta you moved, like you move to D list, like the US Fishwaliley Service moves to D list.
01:01:04
Speaker 2: Then they make a plan, but then it just gets it just gets litigated.
01:01:08
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And I would say that’s part of the issue is Congress has to do our job to make sure that there is an off ramp based on science on the Endangered Species Act. But when it’s abused, it creates anger on both sides. One is that you are thinking about taking an animal off the list, so I’m angry about that, and you’re not taking the animal off off the list because it’s recovered. I’m angry about that. So I think it’s always better look at what’s the goal. The goal is independent of opinion. The goal is to have a healthy number of species, but make sure the species that was identified, once it meets that objective, then it’s off the list. Congress has to do our job to make sure that once those numbers have been verified, that in fact gets off the list, and doesn’t get litigated for another series of discovery. Oh what about the relationship between the monarch butterfly and the grizzly? Have you looked at that? Yeah, No, I haven’t looked at it.
01:02:11
Speaker 2: That’s that’s always the play.
01:02:13
Speaker 3: The play.
01:02:14
Speaker 1: The play is not to question how many bears are out there. The play is the goal, like but did you consider this?
01:02:19
Speaker 3: But but did you discovery?
01:02:22
Speaker 1: It’s never like, hey, there’s not actually enough of them. It’s always like some it’s like a technicality.
01:02:28
Speaker 3: And and you know, we also reward lawsuits because they you if you bring a loaf lawsuit forward, you have eleven tenants of that of that lawsuit, and you lose on ten of them. But when a minor one, you’re still going to get fully funded. So you’re you’re our taxpayers, you’ll pay for this nonsense. Enough’s enough, We’re thirty six trillion dollars in debt. I can spend. I can see a lot better expense of taxpayer dollars. Then to defend a species that by all numbers and by science has recovered enough enough, but Congress has to adjust it to make sure that the abuse is stopped.
01:03:14
Speaker 1: So if you crystal balled it like, when will that happen? I mean, we eventually got there on wolves, right, it took a long time. We got there on wolves, at least in the northern Rockies. The northern Great Lakes are still dealing with the.
01:03:26
Speaker 3: Problem, and in Colorado is just being introduced to the problem and they’re not very happy about it.
01:03:31
Speaker 1: But what are the odds or not, however you want to put it, like, what are the chances that we would see grizzly dlisting in the next handful of years?
01:03:40
Speaker 3: Well, you know, you have influence.
01:03:44
Speaker 2: I’ve been talking about this since I was.
01:03:46
Speaker 3: But look, you don’t. You don’t give up. That’s you never quit, uh, you know, with with with Danes and she he and Montana before of us, you know, I yeah, it’s certainly if priority. I think probably the number one priority is is peace. But after peace, you know, the environment. You know, I’m an optimist. It can get done. I think Berghum understands the importance of it. And you know, if you’re in New York or Florida, you know, grizzly bears probably aren’t at the top.
01:04:20
Speaker 2: Of your list. But look, we what black bears are?
01:04:25
Speaker 3: Black bears? You know, think of a bigger black bear, a lot bigger. But you know this is where you know, the four of us we get along well. We talk at least once, if not twice a week, and I’m pretty confident we’ll see the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly go off the list. I think it won’t be too long before the Continental and the Yak. We’re gonna have to change the laws so we can we can. You know, it’s ridiculous if you if you have again, if your if your habitat is just a small area, but but but absentte boundaries. If the proponers the bears live up up in Canada, then there should be some formula to have some compensation for those bearris. A lot of them are coming from Canada and coming down, eating and returning.
01:05:18
Speaker 1: I’m trying to resist the urge to give listeners my standard thirty minute explanation of distinct population segments. But when we’re one, uh, when when one Congress from Zinkie talking about the Northern Continal Divide the Greater Yellstone. Basically, it’s a it’s a geographical sort of system by which we point out areas that could potentially even have grizzlies or that have suitable habitat. So instead of talking about grizzlies in Golden Golden Gate Park, where there were grizzlies once upon a time, we’re talking about the places where there’s suitable habitat and the potential for a population that.
01:05:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then they go, well, it’s just a subspecies. Is a greater Yellowstone so much different than the continental in the act, The answer is no. And then if you got to go to another subspecies, there’s a subspecies. If you go further out Montana, there’s a cornfield out by Chester that the grizzly bears have gone all the way out. The chest corn.
01:06:24
Speaker 2: Corn that sit in that cornfield, you know, more or less all fall.
01:06:28
Speaker 3: Now, that could be a subspecies too. It’s it’s the it’s the corn grizzly. Of course I’m being facetious.
01:06:35
Speaker 1: But no, I understand there is there is a tool. There’s an environmental tool that gets used where if someone you know, you might point out like, hey, we’re this species is imperiled, and and people will say, well, it’s not because they’re all over the place. And then what you do is your place, you say, well, this one’s a little different well, and you know, and it’s like there’s like splitters and lumpers into if.
01:07:00
Speaker 3: You’re worried about d n A, then they’re doing transplanting, you know, programs, and then they’ll they’ll grab a bear from one area and send another bear. If if you if you’re worried about the gene pool is beginning, you know, so reduced, yeah, and yeah, et cetera. But it goes back to science. But I’m an optimist on on that and then danger species. You need sixty votes in the Senate. That’s one of the hurdles. So it has to be bipartisan, and I think a vehicle for that is we should have the discussion in the public Lands Caucus. That’s very very bipartison and very full spectrum by the way of political tone, from the ultra conservative to the l ultraliberal. But the common thread, uh is public lands and and there and both sides are deeply passionate about public lands. The management is a little different in the perspective of how to manage it, but they’re passion That’s a great start. At least people are passionate about about about the team. A lot of people are passionate about you know, the Bobcats and until the Grizzly Bobcat game.
01:08:16
Speaker 1: I’m gonna I’m gonna tell you something I don’t want you to take personally. You and I don’t agree on everything, but I don’t agree with my wife on everything.
01:08:24
Speaker 2: Well, so you’re you’re in her company. Yeah, I gave you a hit.
01:08:28
Speaker 3: You know, I don’t agree with myself all the time. Ask my wife. So but but you know, but again, it helps if a person has passion, right, and it also helps to listen.
01:08:39
Speaker 1: Well, that’s that’s kind of what I wanted to end on. Here is a thing that I’ve appreciated being uh, you know, one one of your constituents. The thing I’ve appreciated about you is you have a you cultivate intentionally or naturally. You cultivate a tonal that implies compromise, that implies giving people the benefit of the doubt, that implies like, let’s hear all the ideas made the best idea win. You point out, you know, talking what we’re talking about red and blue. You point out being red, white and blue. Right, you talk about taking the heat down. Like, dude, this is stuff that that I love to hear. I haven’t read the article yet. I saw a thing this morning that most it was a poll. I didn’t read ain the details of the poll. Who did the poll, I don’t know, but just said in a poll, most Americans think that the divisions in this country cannot be resolved. Which is just sickening to hear that. What’s your take? I mean, you go, you go, you go out of your way to like you said, you go audio way to take the heat down, and you go audio way to like be a gentleman and to point out this is America. Let’s figure things out, like like are you gonna how do you keep that up well?
01:10:04
Speaker 3: And and how do you how do you get the tone and the anger out of it? Right? I guess leadership leadership at every level. Uh, the school teachers should be talking about looking tone. You know. That’s that’s celebrate our diversity of thought. That celebrate critical thinking, and that’s that celebrate the solution minded people. Uh. That that celebrate our ability as a as a as a great nation to get things done. But it has I think it has to happen both from the top, uh, and and also from from from the from the bottom up. And anyone that has a voice I think should be saying the same voice. Uh, you know, related as a Charlie Kirk incident. You know, terrible. Yeah, anyone that would celebrate the death of a father, to celebrate the death of a husband over political descent is a is a real problem. And and where where they get it from. I don’t know. Man.
01:11:01
Speaker 2: My kids would come home from school and they would tell me insane things that are being said at school. I’m like, listen my kids in speech and debate. I’m like, that man was.
01:11:10
Speaker 1: Killed at a debate where he’s inviting the people that disagree with him most to come up and share their opinion.
01:11:20
Speaker 2: He was killed at a debate.
01:11:22
Speaker 3: To your point, he advocated debate. He had debated do you approve me wrong? On an intellectual capacity?
01:11:32
Speaker 2: And whoever disagrees most is the front of the line.
01:11:35
Speaker 3: And and and and have at it. But it was a It was an event of communication, of deliberation, of debate. It should never resolve to violence. And I can tell you this is not my first rodeo. The anger out there is a distraction from getting things done. When you have anger. It doesn’t allow a con conversation on affordable housing. It doesn’t allow conversation on economics and prosperity and and and how to break through an environment that that’s really difficult for especially young people to get a job and get a house. Uh, you know, how do we how do we address that when there’s so much anger you can’t even have the discussion if you want to talk about affordable housing to talk about you know, things like title when you buy a house. You don’t buy a house, you buy a title, right, and it’s the title.
01:12:39
Speaker 2: It’s the title you buy and sell.
01:12:40
Speaker 3: Right, And so we should look at you know, how do we open up so people can have access to a title? Is it? Is it? Uh? You know six pluses eight plexes is a condos making it easier for people to own title because that’s what gains equity and so but if if your life is destined to rent, uh the entirety of your existence. Uh yeah, you know that’s that’s a change from the American dream.
01:13:07
Speaker 2: Right.
01:13:08
Speaker 3: The American dream is a couple of cars, a house. You know, send the kids to school. They’re gonna have more opportunity than you did. Diminishing it. You know, it’s probably not possible to if you live in New York City to buy it, buy a building or a block. But you can buy a long term lease on on an apartment with title and sell that. So there’s other ways to do it. But you can’t get there if you’re so angry. You clinch your fists and you shut off your ears, and all you’re going to do is is become angry.
01:13:40
Speaker 2: Uh.
01:13:40
Speaker 3: And you know, I’ve been a seal. I’ve seen a lot of things in my life. I’ve seen I’ve seen the very best of humanity and I have seen the worst. I have absolutely seen the worst in humanity. But I remain an optimist. Uh that always good will prevail. And you know, one of the nice things about it is that we do live in Montana. We’re here in Bozeman. So sometimes the problems are over the horizon. They’re concerned because that they’re over horizonment in this country. And I think the only way to address it is that we all should address it, because we all rise and fall on the same tide. And you know, go to the neighbor you you really dislike and salo, yeah, yeah that.
01:14:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, you’re talking about divisions making it that we can’t get projects done. I just worry about divisions that make it the the the American We can’t get the American experience done, the American experiment done, you know, Like I just I don’t know, man, I’ve just been like really.
01:14:40
Speaker 4: Tore up about I think I think it should be really really hit like with like with with with.
01:14:47
Speaker 1: The death of Charlie Kirk. It was like not just that tragedy, but sort of the the the mindsets that came out of that and some of the opinions that came out of that.
01:15:00
Speaker 4: Stunning it Like it hit dude, It like hit me like a I’ve been having like a cry, like a like a little bit of a of a like an emotional crisis about just since those days.
01:15:11
Speaker 2: It’s been hard since those days, Like not.
01:15:14
Speaker 1: Just the like I feel bad, like I feel terrible for the person’s family, but the symbolism of it and this idea that you would this idea that people would come out and and act like they were glad about something like that, and then the way they would just be leveraged by everybody, and the way the motivations of the shooter would be leveraged. I don’t know, man, just made me feel sick, Like I still feel kind of sick from it.
01:15:37
Speaker 3: But we should feel sick because it’s one it should be unacceptable, and sometimes we’re a loss of words. But I think it’s I think it’s a value to reflect and it’s only evil if we don’t change. And maybe, you know, there’s not much of a silver lining in in Charlie’s death, but maybe we’ll give us a moment of reflection in the watershed moments that we don’t want to be that country. We don’t want to have shootings on political disagreements. We don’t want to have anger because what as a results in it results in the dismantling of a great nation, uh, dismantling of our our fabric as as Americans. We’re we are bonded by one nation under God, so we should hopefully we were rally. I’m seeing some signs of it. You know. It’s it’s it’s my, it’s my you know, prayer that we don’t snap back to where we were, that we actually move forward on it and and his death will have some positive outcome, uh, you know if from it. It’s only positive if if it’s recognized and we we change our tone and actions uh to it, and and that that have to come from from everybody. It didn’t happen overnight. This anger was allowed to brew, and in some cases it was promoted. Uh, you know, calling someone a Nazi three thousand times on TV. Eventually someone goes, oh, it must be a Nazi because you said, I is it just just you know, I understand freedom of speech, but you know you can articulate, you know, and like my mom said, you can you know you can use your words?
01:17:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I told dude.
01:17:31
Speaker 1: I told my kids, I’m like, when all this is going on, I was like, hey, man, I like, I have opinions that are controversial. I’m an outspoken hunter, which in some people’s minds is controversial.
01:17:42
Speaker 2: I go to colleges and give talks and talk to people.
01:17:45
Speaker 3: I like, I hear you kill animals.
01:17:47
Speaker 1: Well, I imagine, like I’m saying, like, if someone I told my kids, someone shoots me out of the college campus, there’s gonna be people that are like, well, he deserved it, And I’m like, how are you going to feel in that moment?
01:17:59
Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean?
01:18:00
Speaker 1: It’s just like I don’t want to keep around that. I’m sure glad you came by the talk.
01:18:05
Speaker 2: Here’s there’s there are some.
01:18:07
Speaker 3: Good things as that you know, the spirit of Americans that we’re all Americans. And I get I’ve seen I’ve seen humanity it’s worst and I’ve seen himanity the best. Uh. We have an opportunity, uh to make sure we learned from this and move on. And I think if if leadership across the board on both sides of the aisle, and there’s probably three or fourth different sides in the aisle of folks out there, but all of this should should recognize and and and push back. And I’m seeing that with with you know a lot of tone of the media, people that are are in the influence you know, world say the same thing, talk about it not all, but I’m I’m seeing some some good signs. And hey, why it’s not perfect. H You wake up the morning the best you can. You influence those things as you can influence and accept kind of the things you can’t. You don’t you don’t quit, you don’t give up. You’re passionate about your ideas and you kind of associate sometimes with people that are also passionate. And it’s not so bad. Once in a while go out and meet someone that you don’t would normally not have a conversation with in the house. Believe it or not, I’ll go over the Democrats side of the aisle. I’ll sit down and uh I have I have. I have a group of people with distinctly different backgrounds in mind. Uh, sit down, we have a I have conversation with it. I’ve I’ve learned about the Deep South a lot, uh from from from comper conversations.
01:19:42
Speaker 1: Listen, I watched you. You don’t know this. I’ve watched you do this now. I watched you go up and out of your way and engage with of all things, a democrat.
01:19:55
Speaker 2: I watched you go across the room and do it. Well.
01:19:58
Speaker 3: I’ll tell you a sick I have a lot of friends that are ras too.
01:20:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I saw that and I appreciated it. Man, I appreciated it.
01:20:06
Speaker 3: Well. I don’t think our problems are going to be solved from one side of the aisle or the other. And I think the problems it’s always the kind of the middle lanes that look at and most people, you know, I just want government to function, and they just just want to cover cover the basics and make sure you have a functional government and the resources are put where people need them. I think there’s a Christian aspect of it. Look, if someone someone’s hurting and then you shouldn’t walk past. You know, you should provide some help. Handout is always better than it then, or hand up is better than a handout. But in some cases, you know, people just aren’t able to be you know, they’re going to make a lot of mistakes in life, and they’re going to continue to make stakes.
01:20:52
Speaker 2: So what do you do.
01:20:53
Speaker 3: You either can incarcrate them or you try to provide some opportunity to reform. I’m gonna redemption and guy, you know, try to put him in a program where where you know they they work and at something. You know, everyone can do something, and and work is healing. Work provides purpose a lot of times self worth evaluation. So get them in something that they feel good about, even if it’s picking up garbage. I pick up garbage, I clean toilets at parks. I’m happy with it.
01:21:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, congress some zincie, thanks for coming on, uh talking about conservation issues, talking about American patriotism.
01:21:34
Speaker 3: I appreciate it and just and just around around the block. I always enjoy and thanks for what you do. By the way, I think, Uh, you’re you’re You’re insightful. I thank you. You drive the issues.
01:21:46
Speaker 2: UH.
01:21:46
Speaker 3: You have a great following for a reason is that I think you bring up some some hard hitting UH issues and UH and probably most of all, I understand you’re a pretty good hunter.
01:21:57
Speaker 1: M I got good I got friends that appoint me in the right direction.
01:22:01
Speaker 3: I heard you got a good scope.
01:22:04
Speaker 2: Thank you very much,
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