transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] The opinions you hear on Your Mountain from individual hosts or guests do not necessarily represent those of Your Mountain, our sponsors, or other entities we're affiliated with professionally or otherwise. You've waited long enough, go listen to the show.

Speaker 2:
[00:16] There are millions of acres of opportunity out there. This is Your Mountain. Hey, everybody.

Speaker 1:
[00:41] Yeah, we got nothing, Dave.

Speaker 2:
[00:43] Welcome back to the Your Mountain podcast.

Speaker 1:
[00:45] I actually...

Speaker 2:
[00:48] I'm David Willms, Nephi Cole.

Speaker 1:
[00:49] You wanted to hear the intro, didn't you?

Speaker 2:
[00:51] I thought you were playing the intro. I thought that's what was happening.

Speaker 1:
[00:54] No, I only do that when we're remote recording, and now we're in our home studios.

Speaker 2:
[00:59] You got me confused. So I was sitting there waiting patiently for the intro to play. Sorry about that.

Speaker 1:
[01:05] So am I.

Speaker 2:
[01:06] Anyway, welcome back for another episode of the Your Mountain podcast. I feel like we haven't recorded in a while, and I think that's because we haven't. Yeah, we haven't recorded in a couple of weeks. We haven't released in more than a month. We're all talk. We keep saying we're going to do better than we don't.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Fire me, Dave. What do you want?

Speaker 2:
[01:30] Yeah, I know, right? Oh man. Hey there.

Speaker 1:
[01:32] Get rid of us.

Speaker 2:
[01:34] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[01:35] What are you going to do? You're going to complain to our sponsors? We don't have sponsors. Joke's on you. You can't do anything.

Speaker 2:
[01:42] Going to stop donating to us?

Speaker 1:
[01:45] No, you don't do that either. No, we're pretty safe. This is job security here. We say whatever we want. We do whatever we want. So it's the best, right?

Speaker 2:
[01:56] Which is like that's sort of a theme that's going to happen. I've got this whole monologue planned out in my head for later. I'm looking forward to talking about it. I think, well, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[02:08] Sounds fun.

Speaker 2:
[02:10] I think we should. We got a lot of things we can talk about. Maybe we just jump right in. I don't have much small talk. I don't like I was trying to think to have any banter. I got no small talk. I got nothing.

Speaker 1:
[02:19] Because all it's been is work. It's just obnoxious. It's been an obnoxious month.

Speaker 2:
[02:25] It has been. It has been an obnoxious month. And I know that's one of the reasons why we haven't recorded is both of us have been moving a million miles an hour in a million different directions. So, we haven't been able to find the time to do this.

Speaker 1:
[02:37] You know what? I do have some small talk. Speaking of going to like a million miles an hour in a bunch of different directions, I was a speaker over the weekend. I got to go to a speaking event at the Jack O'Connor Museum. So his, the Jack O'Connor Center in Lewiston, Idaho, which was celebrating its 20 year anniversary. And so they asked me to sit on a panel. And you'll think this panel is hilarious because the panel is like me. It's Jim Zumbo, Bob Robb, and another famous and another editor. So it's like three really notable famous journalists and this guy talking about the last 50 years of hunting and where you see hunting going in the future. And I got to tell you, it was really cool. I felt out of place, but it was really cool. And the cool thing about this center, for people who haven't been there, I highly recommend it. It's on the, it's just on the Idaho side of the Snake River. It literally overlooks the river. So you can go to the center, look out over the river, and it has, you know, books you can purchase like O'Connor's books, bunches of his, you know, magazine articles compiled into books, has his trophies, it has all sorts of stuff. And so for those of you who don't know, because you just moved to this planet, Jack O'Connor is just one of the iconic and great authors in the outdoor space. And it's really cool because the museum kind of highlights where he came from, which is he's an English professor, who then ended up becoming a, you know, kind of a outdoors writer. And it's because he just wrote a story and somebody really liked it. And they said, well, you come work for us. And he took a giant pay decrease and then, you know, went into the outdoor space. And a lot of people know him as 270 Jack, right? Cause he was one of the guys that really popularized the 270 Winchester, which I'll come back to. But probably the most special thing for me at the banquet, I sat with two of his children. So they did a fundraising auction. And I sat with Caroline and Bradford O'Connor, who were both, one of them was in a wheelchair, the other one's using a walker. And of course O'Connor, Jack O'Connor passed away in 1978. When I arrived at the event, the first day for the speaking engagement, Bradford was outside and he was standing. Do you know what an international travel all is, Dave? It's like a suburban made by international harvester. So like the same guys who made the internet, like the Scout.

Speaker 2:
[05:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[05:22] And there was a 1967 green international harvester that had, you know, was clearly restored, looked really nice. It was, I'm sorry, whatever. Yeah. One of those travel walls. It was in front of the building. And they were bringing Bradford out. Really, you know, old guy, you know, bringing him out, still really bright-eyed, you know, but he comes out and they're like, what do you like? Do you recognize this? What do you think? And he looks at and he says, Oh, I know these. We used to have one just like it. And they said, this one is yours. They had brought Jack O'Connor's 1967 travel law. And this old man started to weep. He started to cry and he was touching the paint and he just said, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. And he opened the door and he was just like, just staring at it. He couldn't stop staring at it and walking around it. And he started telling stories about hunting trips that he'd gone on with his dad. And blizzards that they'd been in and how they almost didn't get home. And how he'd learned all the drives he'd done in that vehicle. And he just kept on telling stories. And it was one of the most impactful things that I've ever seen. And it really reinforced to me why we do this. It's bigger than an individual. Seeing that old man there and going through his memories was just such a powerful, powerful thing. It was just absolutely amazing. One of the coolest things I've ever had the opportunity to be a privilege to be an upper that I've ever been around, you know, and then so they actually at that same auction, they had for these this nonprofit that supports this museum, they sold Jack O'Connor's rifle, his 270 Winchester Featherweight, his real rifle, and they had the providence of it. And there's like his first 270 was stolen on the way to a, a safari in Africa. This was the replacement. And they had it because Bradford had had the rifle. And so that was just an incredible experience. They had online people auctioning to, to sell this 270. And I'm told that it went for a very, very reasonable price. What do you think it sold for Dave? Jack O'Connor's 270 Winchester.

Speaker 2:
[08:00] $25,000. Oh, I was really close.

Speaker 1:
[08:05] You were really close. I'm impressed. I called an attorney who like, oh, I know. And I was like, dude, you need to buy this rifle. And he's like, that's going to go for 75 K. I'm out. It was like, but he's like, it's really Jack O'Connor's rifle. I was like, yeah, it's 270 Jacks, 270. And it was just like, just a super cool weekend, super cool experience. And so I just wanted to share that with you. Just, you know, it just re-emphasizes, like how transcendent of time these opportunities that we have are, how much bigger these things are than the moment, than today, and just how important they are for the future.

Speaker 2:
[08:42] I think that actually in some ways sets up some of what we're going to talk about today pretty well, about how the things that we are doing. What's the famous line? It's, you know, I'll paraphrase it because I'm not going to get it quite right. But the actions that we're taking today are for the unborn and those still in the womb of time.

Speaker 1:
[09:06] That's a Roosevelt quote, I believe.

Speaker 2:
[09:08] I thought that was a Roosevelt, but I knew it was Roosevelt, but I couldn't get it quite right. But I think it's pretty close to that, right? That kind of reinforces that theme and how the actions that we're taking today, they have impact on the future, right? And that's a cool story. What about pivoting? Taking that story and turning into some of the stuff that's been happening. So, I want to talk, we're going to talk about three things. And then as I told you, I have this internal monologue going on in how I'm responding in my head to a lot of the things that we're seeing going on these days. Try to be even keeled about most things. But I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the world, the conservation, what's going on in the conservation world these days. And I got some thoughts about it. Just wanted to tee that up. But I want to start with, let's talk about what's happened. So where do you want to start? With God?

Speaker 1:
[10:17] No, yes. Always. I think that's a good choice. Always. Probably the best choice is that. Probably go there first. You don't want to make that guy wait. Tempor. All right.

Speaker 2:
[10:29] Well, so I won't start with God there, but I'll start with the God Squad. How about that?

Speaker 1:
[10:34] Let's go. Let's explain what it is.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] All right. So you probably, maybe you've seen some media reports or heard some radio reports.

Speaker 1:
[10:43] No one has.

Speaker 2:
[10:44] Nobody has about a convening of this thing called the God Squad, which sounds powerful because it is. So here's the deal. And let's go back into the 1970s. It's an interesting story. So this all revolves around implementation of the Endangered Species Act. Well, Endangered Species Act passes in 1973, right? And before the Endangered Species Act passed, there was a project going on in Tennessee that Congress was funding, right? Known as the Teleco Dam. And maybe, maybe you've heard of this. Maybe as you're listening, you've heard of this. Nephi, maybe you've heard of this. Or maybe I'm telling you something new. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[11:34] Yeah. Go read. Everyone go read Cadillac Desert, just an absolute classic by Rob Reiner.

Speaker 2:
[11:46] So here's where I'm going with this. So 73, the Act passes. This project had already been funded, right? And or was at least partially funded. And the dam was, this Telico Dam was going to be constructed. It was a project of the Tennessee Valley Authority. After the Endangered Species Act was adopted, one of the first species listed in the early years was this small fish called the snail darter. And the snail darter was believed to only be found in this particular watershed where this dam was going to be constructed. And it was listed. And there's a process under the act where you, if you're going to do a project that could impact a species, you have to go through a consultation and write a biological opinion. And if you have this opinion that says there's a jeopardy finding, meaning this project could jeopardize the continued existence of the species, meaning it could potentially cause this species to blink out. You have to write some reasonable but prudent alternatives. Not making these up. That's what they're called, reasonable but prudent alternatives that could be implemented to offset the impact of this project. In the instance of the snail darter, there were no reasonable but prudent alternatives that could be implemented, because you're building a dam. It's going to flood an area, and one of the things this snail darter needed, like it was going to flood the snail darter's habitat. And instead of having these free flowing clear waters, you're going to have relatively still waters backed up by a reservoir. And so there was no way to do this reasonable prudent alternative, which led to the very first case to go before the United States Supreme Court, called Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill. On the ESA. On the ESA, yes, excuse me, on the Endangered Species Act. And so this is the very first case and it was challenging this project being stopped. So because there were no reasonable prudent alternatives, the project could not go forward. Congress had invested money in this, the project had already been started, but it couldn't be completed because of this snail darter. So court hears the case and issues a decision. And the argument was the economic impact of this decision to prevent, look, Congress has invested all this money, there's all this economic impact, we should allow this project to go forward. And the Supreme Court came back in what is one of the, not just the first decision, but one of the most consequential decisions ever made around the Endangered Species Act, and said, economics don't matter. Economics cannot factor in to a decision whether or not to list a species or whether or not this project moves forward. And so the decision, it effectively stopped the project.

Speaker 1:
[14:52] Now, to be fair, I think it's important to talk about this with the court. It's not like somebody made that up. It's not that the Supreme Court said, the Supreme Court doesn't decide just on their own economics or matter. The law didn't consider it.

Speaker 2:
[15:05] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[15:06] And it's really similar to a variety of environmental laws. They were written at that time period. They didn't have an economic component. They had this, everything has unlimited value where it's at. They didn't say like, okay, create a hierarchy of economic values for these environmental goods and negatives. It's just like, it's binary.

Speaker 2:
[15:29] That's right. But this decision did not make Congress happy. Congress had invested millions of dollars in this project. And so as a result of this case, the Congress amended the Endangered Species Act to include an exemption process to this jeopardy prohibition. So you have a jeopardy finding, no reasonable prudent alternatives apply. The project would therefore have to end. Congress passes an amendment to the ESA that creates what's called the Endangered Species Committee. But it's been over time just been referred to as the God Squad, because this committee is made up of secretaries like the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of Ag, Secretary of the US Army, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and representatives of the affected states that are then appointed by the President. And they have the authority to make a decision to exempt this proposed project or activity from a jeopardy finding. So basically to say, even if a species might go extinct, we're allowed to override that, play God and say, it's worth allowing this project to go forward, even if it results in the extinction of this endangered species. That's why it gets the name God Squad.

Speaker 1:
[17:01] Yeah, it's not because they're a powerful members of government. It's because they are given, you know, the future of a species, they're given the thumbs up and thumbs down on that.

Speaker 2:
[17:13] That's exactly right. And what's interesting is right after that decision is made, and all this history matters. I'm getting to that, right? All this history matters. Right after that decision is made, right after Congress amends the act and creates this God Squad, it convened, right? There was a petition in 1978, right after the amendment, the God Squad was convened to consider the Teleco Dam project's threat to the snail darter. And in something that's really, really fascinating, Congress created this exemption to try and create a glide path for this Teleco Dam project to be constructed, to be finished. The God Squad convened and voted in favor of continuing to protect the snail darter species. It didn't allow that project to continue.

Speaker 1:
[18:09] This was a famous moment, not only for the ESA, but also for Reclamation. It was also famous for dam building and the future of construction on waterways in the US, because it was really the first time that somebody put an environmental issue above just the raw capital of building the dam.

Speaker 2:
[18:31] So what's interesting on this is so the God Squad convenes and it actually says, nope, not letting the project go forward. Well, and Congress didn't like that act, that action, and ultimately voted to override, effectively override the ESA and authorize the project to be completed anyway. Project was completed and in an ironic, I guess, twist of fate or serendipitous twist of fate, or I don't know. Later, these saildarters were discovered in a lot of other tributaries as well. And they have since been delisted. They've recovered and been delisted, even though, success story, even though in that particular tributary where that dam was, it had the intended effect. Like it pretty much wiped out snail darters, but it turns out they were in a lot in several other places as well. And so I thought, you know, that's that story. But the big story here is about this God Squad. So the God Squad that happened, right? Now, fast forward, like six months, because this provision of God Squad comes in 78 and just bam, bam, two quick actions happen. In 1978-79, the committee was again convened to consider another dam project that would jeopardize whooping crane populations. Do you know where this is, Nephi? You'll know this place well. I promise you, I promise you, you'll know it's interesting. This, it's in between you and me, in between you and me.

Speaker 1:
[20:07] Was it Glendale?

Speaker 2:
[20:09] No, but you're getting close. You're real close. Grey Rocks.

Speaker 1:
[20:14] Grey Rocks. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[20:14] Grey Rocks Reservoir. So Grey Rocks Reservoir in Wyoming, on the Laramie River was, so it was, there was a jeopardy opinion that would, this project was viewed to jeopardize whooping crane populations in Nebraska because it was going to dam up this river and impact habitat and breeding habitat so forth. And this is, until recently, this is the only time that the committee voted in favor of the project. It granted the exemption. Well, I shouldn't say the only time it voted in favor. It's the only time that it survived. Voted in favor of the project, granted the exemption, but created conditions required by the ESA. So it imposed some conditions even though it granted the exemption, and allowed that dam to be built. And now that is a pretty popular fishery, and there are other environmental accounts that send water down to Central Nebraska. Actually, you were going to say Pathfinder before. It actually does come out of Pathfinder Reservoir.

Speaker 1:
[21:10] Pathfinder, yeah. Yeah, Pathfinder through Glendale. So it just manages a slug of water that has to move down at a certain time of year to benefit whooping crane populations through that system.

Speaker 2:
[21:20] That's, yeah, that's right. So it's just finding water in a different place and sending it down to Central Nebraska. And then fast forward to 1992, and you have the third time this committee convened. And they convened to consider an exemption for Northern Spotted Owls, where there was an opinion that these timber sales in Oregon would jeopardize the continued existence of Spotted Owls. And in that, the committee granted exemptions for some of the sales, but that was challenged in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the God Squad's determination. Without going, not worth going into all the details about that particular case. But just know that one, even though the God Squad acted and granted the exemption that was overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. So that was the last time the God Squad convened, 1992, until about, you know, well, the end of March, very end of March, March 31st, God Squad convened again. And this convening was in direct response and done in a very different way than those prior three. So under a normal course and order, what you would do is the you'd have, you'd have like the governor of a state or something like that. Petition, send in, send in a petition to convene the God Squad. Ask for that to be happening. Ask for an exemption. Or it could be a secretary, one of the secretaries could ask for an exemption. And then there must be a process where the secretary of interior has to decide does that exemption request meet certain conditions including was a consultation, original consultation done in good faith, you know, yada yada, several things that have to happen here. And the secretary then has to issue a report to the committee, this God Squad committee, talking about the basis for the exemption, has to have a hearing on the exemption and consultation with the committee, and then has to consider several factors in making a decision whether to grant an exemption. Basically, there's this long, very formal process that has to go, that you have to go through. Then the God Squad is only convened if it has this petition in front of it. That's how these other three had worked. But we have this new one that happened down in the Gulf that's different. And for this one, you have to go back to January of 2025 to understand where this comes from. In January of 2025, President Trump issued an executive order declaring a national energy emergency. And I think within that executive order, which I think is 14156, in that executive order, there was a directive that the committee, that the God Squad has to convene not less than quarterly to consider exemption applications. And I think the way it's written is, exemption applications, regulations, like the things that are deemed obstacles to domestic energy production or infrastructure. So this is an executive order telling the secretary of interior, you have to convene the God Squad at least quarterly. That's different. That's never been done before. Before it would be on a governor's petition or something like that. 2025 goes by and the God Squad never convenes. You have this order from January, like a first day of the presidency kind of order and doesn't convene. March of this year, it convenes. And the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, that is the petitioner, and makes a claim that we need an exemption for oil and gas activities in the Gulf for national security purposes. And there is a provision that's separate for the God Squad, that's separate from this normal procedure that's been used for 50 years, these three different efforts in the past where the God Squad's been convened. There is a separate one where you can go through a truncated, or potentially through this truncated process for purposes of national emergency. It's undefined. What is a national emergency? Is this a national emergency?

Speaker 1:
[26:06] The podcast should know. You know, somebody's going to, I mean...

Speaker 2:
[26:14] So in a 15-minute hearing, the God Squad voted unanimously to exempt oil and gas activities in the Gulf. There was a jeopardy finding with respect to Rice's Whales in the Gulf. And what's interesting is there were reasonable but prudent alternatives identified that actually would be implemented. So, this is different from the other ones where they said, there's no way to do these reasonable but prudent alternatives, and so we have to seek an exemption. Here, there is a way to do reasonable and prudent alternatives. Just chose to bypass that and invoke the God Squad. And there's something like 50 Rises Whales left on the planet, and they're the ones that there's more conflict with ships and so forth. And so you have to do timing steps and be careful. Like there are different things you do to speed limit restrictions, things like that, to make sure you don't have vessel strikes that kill these whales. And now it would appear, based on this decision, that none of those things have to be done. So it's interesting. That's the first one. And they are required by this order to meet at least quarterly. So the question is, what's next? And I would say there have already been multiple lawsuits filed challenging this use of the God Squad, this determination and use of the God Squad. But it's a pretty significant deal in that it's only been invoked now four times in the history of the ESA. And this is the first time it's ever been invoked in this way.

Speaker 1:
[27:52] It's a real buzzkill for the whole God Squad image, to be frank. Because it was much cooler when it was never invoked. And if we get quarterly meetings, it's just going to feel like a shareholders meeting. It's not going to be cool anymore, Dave. You're going to need a new...

Speaker 2:
[28:09] It was always kind of fun when I would teach classes. It was always kind of fun to talk about this, because it was really, we're talking about it in the theoretical. It's this thing that actually exists out there. But you could point back right to its origins, how Congress said, we're creating this authority and then the first time it's used saying, we don't want to play God. We don't want to decide this species should blink out.

Speaker 1:
[28:33] Be honest, I preferred it the old way.

Speaker 2:
[28:37] I would agree with you. I, you know, species come and go, right? Like species extinction happens. And there's, there are definitely species that are circling the drain. There are some that have gone extinct in our lifetime. There are more that probably will. But making the proactive decision of saying, like, this particular project justifies this particular species going extinct, like that's a, that's a tough place for me to be.

Speaker 1:
[29:08] That's not a quarterly decision, honestly.

Speaker 2:
[29:11] It doesn't feel like it should be a quarterly decision.

Speaker 1:
[29:14] That's one that should happen fairly, fairly infrequent. So.

Speaker 2:
[29:18] And through a very open and transparent and, you know, serious process, maybe not a 15-minute meeting where it was baked. You know, the decision had been made before the votes were even cast. My my two cents. Interesting thing, though. We want to go from one downer to another, or do you want to put a good one in between? Do you want to talk? Do you want to talk?

Speaker 1:
[29:49] That was pretty fun.

Speaker 2:
[29:50] Do you want to talk hunting dogs? You should do, let's talk hunting dogs, and then we'll go to the third topic.

Speaker 1:
[29:56] So everybody should be happy about this, because you may not have been following it, but there was a provision that was moving through Congress that was in two different forms that had the potential to really negatively infect hunters and sport shooters, but also just like dog owners, people who like dogs. And this is a common thing, which is, we've seen a lot of work by animal activism groups to bring a bill, ACAGIT is one thing, so say this is the intent of our bill, but then for the content of that bill to be significantly heavier, significantly uglier than they say the intent is. And some examples of this would be like the Oregon Ballot Initiative that we're dealing with, right? Where people are saying, well, this is really about hunting a given species, and if you're a hunter, you hate that. But the reality is, if you looked at the content of the bill, it's much deeper than that. It's everything. It's big. So that ambiguity in a lot of these bills, in a lot of bills that are being brought recently, and I would say over the last decade, I think it's gotten worse. That's probably not a bug, that's probably a feature, right? Whereas you make legislative asks broad enough, that they can be a bunch of different things. So let's talk about a few points of what this did. So a bill was brought called the Greyhound Protection Act. And if you hear that, you're like, well, what is that about?

Speaker 2:
[31:32] It's about busing, right?

Speaker 1:
[31:34] Yeah. It's protecting busing.

Speaker 2:
[31:37] Have you ever ridden a Greyhound bus?

Speaker 1:
[31:40] I think once, but... They deserve to be extinct. They're just getting Greyhound. As a child, I went on a bus trip on a bus, and I'm not lining up to do that again.

Speaker 2:
[31:50] They shouldn't have bathrooms. No Greyhound bus should have a bathroom on it. That's all I'll say. If there's a bill...

Speaker 1:
[31:55] They shouldn't have one?

Speaker 2:
[31:55] No, if there's a bill that says the Greyhound Bus Bathroom Removal Act, I'm all for it. Like, get those off the bus. You don't need somebody going back and destroying that bathroom, and then you're sitting there in a hot bus the rest of the way, you know, enjoying that. Like, so give me that bill. I'm all over that, the Greyhound Bus Bathroom Removal Act.

Speaker 1:
[32:16] Well, it's the same bill, Dave.

Speaker 2:
[32:18] I'm assuming that's what you're talking about here.

Speaker 1:
[32:20] It does all the exact same things. You could do this. If you pass this, they'll give you that as part of it. There's a huge lobby in the animal rights world, as people know. And there's a lot of money behind efforts to ban hunting dogs and sporting dogs. And that animal rights crowd, especially, they have it out for hunting, of course, because hunting, not only do they think that you're torturing, you're hunting your Golden Retriever. Mine feels tortured right now. He's trying to break down my office door. I can hear him just continually, like, whacking it with his head, thinking that sooner or later, it's going to pop open, but he's wrong. But yeah, they hate that. They hate me torturing Murphy. But this bill, the Greyhound Protection Act, was propagated as an effort to ban Greyhound racing, specifically because of the use of live lures to train Greyhounds. Now, would you like to take a guess on how many states, how many states were doing Greyhound racing?

Speaker 2:
[33:17] One.

Speaker 1:
[33:18] That's exactly right.

Speaker 2:
[33:19] It's one. It's one. West Virginia, right?

Speaker 1:
[33:23] Let's probably...

Speaker 2:
[33:24] I'm pretty sure it's West Virginia.

Speaker 1:
[33:25] Yeah, well it's banned. It's already banned in 44 states. And so... I used to know when I was...

Speaker 2:
[33:32] I used to know that I was almost in my grandparents' house growing up when we passed the Greyhound track.

Speaker 1:
[33:37] That's one of the coolest things I've ever heard. Your grandparents live in West Virginia?

Speaker 2:
[33:40] No, it was in Colorado Springs, but there was a Greyhound racetrack in Colorado Springs back in the day.

Speaker 1:
[33:46] Well, this bill was primarily led by the left side of the aisle, with the exception it was bipartisan because of course, you had some more conservative folks jumped onto it as well. Why? Well, because it's about dogs, right? And so this is actually a common issue that we have in bunches of issues with our wildlife policy, which is that because it's a fluffy animal, it really doesn't matter whether it's Republican or Democrat. A lot of people will vote for this just because there's such a strong contingent of people that love animals, that if you can package a bill saying this is a pro-animal bill, and if you don't pass this, animals are going to be harmed, people will jump on that bill. And so because of that, we've gotten actually a lot of bad legislation in the past, like the Wild Horse and Burro Act, which people love horses, right? And so we pass an act that puts us in a management scenario where it's impossible for us to do what's right for the habitat of both the horses and the burros, or everything else in the landscape. Why? Because the heartstrings, the heart wants what it wants, people pass this legislation because they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna do a really good thing. And they've been sold the intent of what it's gonna do one thing, and the content is another. And so, this is a common occurrence. And the same thing was happening with the Greyhound Protection Act. There were individuals who were calling their representatives, and they would call them and they would tell them, you know, hunters and sportsmen, call and say, hey, look, this does a negative thing to hunting and shooting sports. This does a negative thing to retriever trials. And they had staff in DC. And to be frank, if you are a staffer in DC listening to this, and you are the person who is pushing these phone conversations back, do better. Because these staff were repeating talking points that they had been given by animal welfare groups. And they were telling sportsmen who knew exactly what they were talking about, they were telling them, oh, you're being misled. This is really outside effort from a foreign group that, you know, in Italy that wants this thing or that thing. They were just, you know, feeding these sportsmen back something that was absolutely untrue as a talking point for why their representative was on this terrible bill. Well, the bill wasn't going to go anyplace. Until, and realizing it wasn't going to go anyplace, it was moved to the House Ag Committee, and individuals were able to get that on to the Farm Bill, in, considered as a part of the Farm Bill, in a voice vote. And this is where it gets really crazy. They didn't have the votes to get it on. And I know from people who were sitting in the room that what happened was, when the voice vote was called, the nays had it. But for some reason, the chairman thought that the eyes had it. And that provision moved forward.

Speaker 2:
[36:56] And nobody called for a roll call vote after that? Everybody was shocked.

Speaker 1:
[37:02] They couldn't believe it. AKC Sportsman's Alliance, they quickly, I mean, they immediately shifted into high gear. They realized what this would do to dogs, dog sports, and especially hunting dogs. Because what this did, because it banned the use of live animals for the training, it also created issues where, let's say you trade bird dogs. It absolutely crippled the bird dog training industry. It crippled the hound industry. It was just a, you know, let's think about-

Speaker 2:
[37:35] Go ahead, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[37:36] Go ahead.

Speaker 2:
[37:37] I was going to say to clear it up, just to say exactly what the issue is. Like, this bill talks about greyhounds in nearly every clause, greyhound this, greyhound that, greyhound this, right? And then it has this one provision where it will be, so it says, protection, section 30, protection of greyhounds, it shall be unlawful. And it goes to, to engage in commercial greyhound racing, to conduct commercial greyhound racing where betting or wagering happens. To engage in facilitate simulcast betting or wagering on greyhound races in interstate or foreign commerce. To sell, buy, sell, possess, train, transport, deliver, receive any greyhound for purposes of having the greyhound participate in racing. Everything is race, race, race, race, everything's greyhound. And then you have this one provision here. This one clause that it will be unlawful to conduct open field coursing or live lure training with the use of any bait that is not an inanimate object. It doesn't say greyhounds in that clause. Never uses the word unlawful to conduct field coursing with greyhounds or for purposes of greyhound racing or like there's no qualifier. It just says that, which is where all the alarm bells went up. Because you know, you have a golden retriever that is a hunting dog for you. How do you train a good bird dog to be a good bird dog sometimes?

Speaker 1:
[39:02] Yeah, well, he would rather choose slippers. Every once in a while he needs to see a real bird. A lot of people claim that was an error. But it's pretty hard to believe that that was an error by groups that have intentionally worked for that before, like the Animal Wellness Action and Humane World for Animals, which by the way, was previously known as the Humane Society of the United States of America. So they changed their name because of some challenges that they had. But it's hard to believe that that group doesn't work for the exact same things. And that this inclusion of that language that would have been crippling to hunting was there on accident. AKC said that the, you know, in their words, the amendment goes well beyond commercial greyhound racing, which currently only exists in one state. It also bans live lure training, use of live lures, open field coursing, events involving live animals, et cetera. Because these terms lack clear statutory definitions, they can be interpreted in ways that affect lawful hunting activities and traditional dog training methods. So like I said before, you know, without continuing to read it, it's the, the bug was actually the feature here. The ambiguity in that one sentence was there on purpose. And it's something to be aware of because it's popping up more, where you can have an, you know, I've read numerous pieces of legislation now, and I'm sure you have too, where four or five pages of legislation will be essentially inert. And you'll hit a sentence that is absolutely earth changing. And you know, that's not an accident, you know.

Speaker 2:
[40:40] It's the full Lawyer Employment Act.

Speaker 1:
[40:43] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[40:44] It's just great for me. Like great, great for me to have for this to happen because words matter. And that's what some of the lawyers get paid to do is to find that stuff, right?

Speaker 1:
[40:55] It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. Good job, Dave.

Speaker 2:
[40:58] I didn't find it. I'm not a good lawyer. I didn't find it.

Speaker 1:
[41:02] So this is essentially stopped now. Like it looks like everybody's got their hands around the neck of this idea and that it's getting choked out. We discussed this, of course, at a recent meeting. You and I were at a meeting with the AWU CP and folks were talking about this. And so it's not as if it's off of anybody's radar, but it still needs to be a wake up call. That animal rights crowd is concerningly close with many members of Congress, including Republicans. It's not a partisan issue anymore. And the plain language amendment had issues. But personal conversations that people have with people behind the scenes have, you know, verify that this is an active, there's active work going on and people are actively providing disinformation to their constituents who call to try and smooth them over on these issues. So, you know, for, again, staff, do better. Think about, you know, I mean, you got to be honest with your constituents, even if you don't agree with them.

Speaker 2:
[42:11] Yeah, I would also note that the person behind this is the same person that was, or the, you know, the one that's the champion for this particular, the Greyhound Act, whatever, is the same person that was really pushing this effort. Remember, maybe a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, I can't remember exactly when, not that long ago, there was a proposal to remove barred owls to, in the Pacific Northwest, to try and benefit northern spotted owls. And there was, it had really broad bipartisan support because barred owls were moving into these areas, they were prolific, tons of them. There was a proposal to kill, on paper, it looked like a lot, but it was over the course of about 30 years. And the same person was like rallying the troops to try and kill that. And I believe it was trying to use the Congressional Review Act to actually kill that. And that got beat back because that proposal happened. So it's sort of that point of like, be aware, like be careful. And the argument there was to get Republicans on board with that barred owl one was the economics of it. This is going to cost too much money. So we shouldn't do this. When really this was a, this is a wildlife management decision in that instance. And you know, this effort was going to cut at the US Fish and Wildlife Service's ability to do wildlife management.

Speaker 1:
[43:49] You know, it's kind of, it's not bizarre, but it's a reality that these proposals, like a lot of them, it's a wildlife management issue, you said. But the reality is a lot of them, they all try and take humans out of the equation. They all try and take people out of the equation with animals. It tries out of the, whether it be as a trainer, whether it be as a hunter, as a consumer, it's kind of this idea, kind of wild horses and burros, right? It's almost like a let nature take its course, but it's not really a let nature take its course thing. Because there's just this utopian idea that everything will be fine if we, because the animals talk to each other. They'll all just chat with each other and get along, and they'll divide up into the right places, and they'll do what they were supposed to do, and they'll all be great with each other, and they'll all be great with us. It's just kind of this Pollyanna-ish view of the world and of ecology that drives these things, as if there doesn't need, as if there's no benefit to having, to shaping your environment, to shaping where you're at, to shaping everything for all species. And I had a great professor in college who were talking about wolves specifically, and this is a long time ago, and I was 30 years ago now. We're dealing with...

Speaker 2:
[45:18] Don't date yourself too much.

Speaker 1:
[45:20] Yeah, dealing with the implications of wolves in the environment. And we were having a discussion about this, and he had said, people talk about wolves, and they wanna know what science tells us about having wolves in the environment. And he said, science doesn't care. Science doesn't care at all. It doesn't care whether there's five or 100 or whatever. That's not science. That's management. And management is a decision. And we make the mistake, people make the mistake of thinking these things are science-based, and they're not. They're policy-based, and they require that we have a goal, an outcome in mind, where we look into the future, and we try and predict what kind of world we want. What kind of world we want for ourselves? What kind of world we want for elk herds? What kind of world we want for deer? And if we identify that end goal, then we can make rational decisions, and we can use science to help us get to that state, or to try and approximate that state. And along the way, we're going to iterate. We're going to figure out what we did right, what we can do better, where our ideas were good and where our ideas were bad. But we've always got our hands on the steering wheel. And if we take our hands on the steering wheel, science can't tell you whether that's good or bad. Science can predict a crash that's going to happen when you let go of that steering wheel. They can tell you you're going to hit the wall, but they can't tell you what the wreck is going to look like. They can't tell you what happened. They can give you the autopsy, but they can't tell you whether you made the right decision stepping on the accelerator and smashing into that wall. And that's what we face with a lot of these ideas. There's this emotionalism with a lot of these ideas that we're just going to let go of the wheel and just go wherever and it'll all work itself out. That's not true. It's not feasible. It's not reality. I had this great discussion with a friend of ours who has a big podcast. We were talking about kind of this idea, you know, where people want to put grizzly bears back and wolves back everywhere. And then they say, like, then we'll get nature back and let Mother Nature take its course. And I said at the time, and I maintain it, Mother Nature, excuse my language, Covered Children's, Mother Nature is a bitch.

Speaker 2:
[47:37] No, no, no, no, no, no. Now we have to, now we have to.

Speaker 1:
[47:40] No.

Speaker 2:
[47:41] Oh, come on.

Speaker 1:
[47:42] She doesn't, she doesn't care, Dave.

Speaker 2:
[47:44] Now this is our record of clean, our record of clean podcast, Nephi.

Speaker 1:
[47:49] She doesn't care. She's a horrible person. She doesn't care who's there. She's just gonna keep doing her thing. She's got a job to do and she's gonna go do it. And she's not gonna care who's happy and who's sad and who's hurt and who dies. Mother nature is ignorant to our problems. So you can't depend on her to make the world that you want. You can acknowledge that you live next door to her and live with her, but don't expect her to make the world a better place for you. That's something you have to proactively do yourself. And when you see legislation comes that purposefully takes you out of this decision-making process, that says, we're going to pretend like we're not part of the world. We're going to pretend like we live in a concrete box and like we're not responsible for the environment. Like we don't live with these things. Like we're not neighbors of humanity and neighbors of all species. When you do that, when legislation takes you out of that, that's an unnatural place to be. And the outcome, it's literally you're letting go of the steering wheel and just saying, well, let's see what happens when we hit the wall.

Speaker 2:
[48:59] I don't know if this is a segue into the next piece or not, but I feel like I have to use it as a segue into the next piece. Just looking at the time. Okay. Because we could do a whole podcast on, you know, humans, humans being part of nature and the interaction with nature and like, yeah, all that stuff.

Speaker 1:
[49:21] I say I'll step off my soapbox so you can climb onto your soapbox.

Speaker 2:
[49:26] I'm not quite there. I've got to go through this piece first before I climb on my soapbox. This leads to my soapbox. So the last piece we want to talk about is just providing the update. We had told you some time ago, we talked about the Congressional Review Act effort with Boundary Waters, right? The Twin Metals proposed copper-sulfide mine in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters. Be clear, not in the Boundary Water canoe area, wilderness area, but in the headwaters of this big proposal. And there had been a mineral withdrawal during the, three years ago during the Biden administration, like halfway through the Biden administration, two-thirds of the way through. Shoot a mineral withdrawal for 225,000 acres in that area, largely to prevent this copper-sulfide mine from being developed. And the reason why this copper-sulfide mine has caused such heartburn, such criticism, such critique, is not because it's a mine. Turns out northern Minnesota is full of mines. I mean, there's a place called the Iron Range. There's a history of mining in northern Minnesota. But there's not a history of copper-sulfide mining in northern Minnesota. Where there is a history of that in this country and in Canada, over the last 60 years, like 100% of the time, it fails all the time, as meaning there is a track record of perfection of contamination of waterways with the sulfide mines. Because despite the best technology we have today, and the most stringent environmental regulations that we have today, there has been no way to, to in perpetuity, protect watersheds from contamination from this type of mining. And so that's what this proposal was meant to do, this mineral withdrawal. In earlier this year, in the House, Representative Staubert, a representative from Minnesota, introduced a resolution under the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to bypass normal procedure, normal order, fast track a resolution, and overturn rules issued by the executive branch by a simple majority vote. Which is, I mean, simple majority is always the pathway in the House. Although it also, you don't have to go through the normal hearing and markup and report out and all that sort of stuff process. You can just, you can fast track a resolution. In the Senate, there's typically a 60 vote threshold. This, the Congressional Review Act bypasses that to a simple majority. So this passed the House and moved to the Senate, takes House passage, simple majority, Senate passage, simple majority signed by the President. And then you can overturn prior rules issued by any administration. So this resolution was meant to overturn that mineral withdrawal. It passed the House. It was stalling in the Senate. And it was appearing that there was actually, there were actually quite a few Republicans, for example, that did not want to take a vote on this. And that did not support this mine. There are a number of reasons for it. Some of it is, you had, they had their counterparts, the delegation in Minnesota, both senators objecting to this, saying, we don't want this. And there's a typical kind of decorum in the Senate where, if a state doesn't want something to happen, you don't force it down their throat. You don't go, if it's in their state, you don't go around them and do something. So there's like, there's that kind of typical process. There's also, there were also concerns with this particular proposed mine was gonna be owned by a foreign company, not was, is owned by a foreign company. And there were already contracts in place to ship the copper mine from it to China, where it would be refined and then sold on the global market. So we'd be potentially jeopardizing this landscape, this area for some short-term economic gain. But all the product would be leaving US soil and going overseas to actually one of our biggest adversaries in the world. And there was some really deep concern about that. And so it was at this point where it looked like it might. The other thing about the Congressional Review Act is that it has to be done. These resolutions under the act have to be done in a certain period of time. So from the time that a final rule is submitted to Congress, there are a certain number of calendar, not calendar days, but gavel in days, meaning the days that the Congress is in session counts. You have a certain number of those days to actually pass the resolution. If it goes past that date, then you just have to go back through normal order if you want to do something. That date was going to run out at the end of April. And so it was looking like, and all accounts were, enough folks didn't want to take a vote that the time might run out until all of a sudden things changed. And all of a sudden started hearing that, yeah, there might actually be a vote. And then the vote actually happened, and it passed, the resolution passed the Senate 50 to 49. It was Senators Collins and Tillis that were the two Republicans that joined with Democrats in opposing the resolution. Otherwise, it was really on a party line vote. And by all accounts that I've heard, this was a result of direct pressure applied by the White House on Senators to support this resolution and to overturn this mineral withdrawal. And so that happened. And does that mean that this mine is ultimately going to be built? Not necessarily. There are still a number of steps that have to occur. There are state permits that are potentially required. There are federal leases, federal permits, and federal NEPA, and there are all sorts of things that are required. But it certainly takes out the biggest hurdle, which was a prohibition on mining in the area, and that's been lifted as a result of this. And so then, that's the thing that pivots me to my monologue. But before I do that, I want to talk about the... See if you have any thoughts on this, Nephi. That's sort of the state of play on kind of what happened in this instance.

Speaker 1:
[57:05] Thoughts? None. No, I think... I... I actually don't know what to say.

Speaker 2:
[57:18] That's where I was. I've been in this state of not knowing what to say.

Speaker 1:
[57:23] Actually, I don't know what to say, but I have thoughts. And this is things that I wish I could know. So maybe this will help everybody else too. You know, often when you look at a political office, you see the person that's elected in that political office, and there's a tendency to think that that person is making a bunch of decisions. And while at the end of the day, the signature line is who it is. It's worth backing up and remembering, and this is tough for a lot of people to conceptualize. It's tough for the general public. This, we have a pretty informed listener group, so they all know this. But it's worth reminding ourselves, as we step back, there's actually a lot of people that are making those decisions, and it's typically not the guy whose signature is on the line. So the guy whose signature is on the line is getting a set of talking points at the end of the day that says, here's the three reasons we decided to do this. And then they back up that reason, you know, the three bullet points, and they repeat those three bullet points, ad nauseum to the press. But the people who are making those decisions, they're doing that based on the faith, the belief that they have hired good people, right? It's a belief that they have surrounded themselves with competent individuals, and those individuals have earned the trust to be able to make very weighty decisions, and that those decisions will reflect well on the guy who has to sign the check at the end of the day. And so, it's worth telling everybody, that's not always the case. You know, it's not always the case that the staff make the right decisions, and sometimes the person who's in charge, you know, they need to hear about that. And occasionally, that requires, you know, that results in, you know, changes within an administration. It results in changes within who works in a given office. And sometimes, people back up, and they fix bad decisions, because it makes it easy to say like, well, that really wasn't our decision, you know, that was a decision that was by a member of our team. We've reevaluated that, and we've come to a new solution. And I say that because there needs to be a realization for everybody, you sit back and you think about these things, you know, what I wonder is, I want to know who made the decision. I want to know who the people were. I want to know who the guys were. I want to know, I always want the phone logs. I want to know, okay, who talked to who and why? And what were the talking points that led to an individual believing that this was the right decision today? Because there's got to have been some discussion of the, you know, weighing of the scales to decide why we end up with this decision. And whenever I hear a decision like this, and I'm somewhat flummoxed on the outcome, I want to know, okay, who was pitching which side of the argument and what were their talking points? And in this case, I don't know that. So when I'm left and when I'm saying like, I don't know what I think, it's partly because like, I wish I knew how this, how we got here because I'm not sure that I know.

Speaker 2:
[60:28] Yeah, I mean, that's a lot longer discussion. But I do think in this instance, there's a lot of money and a lot of powerful people behind the scenes spending that money that helped get us to the point of this decision. But really do. And as far as the talking points, jobs, jobs, jobs, that's the talking point. Like economic development for a part of a state that has been seeking and needing economic development for a long time. And this is viewed as an opportunity to bring in some jobs and some much needed money to a part of the state that maybe hasn't had the jobs and money, where industries have been suffering compared to other parts of that state. That's a big talking point. I get that. That's a big selling point. That's a big talking point. And it sort of ties into that God Squad discussion from before, right? Where in some ways, there's a... It's really, really hard, but it does feel like when you put your thumb on it and see like, or put the finger in the air and see what way the trade winds are blowing, they're regularly blowing in the direction of economic development. And not as often in the direction of like recognizing, conserving, and restoring some of the really cool places we have. And like this is where my kind of diatribe is right now. It, that decision, seeing that decision was to me personally hard to see that happen. Because I thought of anything, like the facts are so overwhelming that this is one of the most visited places, remote places, but the most visited out, right on the outskirts of the most visited wilderness area in the country. Huge outdoor wreck impact in that area. 20% of the nation's freshwater water supply for on national forests in that area. And a track record of like 100% of this type of mine contaminating water and requiring permanent remediation in places where it's happened at unbelievable expense. Somehow that argument's not sufficient, right? To say, and I'm like, it's not an anti-mining argument. This is a, at some point, there have to be, there has to be a bar where you say like, or a line where you say, not here, right? And it's been frustrating. Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 1:
[63:21] I was going to say, unfortunately, the politics that we live in right now, they don't allow, they don't allow us often to have a real discussion about these things.

Speaker 2:
[63:29] You're going to steal my diatribe.

Speaker 1:
[63:31] Okay, we'll all start it. The status that we are in politics, where we've gotten to in politics, we've gotten to a situation where the side of the argument is more important than the content of the argument, where if one party brings the argument and they are known to be the guys who have endorsed that argument, the other party will vote the opposite way because the enemy is on board with the opposite argument. Even if the argument shouldn't be one that is partisan. And so you have this gut reaction where very predictably, people are lining up and voting by party. That's a terrible disservice to our country. It's a terrible disservice to our natural resources because these things aren't partisan. And in these partisan arguments, what you tend to see is the most strident voices that are the most extreme on the issues. They run to the opposite sides as hard as they possibly can, and they advocate for the most extreme version of whatever it is. Why do they do that? Because they've been trained politically that the way for me to get anything close to the center is I will ask for the absolute worst. I will advocate. They've been trained to advocate for the absolute worst thinking that then they're gonna negotiate to the center. Well, that may have even used to have worked back in the day when people wanted to negotiate, but now nobody wants to negotiate. And so all you have are people screaming at the fringes for the most fringe ideas and the widest birth. And what it does is it leaves the middle absolutely alone, empty, an area of opportunity that no one wants to touch.

Speaker 2:
[65:39] Yeah, you stole some of my die-a-tribe.

Speaker 1:
[65:43] I mean, as a favor to you.

Speaker 2:
[65:45] I don't know if it's a favor, I don't know. Like you just stole my, like...

Speaker 1:
[65:49] I didn't know you were gonna say any of that.

Speaker 2:
[65:51] Rip the rug right out from under me, rip the rug.

Speaker 1:
[65:54] You just said you were gonna get on it, you were just gonna go off. You didn't tell me about what, so that was honest, that was honest. None of that was stolen.

Speaker 2:
[66:03] So they just ripped the rug out from under me here.

Speaker 1:
[66:05] Might have been duplicative, but it wasn't stolen.

Speaker 2:
[66:08] I'll try and reframe it, recast it just slightly, because it might be just a little bit different. And maybe even a little bit more directly. But it's been frustrating. This past, like the past year has been frustrating. But the past five years, the past 15 years have been frustrating. I shouldn't I shouldn't say the past year, the past my professional career, you know, right? It's been frustrating. And, and here's, here's why. And I work backwards a little bit. The past year has been frustrating because of things like invoking the God Squad to say we're, we're picking this development over the existence of like we're willing to let species blink out for this moment in time for saying we need this short term economic gain over the long term, frankly, economic and ecological consequences of a mine in this headwaters area. It's, it's, it's this, whatever the last administration did is inherently wrong. And our sole objective is to erase anything it did from existence without actually taking into account whether there were some, some good or bad. And that goes, like that goes for both parties. That just seems to be any more the objective. The objective when somebody comes in is to say, give me a list of everything that the prior person did. And our, like, our primary objective is to undo all of that and erase them from the history books. That's the objective. And so it's all about to your, I think this is kind of what you were saying. It's all about the, the political win, like that, that immediate win, rather than what's right for the country and what's right for the people as a whole and for the future. And going back to your story at the beginning of this, you know, the future generations, like what's right for that. And like I'm expressing this deep frustration right now because we're living it. I'm like, I may call myself a pretty conservative conservation minded guy. And it's frustrating to watch right now that I'm finding it hard to find examples of things that are being done with conservation, good conservation in mind. And then I think about, but then I get even more angry because I think about why is that? And then I go back to, you know, when others are in power, like when a democratic administration is in power, and things happen that are done over the objections of local communities and voices. Sort of this big brother, we know best kind of approach of just ramming things down people's throat, and it just creates this deep seeded anger that then people want to undo because of that. And I see that happen. And I get, I see, and I got to vent on one other thing here because I see, you know, it's no secret you and I both have worked in Republican politics, right?

Speaker 1:
[69:34] I thought it was a secret.

Speaker 2:
[69:36] You thought it was a secret? Sorry, I let the cat out of the bag. Yeah. I get Democrat friends frequently saying, and I see this circulating online, and you probably do too, Nephi, and this is the other part of the thing that really bothers me lately, where they say Democrats are the party of conservation. And so if you're, if you're voting for Republicans, you're voting and you care about conservation, you're voting against your own interests. So come to us, come to our party. That's where you should be. And if everybody did that, that all that does is create a deeper wedge and deeper division and a guarantee of wider pendulum swings.

Speaker 1:
[70:22] It's a fake thing. And when anybody does that, it frustrates me very badly. And you know, so my issues, cause here's, here's the thing, it's fake. It's fake because the exact same thing happens on the other side, for those of you who are clueless about it, which is you hear that if you, let's take hunters and gun policy, you get told that you have to choose. If you value your right to keep and bear arms, you must choose for the Republican party, right? Just like you get told on the other side that if you value your wild places, you must choose the Democratic party. You know, the most powerful person at the beginning of the year was on these issues, on the issues of public lands? Who was it, Dave? It was a Republican. Why was it a Republican? Because he came from a state where people rejected the idea, the state of Montana, where they rejected the idea that they had to choose one or the other. They rejected the idea that they had to, if they wanted to, you know, have public lands, they had to, then it had to be a Democratic issue. And they told the Republican, no, we can, and that's what we have to do as sportsmen. That's what we have to do as Americans. And gosh dang it, it's really hard. You have to reject it. You have to reject partisanship. You have to tell your elected officials to quit being a prisoner of the letter next to your name. Because what you have to tell them is, I'm a sportsman, and I care about guns, and I care about wild places, and I will not choose between the two, and you represent me, so you will not sell me out on either of the two. And they have to learn that that is the case. And it works because 5% of Americans, believe it or not, Dave, only 5% of Americans hunt.

Speaker 2:
[72:19] I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[72:20] But guess what? Yeah, that was right in there. 5% of Americans make the difference in every election. And so if you-

Speaker 2:
[72:34] 40,000 votes have determined elections before, right?

Speaker 1:
[72:36] If we want people to understand, then what we have to do is say, look, I reject the wackyism that you're trying to drive at me from either side. I don't care what party you are. And I hope you don't care what party I am. Because on these issues, this is my San Juan Hill. On these two issues, like I will die on these hills. So don't make me. Because if you force me to vote you out, because you vote badly on one of these two issues, you're gone. I'll replace you. And I'll replace you with somebody who can represent me on these two issues. And that's how you do it. That's how you take these issues off the table. Because you have to let them know that you won't be bought on either one. And so if you care about these issues, let people know. These are two issues that I will not compromise on. But I won't compromise on one of them for the other either. I am your constituent. I voted for you. I will remove you from office if you don't do that. Because it's not the person who's representing you. In most cases, there are some notable exceptions to this. But in most cases, the person who's representing you in Congress, they're not the people who were coming up with the wacky ideas. That's almost always a group of outliers. Your people are trying to survive in the middle. And so what you need to do is give them backing to survive in the middle. Here's what happens. If your representative doesn't hear from you on these issues, then what they do is their staff, who are going to lunch with another staffer in DC right now, and those guys are sitting there talking and they're having a latte and they're chuckling and they're talking about what they're going to go do tonight and where they're going to go eat dinner, but they are growing down, making decisions that affect you without really knowing how those decisions affect you, because you haven't made them care. But as soon as their boss knows that they have to care, just like Zinke knew he had to care, the whole complexion changes, the whole equation changes. And suddenly, because they know that their constituents feel given way, when they get approached by the staffer from that other office, when they get approached by the representative or senator from the other office, they can say, hey, look, I know that that's one of your critical issues, but let me tell you what the sportsmen in my area have said about that. I cannot vote with you on that issue. I may not have a very powerful opinion on it, but I'll tell you who does. The guys who live in my district do. And I can't stand with you on that one. You're on your own. If they don't hear from you, if they don't know how you feel about those issues beforehand, that's lost. You don't have that power anymore. And they make the decision based on convenience, based on deal making, based on everything that goes on up there in the halls. So you have to be on top of it. You have to call your representative regardless of their party, and you have to tell them that these things are important to you, regardless of what day of the week it is, regardless of who's advocating for a different piece of legislation, and you need to let them know where you expect them to sit. If you do that, then you make the issue a non-touchable one for them, and you secure them on your side.

Speaker 2:
[76:07] I wish I could agree with you. I like it in principle. I don't think in practice, it always plays out that way. And I think there's a...

Speaker 1:
[76:14] You're going to get a nasty gram from me if you talk like that.

Speaker 2:
[76:18] I'm just saying...

Speaker 1:
[76:19] Because I thought that that was a good monologue.

Speaker 2:
[76:22] It's a great monologue, except I don't... I'm thinking of this Boundary Waters piece, and I don't think it played out that way, because I know the thousands of calls that went into offices. People did care. People did pick up the phone. People did call. And in this instance, it didn't matter. It's a... There's a longer-term, bigger issue that has to be addressed, and you kind of hit it in your first version of the monologue, which is, like, this absolute-ism of, I absolutely have to defeat this other constituency, this other political party at all cost. This absolute-ism is hurting, like, it's hurting us. Like, it's, and it's the long play on how, how do you get away on some of these issues? And maybe it is, you know, this is where your second monologue, I think, is correct over the long haul. It's the consistency of the call-in. It's the showing up at the town hall. It's the showing up at the ballot box. It's the accountability after the fact. It's the, all the things you have to do to show, this is a, I don't just care about it a little bit and I'll still vote for you and I care about all these other things more. It's a, this is the thing I care about and I need you to care about it too, or I'm gonna find somebody else that does.

Speaker 1:
[78:03] Yeah, two things can be true at once. Both of these things are. They're both true at the exact same time. And it is by concentrating on the second one of asking our leaders to be pragmatic and make pragmatic decisions that we avoid the trap of the first, which is letting things become even more partisan and team-based.

Speaker 2:
[78:23] Yeah, I agree. I mean, I could ramble on and on and on and on, but we've gone on pretty long. I just, it's been a rough, it's been rough. Like, try and be pretty even keeled on this. But this particular one kind of, this really kind of bothered me just because, particularly related to the Boundary Waters issue, like this particular mine, just because the data is pretty clear and the public is crystal clear. And it didn't matter here. And so it really, really frustrated me. And it just takes me back to the, what's the root cause of this? Why is this happening? And it just goes back to these huge pendulum swings. And like, how do we get those? How do we get it to stop swinging and get back to conservation isn't partisan. Right now it's feeling partisan, and it shouldn't, and it's driving me nuts. That's where I am. That's where I am. It just shouldn't be. And it's driving me nuts. Anyway, and we worked for a great boss, by the way.

Speaker 1:
[79:32] I can tell you, by the way. Yeah. Offline, we can talk about it.

Speaker 2:
[79:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[79:38] Because like, I mean, I can tell you right now, like, we worked for a great boss, and you mentioned that, and here's the thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[79:47] You're going to steal this too?

Speaker 1:
[79:49] I'm just going to, yeah, probably. I'm going to say, I'm going to be frank.

Speaker 2:
[79:53] You're going to use his line, aren't you?

Speaker 1:
[79:54] No, you use the line.

Speaker 2:
[79:56] I was going to use the line.

Speaker 1:
[79:58] There are some people out there. Some phenomenal, some phenomenal potential leaders out there who are already becoming prisoner to the same thing. And I can think of, I can think of at least two leaders on each side of the political spectrum right now who were so close to being awesome. But I can also on both of those potential leaders pick specific issues where they have taken a stupid, boneheaded position because some extremist on their side of the political spectrum has pushed it to them and they're holding an extreme position on a given issue that if they would display the leadership of saying no, we're not doing that, they'd be awesome. But they're prisoner, they're prisoner to the moment.

Speaker 2:
[80:55] And I'm going to leave it with this. I got to leave it with what our old boss used to say when he'd talk about these issues and how he'd kind of wrap things up. And it was he was relaying the message that his own father and grandfather relayed to him, which is where you find one blade of grass, leave two. It's a pretty good message to leave on. I think that's a pretty good message. I always liked that one. And I think he meant it. I know he meant it. Yeah. He was privileged to work for that man. That man. Great guy. Any last thoughts?

Speaker 1:
[81:37] Be the type of person that someday somebody wants your rifle. Love it. You were important enough. You were an important enough man to the world that when people look back, they go, You know what? He carried that rifle. Yeah. I'll pay more than that's worth.

Speaker 2:
[81:59] Love that. Absolutely love that. And I guess the last thing I'd remind folks is, people revere Teddy Roosevelt, rightfully so, for all of the things he did for conservation during a really pivotal moment in our nation's history. And if you go back and really study that period of history, he was very, those decisions were very controversial. Like he did some things that we've benefited from today because he made some really hard, very controversial decisions. And so, leader, leadership is hard. And, you know, being in that position where somebody wants to buy your gun like that. Like that's hard. That's hard too. So, that's all I got. Man, we ended heavy. I thought it was a good podcast. Thought so too.

Speaker 1:
[83:01] I'm good.

Speaker 2:
[83:02] All right. Everybody.

Speaker 1:
[83:03] Nobody listens to this part of the podcast anyway.

Speaker 2:
[83:06] We've gone too far, too long.

Speaker 1:
[83:09] 20 minutes. They tuned down the first 20 minutes because they were boring.

Speaker 2:
[83:12] God Squad was a pretty boring discussion. But if you made it this far.

Speaker 1:
[83:15] God Squad was actually pretty good, actually. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[83:18] If you made it this far, thanks everybody for sticking around. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Thanks for coming back.

Speaker 1:
[83:24] Drop a hundo in an envelope, send it to my address.

Speaker 2:
[83:27] Or mine, either way. Either way, whatever. I'll make sure Nephi gets it. Or after handling fee. Yeah, sure. Well, anyway, thanks everybody. Yeah, I appreciate you.

Speaker 1:
[83:38] I'll try and get these last two mixed down.

Speaker 2:
[83:40] Sounds good.

Speaker 1:
[83:41] I'll get them out to you folks.

Speaker 2:
[83:42] And remember everybody while you're waiting, that life is about experiences. So go have one.