Ep. 817: Conservation Wins and Losses with Senator Martin Heinrich

Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/, Ryan Callaghan https://www.instagram.com/olcal406/, and Randall Williams https://www.instagram.com/randall__williams/?hl=en. Topics discussed: Corner crossing and the Supreme Court ruling; stream access; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, mining, and caribou; the Roadless Rule; where to develop and not develop renewables; relative bipartisan support for nuclear energy; reintroducing pronghorn back to an area of New Mexico; the breadth of the coalition that came together around keeping public lands in public hands; and more. Connect with Steve https://www.themeateater.com/authors/steven-rinella and The MeatEater Podcast Network https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork Steve on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella and Twitter https://twitter.com/stevenrinella?lang=en MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:34Steven Rinella?

  Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Black Buffalo products are intended for adults aged 21 and older who are consumers of nicotine or tobacco. Black Buffalo spent 20,000 hours working alongside American farmers to build a tobacco alternative that actually dips like the real thing. Long cut and pouches made from barn cured leafy greens with no tobacco leaf or stem and wintergreen mint straight and more. Check your local gas station or C store, or hit blackbuffalo.com and use code MEAT for 30%

• 1:14Steven Rinella?

  off your first order. Black Buffalo Tobacco Alternative is everything you love about dip, nothing you don't.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Americans own 640 million acres of public land together. Right now, it's being torn up and privatized at the greatest rate in history. On Common Ground: An American Inheritance is a six-part documentary podcast about the immediate threats to America's public lands. It's the story of people refusing to let it happen quietly. Featured by Apple and a Signal Awards Gold Medal winner, listen to On Common Ground: An American Inheritance wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:03Steven Rinella?

  This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless severely bug bitten and in my case underwearless. Welcome to the Meat Eater Podcast. You can't predict 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 firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E dot com. Holy smokes, joined today by Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. Dr. Randall Williams is here, not in his normal seat. Callahan is here, not in his normal seat.

• 2:48Steven Rinella?

  And we're here to talk a little bit like a little state of the union stuff with Senator Heinrich. Senator Heinrich has held his seat since 2013. He's the avid hunter and angler. In fact, behind me is a yellow super cub, like of the front of a yellow super cub. There's a strong chance that you've been in, there's a one in three, well, no, it's, if I was better at statistics. You studied engineering, you might be able to figure this out. If there's three, if there's three planes, there's three planes and you went there and back.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  For some reason, I was on that one twice. And I think Micah was too, and then Carter was on the other one.

• 3:32Steven Rinella?

  How do you know that one?

• 3:33Speaker 04

  But, I mean, when we flew in.

• 3:36Steven Rinella?

  But there's three that are yellow.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  Oh, I couldn't.

• 3:38Steven Rinella?

  So what are the odds? If you only went one way, it's a one in three.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  I honestly never took a probability class. They like pushed us straight into calculus and so I could mess that up real quick.

• 3:49Steven Rinella?

  Okay, there's a. Good chance.

• 3:52Speaker 05

  Classic politician not answering the question.

• 3:55Steven Rinella?

  Evading the, evading the subject.

• 3:57Speaker 05

  It's a simple.

• 3:58Steven Rinella?

  Uh, it was a good chance he flew in that year. Uh, a few years ago, I had the, we, we had a great time and I had the pleasure of going on a caribou hunt with Senator Heinrich.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  May I have COVID?

• 4:07Steven Rinella?

  Yep. I had my one boy and you had your two boys. And we, we were able to camp and do some caribou hunting, had a great time. Um, studied engineering at the University of Missouri. Columbia, Mizzou.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 4:22Steven Rinella?

  As they say, um, early on established a strong link to the outdoors tradition, hunting and fishing as a kid. Grew up on his family's property in Missouri, but he's been in New Mexico for 30 years.

• 4:35Steven Rinella?

  Commutes to DC for official business, but, uh, lives with his family in Albuquerque.

• 4:42Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 4:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I've been in your office in Washington DC. It's loud and proud.

• 4:47Speaker 04

  I, I try to make it a little, little slice of home.

• 4:49Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. It's loud and proud. It's like, it's like a hunting office.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:53Steven Rinella?

  What is, um?

• 4:54Speaker 04

  It's, it's my refuge. It's like, I want to be able to go into work and deal with a whole lot of issues, some of which I absolutely love, which, you know, conservation is kind of what gets me on the plane on Monday morning, leaving blue skies and mountains for all the, the bullshit in DC. Uh, but having that around me and having, you know, things that remind me of home and remind me of those hunts, uh, it, it, it puts me in the right frame of mind.

• 5:21Steven Rinella?

  How is that generally, uh, received that you have sort of, you know, you got skulls and antlers and a lot of New Mexico?

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Actually, people love it. I, I've had so many people tell me, you have the most beautiful office in the Senate office buildings that I've been into. It's rarely a jarring thing for people and, and for New Mexicans too. We, you know, we have this history of like Georgia O'Keefe painted all of those skulls. And so, uh, because all my stuff is generally European mounts, for some reason, people, people have a different relationship with that from a artistic point of view, I guess.

• 5:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  Than a typical shoulder mount. And so I get a lot of, a lot of, uh, you know, positive feedback on it.

• 6:04Speaker 05

  It's kind of strategically advantaged though too. Cause like, when I walk into your office, I'm like, okay, I'm going to ask Heinrich some tough questions here. And then I sit down, I'm like, First one being, let's talk about that antelope. You know, it's like.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Disarming.

• 6:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it is disarming.

• 6:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I gotta, I gotta, it's like, Senator, I got a tough question. You're probably gonna wanna evade the answer on this one. You're gonna be, you're gonna be slippery. Where exactly did you get that antelope?

• 6:34Steven Rinella?

  Don't give me that slippery politician stuff.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  To apply for an antelope tag.

• 6:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, don't give me that evasive politician stuff. Tell me exactly where you got it. Uh, we're gonna run through a whole ton of issues.

• 6:48Steven Rinella?

  Just to get your take on it. So these will be things that, what we're gonna talk about, so as a Senator, you're one of a hundred votes, right?

• 6:58Steven Rinella?

  We're gonna talk about things that, some things are things that you've voted on, you, you, you've dealt with from a policy perspective. Some of these things admittedly are things that you've watched from a federal perspective, but they haven't really come across your desk.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:12Steven Rinella?

  For instance, one I'm gonna, let's start out by talking about, um, as we kind of run through the country and run through issues. We're gonna talk about one, um, which we followed a great deal over the years, which is the, the corner crossing debate. And the reason I'm bringing this up with you is, is right after the Supreme Court recently decided, uh, not to take on the corner crossing issue, um, rejected an appeal.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 7:40Steven Rinella?

  Coming out of the Ninth Circuit. You did a very.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  Tenth Circuit.

• 7:43Steven Rinella?

  Sorry, coming out of the Tenth Circuit. Is that right?

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:46Steven Rinella?

  God, I've been telling you the wrong thing on that.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  Circuit, right? Ninth Circuit is California, Montana, yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:51Steven Rinella?

  Man, how many times have I told that story?

• 7:53Speaker 04

  Wolf stuff is ninth.

• 7:54Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 7:57Steven Rinella?

  That came, the Supreme Court decision came, I'll let you lay the whole thing out. The Supreme Court decision came out and, and I was pleased to see you did a very informative.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz I, I think most people around, around the country don't know what corner crossing is, why it's important. And I think we, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the four hunters who were tied up in this legal mess for years. Because they did such an incredible job of going the extra mile to make sure that their fact pattern was clean, right? So we could have a clean court case, and I think that was reflected in both the, the decision, um, in the Tenth Circuit and then the rejection of the appeal by the Supreme Court. At its core, I think what this is, is we're getting back to what the actual law of the land is, which is that there is a federal law called the Unlawful Enclosures Act.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. That says you can go from public to public and that supersedes county trespass law, state trespass law. You can't keep someone, whether it's for stock growing purposes or hunting or any other legal right that they have to use that land. And that's a like late 1800s law that was largely ignored or tried to be evaded for years and years of state law. And this is a return to that law being the law of the land.

• 9:22Steven Rinella?

  What, I got a handful of questions on this.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  And remember, I'm an engineer, not a lawyer. I just read the

• 9:28Steven Rinella?

  I understand.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  The same legal briefs that you do, but I've spent a lot of time talking to my AG about this. You know, going through, really trying to dig deep to understand, you know, what the decision might be based on the fact pattern.

• 9:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, because your state, New Mexico, is in the district that decided that corner crossing is legal.

• 9:47Speaker 04

  That's exactly right.

• 9:48Steven Rinella?

  So a first question, and I'm sure Callan Randall might have comments or questions on the issue, but just is it possible to get into the heads of the Supreme Court justices? Someone brings, when they decide not to hear something, is it, is it, can it be a combination of things? Like, is it, that's not that interesting, that we don't have time for that? Is that a factor? Or is it, no, it's quite clear what's true and right? And we'd be wasting time pretending that there's a wishy washy this to this that needs to be sorted out.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  They have a very limited amount of time and they're looking for places where they think maybe a lower court got it wrong.

• 10:35Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  And, you know, based on the information they have, is it worth a second look? Or did the lower court just do its job and basically we don't see a big red flag here?

• 10:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 10:46Speaker 04

  So it doesn't mean that there couldn't be another case that came from the Ninth Circuit where their decision might be somewhat different. I think what my hope would be is that if there are other circuits that take this on. That they also that were able to do it with a clean case that really doesn't have a lot of distractions.

• 11:07Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 11:07Speaker 04

  Because that's, you know, when those guys took a ladder out there, if you look at the case law, you know, people were using the unlawful enclosures act to drive their sheep around corners that, and there was forage impacted and they were much cleaner than that. They were like, we're going to make this as perfect as possible so that the case law that says you can't harass people going from public to public, you can't keep people out of their resource is going to be very clearly applied.

• 11:35Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 11:37Speaker 05

  Which comes in like when proving damages, right? Like, that's like the interesting thing about the sheep.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  Precisely.

• 11:43Speaker 05

  Is like you sheep graze along the way, there's going to be damages that you could prove to that forage.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  And yet, the case law said even if forage is impacted, you can still take your stock as long as you're, you know, minimizing it. Your intent. Your intent is not to exploit. You're going from public to public. And this whole issue of air rights and the fact that the case law says you can't harass people and yet in this case, clearly these hunters were harassed. I think it just made for a very clean case and we all benefit from that.

• 12:15Steven Rinella?

  What, uh, what is?

• 12:20Steven Rinella?

  First off, I want to make sure I got something right. If I got, if I'm wrong, I'm asking these two because you guys live here. If I'm wrong about this, we'll just cut this, we'll fill complete this whole part out. Did it, I haven't looked exactly. Is it true that since the Supreme Court decision, Montana has expressed

• 12:41Steven Rinella?

  or clarified that it remains unlawful to corner cross?

• 12:47Speaker 05

  That Montana fish and game.

• 12:50Steven Rinella?

  Ho- how?

• 12:52Speaker 05

  So I don't, I don't say the state has.

• 12:55Steven Rinella?

  Understand, yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 05

  But I say Montana fish and game has. How is a huge question because in the past, they've gone the other way in the exact same form. It's a memo. Hey, just so you know. We're not gonna write citations for corner crossing.

• 13:11Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  Um, so that, I mean, that's a great question.

• 13:14Steven Rinella?

  But they, the way that they worded is they say it's not considered a lawful form of access. So it doesn't.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  I, I think what they're trying to say, and I think they're on very thin ice here because a state law is superseded by a federal law. So what they're trying to say is Montana, and I haven't read the Montana law, but I think the idea is Montana has a trespass law and we're going to apply that and we're not in that circuit over there that got this clarified.

• 13:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  And so, you know, it, it does leave all this ambiguity. I, I don't think that's a valid point of view because you have a federal law that says, no, you can go from, as long as you go from public to public and you're not damaging someone else's property, you should be in theory on good stead here. And I think they made a choice to go out on a limb.

• 14:06Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Because if it came, if someone was prosecuted and they, and they fought it and started to appeal it, the same unlawful enclosures act would apply. That would be the foundation of the discussion all over again.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 14:22Speaker 05

  And the way that Montana is, and again, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is doing this, is saying, we aren't gonna just be looking for corner crossers. We're not gonna be writing citations. What we're gonna do is if a landowner wants to press the issue, we're gonna come, look at, look at the facts of the situation. We're going to then call the county attorney's office and the county attorney is gonna make the decision as to whether or not to issue a citation.

• 14:55Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 14:56Speaker 05

  So, I mean, they're really kicking the can.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  To somebody else.

• 14:59Speaker 05

  To somebody else.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  The buck doesn't stop.

• 15:01Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Yes. And we've, we've experienced that in New Mexico. You know, we went through this whole stream access fight for years and years.

• 15:08Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I wanna get to that.

• 15:09Speaker 04

  In the language.

• 15:10Steven Rinella?

  If you wanna do it right now, go ahead. Let's talk about it.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  But our, our game and fish department, uh, we're in the midst of changing it to the Department of Wildlife, but irrespective, they, they have not been willing to take the bull by the horns and just issue guidance so that people know what is, uh, you know.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  When you're going to be in trouble and when you're not. And that's a problem. When you have the, the law enforcement agency that is most likely to be involved in this conflict, not willing to, to draw a bright line for the public. That's going to invite some, some challenges.

• 15:46Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:47Speaker 04

  Meanwhile, we've got our attorney general going out and finding places where people put concertina wire across the Pecos River and sending them a letter and say, hey, take it down.

• 15:57Steven Rinella?

  Is that right?

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. Which is great. Like that, that's, that's the kind of certainty people need. And if you need to like, it would also be perfectly appropriate to say, this stretch of the Chama River that has private on both sides, we recognize the work that people have done to improve that habitat. And so that's only going to be catch and release, or it's only going to be fished this way or that way because we're, we're trying to protect the quality and the, um, you know, the, the quality of that fishery. They just haven't really taken the bull by the horns at all. And so it's been left to people like the attorney general to enforce the, the ruling that came down from the state Supreme Court.

• 16:39Steven Rinella?

  Okay, since, since you brought that up, I wanted to talk about it. Tell us about the stream access.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Long, long.

• 16:46Steven Rinella?

  The ongoing.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:48Steven Rinella?

  And then, and how it applies, how it might be applied in other places in the West. Like what, what do we mean when we say stream access law?

• 16:54Speaker 04

  So in, in the state of New Mexico, historically, stream access, uh, we did not have a standard of navigability. That exists in some other places. And that means, you know, the place, a lot of states said any place where commerce was done, meaning if you floated a log down the river, for example, to a mill, those are public rights of way. That's not precisely New Mexico. We've got a little bit of a different history because of the Spanish background. Um, and we didn't become a, you know, we didn't join the, the union until, uh, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and then a state nearly 1900s. Our constitution articulates something that that other states don't have.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  And so we always had a standard historically that not only could you float down a river, but you could also wade up and down that river so long as you were in the stream and not on the private property on either side.

• 17:51Steven Rinella?

  Well, you know, when I'm trying to explain the navigability thing to people in terms of our rivers here and other states as well, I always, I always try to begin it like this. Let's just, let's start with the Mississippi River. Now say that one guy has private property on one side of the Mississippi River and then directly across from him, another guy has private property. It's ludicrous to think that these two property owners could stop all commercial traffic.

• 18:21Speaker 04

  Up and down the Mississippi.

• 18:21Steven Rinella?

  Up and down. Everyone would be like, well, of course not. I'm like, okay. So now that we've established that that's an of course not.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  Make it a little smaller.

• 18:29Steven Rinella?

  Let's go smaller and smaller and smaller until we hit the point where it's not so obvious.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  Right. And in an arid state like New Mexico or next door in Arizona, you know, you, there is the Rio Grande, the Gila, our biggest, the Pecos, our biggest rivers are at some points in the year in a condition where you can walk across them.

• 18:50Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 18:50Speaker 04

  So if you don't have waiting, you don't really have a, a public right of way. And that's basically what the, the Supreme Court ruled is that there is a right for the public to be able to access up and down those streams so long as they, you know, comply with all the other laws, don't litter, et cetera.

• 19:09Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Don't, don't, you know, harm someone's property on either side or step onto a portion of the bank that is above the high water line.

• 19:18Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 19:20Steven Rinella?

  So what was the long, like, what has been the longstanding question in New Mexico that needed to be, that needs to be clarified?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  There was an effort by a previous governor and a group of landowners who I would just characterize as maybe being recently to the state. To try and move the standard more like Texas and less like New Mexico.

• 19:41Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  And they had a lot of success passing some laws and some rules in the Department of Game and Fish that people did not think were consistent with the the history and the Constitution. And so then there was a challenge and that that legal challenge played out over the course of quite a number of years and the Supreme Court ruled, no, the the these laws, this uh uh and it was, you know, they tried to rewrite it based on navigability and that wasn't our history. So the Supreme Court threw it out and said, no, you have stream access in the state of New Mexico.

• 20:21Steven Rinella?

  And so and how is it defined now? Does someone have to go back and prove that something was used for commerce? It does not?

• 20:27Speaker 04

  No, that's that's the navigability standard. That is not the standard in in New Mexico. All unreserved waters are the property of the public under the state constitution.

• 20:38Steven Rinella?

  I explored this one time.

• 20:42Steven Rinella?

  Lolo Creek.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 20:43Steven Rinella?

  You guys been there? I I one time was curious about this whole question and it was, you can look up and find it's logs, references to logs going in at certain points. And there's a there's a specific point on on this creek, comes off the Bitterroot Divide, flows down into the Bitterroot River. There's a point in this creek, as you ascend it, there's a point at which it stops being navigable. And I think it's based on like historical.

• 21:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. I was just in, and this gets used on both sides for pro access and anti-access, obviously. But I was, I mean, just in New or Colorado on Tuesday night and we were having this stream access conversation in Colorado.

• 21:31Steven Rinella?

  Was this the Onyx?

• 21:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 21:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 21:33Speaker 05

  And it was a great, great event in the Boulder Theater there, but um

• 21:38Speaker 05

  you know, it was the way Colorado's stream access is written is off of like commercial trade, navigability, and people were kind of debating this stuff and and they just weren't thinking back far enough. And I just said, well, you know.

• 21:55Speaker 05

  From my perspective, considering the deep, deep fur trade history in the state of Colorado.

• 22:02Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  I would think very hard before I had said there was no commercial use of any water in this state.

• 22:10Steven Rinella?

  You know who's gonna find it. If you put Randall on it, he'll find it.

• 22:13Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Be like, I beg to differ.

• 22:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. You're telling me he can't float a beaver pelm down here?

• 22:19Steven Rinella?

  That'll be the, that'll be the next audio book. 300 beaver hides down that to the, to market.

• 22:24Speaker 06

  Right. We, we had, when I was guiding up in Alaska, you needed a, you needed a coast guard license to drive a boat on this big glacial river that was, you know, hundreds of yards wide. And then all the little streams that were super sketchy where people sunk boats and had boat accidents and everything like that. You didn't need a license to do that because there'd never been any commerce.

• 22:44Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 22:45Speaker 06

  And so it was like dependent on, it was, it's one of these cases where it's very arbitrary and actually doesn't really work with the regulatory framework to achieve the intended outcome. But it was just one of those funny things. It's like, as soon as you get off the safe water, you get up into the sketchy stuff.

• 23:01Steven Rinella?

  It's anarchy.

• 23:01Speaker 06

  Then you don't need a coast guard license. Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 23:35Steven Rinella?

  I travel quite a bit. And when I'm home, it's very easy to stay on a rigid food routine and eat the right kinds of food at the right time. But when you're on the road, it's hard to stay in your routine and like diet can really start to fall apart. I've seen it. And that's why I like Athletic Greens. Now, AG1 is already the standard for daily foundational nutrition. AG1 Pro is what's next. It's built for people who don't want to stop there. Creatine, C-A-H-M-B. Advanced gut lining support on top of everything AG1 Next Gen already delivers. You can get it in travel packs. One travel pack, 10 to 12 ounces of cold water every morning. If you're already taking creatine separately, AG1 Pro simplifies your stack.

• 24:20Steven Rinella?

  One thing in the morning covers more than your current routine might for less than a dollar more per serving. AG1 Pro supports protein synthesis, helps reduce protein breakdown, and supports muscle recovery and consistent training performance. Visit drinkag1.com/meateater and get an AG1 Pro Yeti Shaker in your AG1 Pro Welcome Kit. Again, that's drinkag1.com/meateater. Grab yours now. This episode is sponsored in part by BetterHelp. Now, if you've thought about trying therapy with BetterHelp, insurance options may now

• 25:01Steven Rinella?

  be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just 23 bucks per session. Hey, you might not know this, you probably don't know this, but World Mental Health Day is October 10, but your brain does not wait around for October 10. You gotta take care of your mental health at all times. And therapy isn't just for like big life choices. It can be a place to talk through small but important things like a work situation, taking up too much mental real estate, a relationship dynamic you can't quite name, or simply the sense that something feels off. If you've been waiting to start therapy, BetterHelp works with more than 125 health

• 25:42Steven Rinella?

  plan networks and eligible members have an average copay of just $23 per session with insurance. If you don't have insurance or live outside the US, you can still get 10% off your first month. Go visit betterhelp.com/meateater to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash meat eater. If you've got something weighing on your mind, taking a toll on you, don't be afraid to reach out. Betterhelp.com/meateater.

• 26:15Steven Rinella?

  So that got clarified.

• 26:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:17Steven Rinella?

  And now you were kind of, you kind of started a little bit. You mentioned something, I imagine a little bit at the end of the story. Now that it's been clarified, they're going around and having people remedy obstructions.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  Exactly. The, you know, the Attorney General went out and looked at the Pecos where this has been a particularly sort of intense conflict and, you know, said letters, letters to folks and said, if, you know, you have a certain amount of time, please remedy this. This is clearly the law of the land now. And to his credit, most of those structures have been.

• 26:52Steven Rinella?

  Is that right?

• 26:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:54Steven Rinella?

  So people have accepted what's, what's, what's truth?

• 26:57Speaker 04

  I, I think legally, because there's a real, you know, the next step would have been exposure to, um, you know, legal remedies. But yeah, I think for the most part, and for the most part, people, you know, our, our goal in New Mexico is to be one, pro-access and two, pro-good behavior. Like, we, we need to make sure that people are meeting their responsibilities if they're going to use corner crossing or stream access to, to fish or hunt or recreate or whatever it is. And I, I think marrying those two together and having a lot of public interaction and education is the best way to have the most access with the least conflict.

• 27:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Cal and I have discussed this recently on the corner crossing issue is, um, now that it's been clarified in a large chunk of the American West and it's probably, it's likely to be clarified to some extent or another in the coming years in more of the American West, it's going to fall on land users, it's going to fall on access seekers to do this in a way.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  A hundred percent.

• 28:11Steven Rinella?

  That minimizes conflict, that minimizes stress or else it's going to become, you, you risk.

• 28:18Steven Rinella?

  Making it an issue all over again.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  A hundred percent. Be responsible. And that's, that should be the, the mantra for sportsmen all the time. It's like, think about how your actions are going to reflect on all of us.

• 28:30Speaker 05

  This kind of bursts people's bubble, but I, I try to point it out because we think, we get so fixated on what we're going to get by accessing this square mile through the corner and then get on over to the next square mile through the corner, which is, you know, awesome. It's an adventure and everything that we have, but the private land access is everywhere, including the corner. They're the, the public landowner as well.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  And including the public.

• 28:58Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, but they can access all that stuff way easier than, uh, the folks that are restricted to accessing through the corner. So the, the, we got to think of long-term wins here, not this short-term little access win. Like we want everybody to be on board with this as much as possible.

• 29:18Speaker 04

  For sure. And we also have tools for that, right? I mean, I think you and I first met at the Sabino So, which was ironically like the most landlocked BLM wilderness area. Like you just couldn't get there legally.

• 29:30Speaker 05

  Capital W wilderness. Crazy.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Designated wilderness. I did that in 2009. Um, cause I'd been allowed permission on horseback to go in there and, and see the place. Um, but the next step was we used land and water conservation funds to open it up to the public in a way that, you know, that, that, um, also was consistent with local landowners who wanted to grant that access for, um, you know, for a, a fair compensation.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, uh, that's, I'm sure this is in your notes somewhere too, but, uh, the two members of the stewardship caucus right now. So we had Heinrich working on this, uh, opening up this wilderness area and then, uh, now Congressman Zinkie was then, uh,

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Secretary of the Interior Zinke, and he was the one who got the BLM to accept new acreage that allowed access to the wilderness.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  They, they took a, a gift of land that allowed that to be opened up to the public.

• 30:37Speaker 05

  Rimrock Rose Ranch.

• 30:38Speaker 04

  It didn't start out so great with me and Ryan, but I was like, at some point I said, rather than us arguing about this in Washington DC, Secretary, why don't you come out to New Mexico and we'll saddle up some horses and we'll go look at this place. And that got through a lot of the words to like what made sense on the ground and we made progress.

• 31:01Speaker 05

  Plus, New Mexicans, like, once you're there, New Mexican hospitality is just a real thing. And the stories that, that came out from the Rimrock Rose owners, they, if this is like a good lesson to spoiled kids, like what you say to your parents, because the kids were like, yeah, we can't wait to get the ranch so we can sell it. And the parents were like, okay, duly noted.

• 31:29Steven Rinella?

  Careful what you say.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:32Steven Rinella?

  Hey, let, let's, let's jump up to Alaska, because man, so much has happened to Alaska, with Alaska. Under the Trump administration, there's been so much news out of Alaska and every little bit of the news, like, takes another nick out of my heart. Um, I was kind of hope, I don't, I don't know what I hope. I was hoping that they would like look another direction. I, I don't know what I, it wasn't, it was a naive hope. I don't know. I, I just, um, there's been a lot of hits to a lot of things I care a lot about in Alaska. I, I was so curious what your take on what we're actually going to see happen, how long these processes play out. Let's start with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I, I earlier called it ANWR, and you joked me that you never call it ANWR.

• 32:15Speaker 04

  Well, I, I don't call it ANWR. That sounds like a small Middle Eastern country that would be a logical place to be exploring for oil and gas, right? They also call it the 1002 area.

• 32:27Steven Rinella?

  Which sounds real, yeah, really oily.

• 32:31Speaker 05

  That goes nicely on a, on a balance sheet.

• 32:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. I got some 1050s, some 1002 here for my F-150. Um, and so.

• 32:41Speaker 04

  I, I think this one's complicated in that in the 2017 reconciliation bill, they allowed for leasing of the Arctic Refuge. The good news is that went terribly, like no legitimate companies who actually had a history of producing oil and gas, no majors, no independents with deep pockets and a long history of actually doing exploration and, and production in, in hard to reach places bid on that. It was all the ADO, which is sort of the Alaska Economic Development, kind of a hail mary operation.

• 33:19Steven Rinella?

  Were they, was their reluctance based off public pressure? Or was their reluctance based off economics?

• 33:27Speaker 04

  It's both.

• 33:27Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  It's a very expensive, one, like who wants to be the face of developing America's greatest national wildlife refuge?

• 33:36Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 33:36Speaker 04

  Like there is some social risk to doing that. If you're a ConocoPhillips or a BP or an ExxonMobil or whoever, like is, is that the story you want to be articulating every day when we have these really productive basins in other places that are much lower hanging fruit and much cheaper to produce in? So, you know, you might be able to produce a barrel of oil for a fraction of the cost in the West Texas Permian or the New Mexico Permian. When you get that far from existing infrastructure, I've had a lot of folks from Alaska who are pretty pro oil and gas development, say, I just don't know that the resource is there

• 34:17Speaker 04

  to justify this, and that's why you haven't seen a big player come in. You know, very different than Willow that we're looking at in the Western Arctic where, you know, real money was dropped to, to be able to produce those barrels of oil. It's not clear that's there in the Arctic Refuge. And that is probably our, our best hope of seeing the refuge remain intact.

• 34:41Steven Rinella?

  Really? Did it just, in the end, no one's going to take the bait?

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Well, because right now, like, we, we've got an existing law that until there's a different majority. You know, it used to be the Arctic Refuge was somewhat of, this is one of the things we've got to figure out how to bridge and, and I'm looking forward to Cal's next job because I think he's one of those people who can do this. Some of these issues used to be very bipartisan and the Arctic Refuge was one of them. If you look back in time, it got more and more comfortably partisan over time. Fewer and fewer people have actually been there on the ground and I count myself as absolutely blessed to have seen that place.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  And so it's become comfortably partisan and we've lost the bipartisan. And even like, there used to be more concern from some of the sportsman groups about, you know, the iders that are uniquely there and not, and only a few other places left on the planet. So that one right now, the politics of it don't look great, but the economics of it don't look good either. And that's, at the end of the day, I just, I don't know that it's going to be recoverable. The, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And, you know, we could also see the politics change if there's a different majority next year in the House and Senate, which there easily could be.

• 36:09Steven Rinella?

  With, when you get to these issues like, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it has, have this real, this, the expression used is like a ping pong. You know, I'm trying to think.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  Political war.

• 36:19Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, like one administration comes, they undo a ruling. The next administration comes, they put the ruling back. And then it seems like your whole lifetime passes with these rulings.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:29Steven Rinella?

  Bouncing. How, how does something like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, what happens? Like what could happen? That just clarifies it, right, to be what it is, meaning there's no, every new administration, they don't say, we're gonna do rare earth minerals in Yellowstone National Park. It's just become that it's not discussed.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Legislation, not a budget, not something tucked into a budget that passed with 51 votes.

• 37:01Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 37:02Speaker 04

  But permanent legislation with 60 votes, which means you have to have some level of, of compromise and willingness to, for there to be a trade space to get to 60, and that's not an easy thing, but that, that would create real certainty.

• 37:15Steven Rinella?

  So 60 votes out of 100 saying, we're taking Anwar, the refuge, we're taking Anwar off the table is a 60 out of 100 vote thing.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 37:26Steven Rinella?

  And that's in the old days.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  In the old days, in 1980, that happened, right?

• 37:31Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Um, and that's why we have so many of the amazing places that we have in, in Alaska is because there were times when that was possible, but, you know, at the moment, I sure don't see it.

• 37:45Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Uh, I, I'm guessing you don't feel the same way about Ambler Road, and just for, for listeners, when I explain what this is, is, uh, Ambler Road is a term used for a, the word road is in it, because what it is at its core is this proposal to run a 250 mile road through the Brooks Range of Alaska in order to make an industrial corridor for all manner of industrial development.

• 38:22Steven Rinella?

  It's, puts a lot of focus on the road, but what it basically, the way one should think about it would be like the Ambler Industrial District.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, mining district.

• 38:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  With, but airplane.

• 38:35Steven Rinella?

  Needs, like, this is.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  Needs a road.

• 38:36Steven Rinella?

  This isn't just a gravel road, this is, um, you know, 49 bridges, and it's crossing thousands of streams, including 11 major rivers. It's in an area where there is a deep reliance on subsistence for things like shefish. And it is going to become an industrial corridor with multiple mines at the end of that corridor.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  And I think one of the things, there's a real, there's conflict in Alaska around it. That conflict has not necessarily bled over to a willingness by either of Alaska's senators to second guess their advocacy for this. But in addition to the fisheries resource and that is huge, and I can't, I can't even put into words how beautiful this place is. Like if you go through, it's going to punch through, get to the Arctic National Preserve. It goes on the south shore of Inukuk Lake. I mean, these are some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. And it's, then there's the caribou herd, right?

• 39:46Speaker 04

  Like the Western Arctic Caribou Herd used to be one of the largest herds left, but it has been in major decline. And this is going to be a road that's, that's elevated gravel, right? Multiple feet, three to eight feet high of make a gravel pit every so many miles and use that gravel to create an elevated structure that all of the industrial, you know, dump trucks and things will, will travel on. What we know about caribou is sometimes they will walk across the road. But if there's an elevated structure, and the best data I've seen from this is what happened at Red Dog Mine, where they did a much shorter but similar road.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  Those caribou ball up for weeks and don't want to cross it. And eventually they do, and then they haul ass. And so they lose weeks of putting on fat. They're in poorer condition. You know, this is already a herd that's in steep decline and is absolutely critical for subsistence in that area. And so I, I worry that this is.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  The end of the Western Arctic Caribou herd being a great herd of caribou. And you overlay that with what's happened to Alaska already, which you see Alaska has warmed so much that you get these, these rain events in the winter that are really hard on doll sheep. They're really hard on caribou. They're really hard on musk ox where it like rains and then freezes. And then you have a vegetation change, which is a huge change just because it's warmer now in the summer. And so you have a huge vegetation change that caribou are grappling with. And it's no surprise that one of the great migrations on the planet is, you know, in real jeopardy.

• 41:36Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. Man, the caribou example means a lot to me. Like, I understand the example, but my take on it has just, like, my take on it from the start has been that I'm sympathetic to the economy issue. I'm sympathetic to the jobs issue. When I talk to friends of mine, that, you know, I'm an outsider. I don't live in Alaska. When I talk to buddies of mine that live in Alaska, and they bring up jobs and job creation and financial security, I'm like, I understand, man. I'm not belittling that stuff. I'm not rolling my eyes about it. I understand the concern. Yeah, I understand the concern. But in thinking long-term, American

• 42:21Steven Rinella?

  interests and short-term, sort of like, spiritual well-being and the long-term future of hunting, angling wilderness, I'm like, it's most valuable state is what it is right now.

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:41Steven Rinella?

  It's not going anywhere.

• 42:43Speaker 04

  It's gonna be there.

• 42:44Steven Rinella?

  If, if some down the road, a century from now, two centuries from now, there could be some dramatically different challenges, dramatically different issues facing the country. It's there. The minerals are there, but like, we're not code red. The, right now, the best thing we can do is hang on to our vest, our last vestiges of wilderness.

• 43:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:08Steven Rinella?

  Like, wherever they are.

• 43:09Speaker 04

  They're not making more.

• 43:10Steven Rinella?

  Hold them. Hold them. It's like, my wife used to work at Amazon. She got a bunch of Amazon stock.

• 43:18Steven Rinella?

  When it goes up a little bit, she just, you know, it goes up, goes down, she holds on to it and you know what over time?

• 43:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:26Steven Rinella?

  You know what I'm saying? It's like dude, it's like the most, it's the most brilliant thing on the planet. Look what this country has.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:34Steven Rinella?

  You're going to industrialize all this and we'll be like every other damn country. It's all their stuff gone.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:41Speaker 05

  Well, I, I, especially like all the stuff that's going on right now, now it's not that different than it has been over history, but I'm like, when are we going to start talking about water in terms of like national defense?

• 43:51Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 43:52Speaker 05

  Right? Like what do we need as a country? If you're thinking about this country in perpetuity, which I think we should be doing. Right? Like we're going to need places to grow food. We're going to need clean water to drink.

• 44:04Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:05Speaker 05

  We're going to need our country to be able to sustain us. And a lot of the decisions that we're making right now are like short-term gain and irreplaceable in the long term.

• 44:16Speaker 04

  You take that twin metals proposed mine by the Boundary Waters, which is, you know, right in the, you know, that water will flow from where the mine site would be into the Boundary Waters, right? And that, that product, and look, my dad was at Anaconda Copper as an exploration geologist when he was growing up. My grandfather worked at Battle Mountain in Nevada. I'm not minimizing the need for mining. We have, we have copper mines in New Mexico that produce a lot of copper and produce good jobs. But you're going to, you're going to mine that and then you're going to send it to China to process. So you're going to get the front end resource commodity money, but then you're going to

• 45:00Speaker 04

  buy it back once it's been, I mean, that's what third world countries do. Like that, does that make sense? And especially when you're talking about an economic and cultural engine with the, uh, the cachet of the Boundary Waters.

• 45:18Steven Rinella?

  Um, God, I wanted to comment on something, a comment you made about.

• 45:23Speaker 06

  National defense. I think it's a great area.

• 45:24Steven Rinella?

  Oh, water. No, I know. I was gonna say, it's hyperbolic and I just do it to scare my kids. I like to tell them that, I'm like, in your lifetime, I won't be around for this. But in your lifetime, you'll be eating bugs and they'll fight wars over water. I just like to tell them that.

• 45:39Speaker 06

  Mm hmm. Have a good day at school.

• 45:42Steven Rinella?

  I tell them that at dinner. I'll be long gone. Just so you know.

• 45:46Speaker 06

  So don't come whining to me.

• 45:49Steven Rinella?

  You'll be eating grasshoppers and fighting wars over water. Have a good night. Uh.

• 45:55Steven Rinella?

  So what do you think will happen there? We didn't get to that part. We talked about what, what, you know, we talked about how we feel about it.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Ambler, Ambler Road is a long way along.

• 46:04Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  And so I'm sure there will be litigation. There are, um, you know, the Toninna, uh, tribal, uh, council and others that are very invested in the, the, um, just, uh, the subsistence resources there. I, I don't think it's the end, but this thing is way along.

• 46:25Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  It's a long way. And that, there are some native corps too, that have to, um, have to agree for the road to cross their land. And that's not a, a, a complete done deal yet, but there, there are a lot of negotiations that I think are fairly far along there as well. So.

• 46:42Steven Rinella?

  Probably some real money.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. I am, um, and you know, I'm, if you fact check me on this, but I, I think the government just took a ownership stake in the developer.

• 46:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, I feel like I remember hearing that.

• 46:57Speaker 04

  The, the definition of, you know, the, the government should never own the means of production. This, this whole idea of like, cutting deals and taking ownership stakes in, uh, foreign mining companies to me is like nothing I've ever seen in my life.

• 47:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, we took a 10%, the federal government took a 10% ownership stake in Trilogy Metals.

• 47:21Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 47:21Speaker 06

  In October of this year.

• 47:23Steven Rinella?

  I didn't know that.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Canadian mining for.

• 47:26Steven Rinella?

  Huh. I was unaware of that.

• 47:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 47:29Steven Rinella?

  They had it in October?

• 47:30Speaker 06

  Yep. Invested $36 million in this Canadian. Does that make it harder to be impartial?

• 47:42Steven Rinella?

  Don't you know you got a lot of money on the line?

• 47:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it is interesting, right? Like, we, there's all these natural things that are happening everywhere, but in this case of the Ambler District, where it's got all these awesome resources, we can call them, on the, on the back foot or fighting an uphill battle. And then this road, even though there's not like a current plan for public access along it, it's going to also provide additional pressures in, in the forms of take. It would be like the only mining camp in the history of the world where there weren't dudes interested in hunting and fishing, if it did not.

• 48:30Speaker 05

  And then it's got the additional hurdle of what really happens long-term to this caribou herd when it balls up, wastes a bunch of energy, and then spends a bunch of energy hauling ass away from the road on the back end once, once it finally crosses. We don't know the answer to that. And then the fishery side of things, like what is the long-term

• 48:56Speaker 05

  effects on, on these fisheries?

• 48:59Speaker 05

  And, yeah, like, is the long-term subsistence plan to just take the money and run?

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Like, very interesting.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans amount subject to lender approval.

• 49:40Steven Rinella?

  Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Black Buffalo products are intended for adults aged 20. 21 and older who are consumers of nicotine or tobacco. Now you know how long it takes to build something that actually holds up. Well, Black Buffalo spent 20,000 hours on it. 20,000 hours working alongside American farmers, growing and barn curing leafy greens to mimic the taste and texture of real dip without the tobacco leaf or stem. That's not a shortcut. That's a commitment. They started this thing in 2015, right here in America, and they got it right.

• 50:24Steven Rinella?

  In wintergreen, mint and straight, the taste you already know, and long cut and pouches. It dips like the real thing because they refuse to settle for less. Check out your local gas station or convenience store. Chances are it's already on a shelf near you or head to blackbuffalo.com and use code meat for 30% off your first order. Black Buffalo Tobacco Alternative. It's everything you love about dip, nothing you don't. The new dual threat Pro SD climber is the ultimate companion for both bow and rifle hunters, thanks to its adjustable dual threat front bar. This innovative feature allows you to tailor the climber based on your preferred hunting method.

• 51:09Steven Rinella?

  So you can choose between two climbing modes and two hunting modes. So you can sit or stand climbing mode. All right, there's a bow hunting mode, a rifle hunting mode, meaning you can get it where the bar is up as a rifle rest or it's clear so you can draw your bow and swing and not have any trouble. And a hand climbing mode. With its new dual position seat, you have full control over your sitting height, ensuring an optimal vantage point for spotting game and taking that perfect shot. What I like about things, I don't like keeping a million different kinds of stands around. Leave it somewhere and use it for multiple things at multiple times a year. Get 20% off all tree stands by using the code meat eater at summitstands.com. That's a phenomenal deal. That's summitstands.com.

• 51:56Steven Rinella?

  Another move I've seen, not I've seen, another move the world has seen is a movement of volley. Trying to think of my ping pong lingo. Serve.

• 52:12Steven Rinella?

  And the ping pong analogy, the roadless rule.

• 52:17Steven Rinella?

  There's a hit on one side, there's a hit on the other side. The hit on one side, hit on the other side.

• 52:22Speaker 04

  I, I don't think, I don't think the analogy holds as well for the roadless rule because.

• 52:27Steven Rinella?

  Educate me.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  Because the roadless rule was first crafted in, what was it, 99, right before the change in administration, right? So, you know.

• 52:37Steven Rinella?

  This is under Clinton.

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. Chris Wood, who is now the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, was working for the chief of the Forest Service. They did this whole big public process. I remember going to roadless rule, uh, public hearings in New Mexico at the time.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  And then the Bush administration.

• 52:59Steven Rinella?

  Can you tell what, can you explain what we're talking about?

• 53:02Speaker 04

  So this is.

• 53:03Steven Rinella?

  What the road's rule means.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  This is a rule, it's actually a very flexible tool, but it says, these roadless lands are really critical to things like uh, wild trout and salmon populations. There were most of our endangered specieses, like they're a small portion, portion of the overall national forest.

• 53:23Speaker 04

  Footprint, but they're incredibly powerful in terms of unique species and species of concern from, I mean, when I think about roadless, I, I mostly think about elk, but I also think about things like Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout Habitat, Gila Trout Habitat in New Mexico. And so they protected those things and said, you can still go in there and do a, uh, a fuels treatment, or you can go in there and, um, and make habitat modifications. But afterwards, you're, you're, you're not going to leave your footprints there. You're not going to leave an open road that then becomes a, a source of degradation for those roadless areas.

• 54:02Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 54:02Speaker 04

  Now, a few years later.

• 54:04Steven Rinella?

  Less strict in a wilderness area.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  Less strict in the wilderness area, much more flexible. A, a lot of, in Montana, there have been huge treatments in roadless areas, for example. Then the Bush administration said, okay, we're going to change this rule. We're not going to get rid of it. We're going to change it and say that there can also be a governor initiated process to tweak, to make sure it fits their individual state. So you had conservative governors like Jim Risch in Idaho, who negotiated the roadless rule for Idaho. Colorado has a state-based roadless rule that is that is unique.

• 54:45Speaker 04

  And so the roadless rule held, it got modified a little bit under the Bush administration. We never modified ours in the state of New Mexico because people weren't up in arms about it. It made sense. It's like the Pelencios where we have desert bighorn sheep and coos deer. And, you know, people really valued the habitat that was protected. So it wasn't until the first Trump administration that the ping pong match really started.

• 55:14Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  So now we're full on ping pong match and clearly.

• 55:18Steven Rinella?

  So what happened in Trump won with the roadless rule?

• 55:23Speaker 04

  Gosh, you're putting me on the spot. I can't remember.

• 55:26Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Precisely. I.

• 55:28Steven Rinella?

  Don't worry about it.

• 55:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:29Steven Rinella?

  We'll stay with the current.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  But they are, they're, you know, moving forward to repeal this. And, um, you know, one of the ironies is they are not holding public meetings all over the country like when it was created, which kind of sends the tell that, you know, we've already figured out what we want to do. And we're just going to do that. And you can send your little note in and tell us we're wrong, but we're plowing forward.

• 55:56Steven Rinella?

  What is the, like, what is the primary motivation? To repeal the roadless rule? I mean, is it a, is it like a specific? Industry in a specific location? Is it a general annoyance?

• 56:11Speaker 04

  I think it's a general annoyance and dogma that's that so much of this revolves around the phrase energy dominance, which means that energy and minerals trumps every other use. And we don't want to, we don't want to get in the business of balancing uses. We're going to do minerals and energy, at least traditional energy, at any cost. And so I think that's what's driving it because it's not, this is not where the good timber is. For example, uh, this is not. It tends to be really steep and hard to road. The Forest Service has one of the biggest road networks on the face of the planet. They have 370,000 miles of roads.

• 56:52Speaker 04

  They have a $6 billion backlog because they can't maintain the roads that we want them to maintain, that are open roads for all of us to use. And so for some people, the question is, when you're in a hole like that, would, why not just stop digging?

• 57:10Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  If you need to go in, like, this is a, this is a flexible tool. If you need to, they've dressed it up largely in fire treatment. But the reality is, we're down 38% or something like that in fire treatments this year because they fired everybody at the Forest Service. They chased people out.

• 57:29Steven Rinella?

  But that's that same expediency you see. That's that same political expediency you see all the time. We were talking about this recently with the, with the rolling back land protections within 100 miles of the borders.

• 57:44Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:46Steven Rinella?

  Where you pretend, you take whatever fashionable issue there is.

• 57:50Speaker 04

  It was housing last week and this week it's the border.

• 57:52Steven Rinella?

  So when it was the most recent sell-off, they started out, they're like, what would catch, what would catch hold? Affordable housing. And you take this thing you've always wanted to do and put a bottle, you take the same bottle of wine and you put a label on it, that the label is affordable housing.

• 58:12Speaker 04

  Affordable housing Cabernet.

• 58:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  And so.

• 58:14Steven Rinella?

  25. Yeah. And so this, that issue of taking these like expedient things, anyways, border security.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:24Steven Rinella?

  That's a hot one right now. People want secure borders. Let's call, rolling back all these wilderness protections somehow will act like this has to do with border security. And it just goes on and on. It makes you very cynical to look at it.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. This is why the public doesn't like politics.

• 58:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  Because they just see it as cynical and dishonest.

• 58:44Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 58:45Speaker 04

  But do you really want to mandate roads in Glacier National Park and the Boundary Waters and Big Bend National, like, literally mandate new roads along the border? You go look at Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend and it's a pretty good.

• 59:01Speaker 04

  Not a lot of people. Natural buffer. Natural boundary.

• 59:04Speaker 05

  And it's, I mean, it's a huge chunk of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:09Speaker 05

  Here in Montana.

• 59:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  Rocky Mountain front. And then for the entire rest of the state, you can pretty much drive that right now.

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  And it also opens up out to 100 miles from the border. It changes the rules for national wildlife refuges, national parks, wilderness areas to say, you can just drive wherever you want to go. Now, there are wilderness bills that actually say, including, I think when we did Oregon Mountains, Desert Peaks, and maybe when Arizona did all those border wilderness areas. If you're in hot pursuit of somebody who's trying to get away, you can follow them.

• 59:47Speaker 04

  But you can't just drive off road for the fun of it. And those, those border roadless areas create some of the best impediments to people crossing. Like where people like to cross is where you've got like Highway 2 in Mexico, right on one side of the border, and then they can get to another road on the other side of the border and drive like hell.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  Like, these national parks and wilderness areas actually are an effective,

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  an effective means of border control. Yeah.

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Well, that's, that's what's interesting when you go through the Borderland Protection Act, right? It's like, it's provided for, like, basically all of that is provided for in,

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  I suppose, like, slightly more cumbersome ways? There's just actual checks and balances to it?

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  That's exactly it. You actually have to have a conversation between the Coronado National Forest and the border, which happens every day.

• 1:00:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  I mean, when we wrote the, we did the Oregon Mountains, Desert Peaks National Monument, and then we came back afterwards and designated wilderness inside of that monument. And we had a ton of conversations with the Border Patrol. And I went out there and I looked at where their, their important facilities were. And we made sure that we took that into account and that they could see from certain high points to be able to surveil the entire border, which was actually easier in some of those cases before we had a bollard wall there, so that we could get people, because we could see them coming. So, it was, it was all very nuanced, because everybody was at the table, which is kind of when policy actually works.

• 1:01:27Speaker 05

  And then like in the roadless rule, I know you and I have talked about this in the past, right? I mean, there are some examples of like things provided for in the roadless rule that get litigated to death in terms of like urban interface timber management. But that's like a couple thousand acres and then the 58 million acre scheme of the roadless rule.

• 1:01:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 05

  And that's like the flag that they're waving of like, well, we can't cut 2,000 acres in what 37 states. So we're going to rescind 58 million acres worth of protections.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  And you know what? If you had fix our forest act, which we're trying to get across the.

• 1:02:11Speaker 05

  Which is Westerman.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  Which would largely address that and in the Senate, I think it's like Padilla Hickenlooper. But I've been working with that group to try that to get that moved and in good shape. If you had that and then you hired back the people you chased out of the Forest Service, you could do a lot of treatment. I mean, we are, we are seeing a giant reduction in the number of acres treated in the Southwest because there's nobody to pick up the phone at the Forest Service.

• 1:02:42Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm. We kind of got a little bit sidetracked because we were getting to the point of taking a thing, taking a current issue and using it to apply leverage to an old grievance. And we had mentioned this like rescinding the roadless rule. People will point out, well, this will help for fire mitigation because people are like, oh yeah, that's right. Last year, like Palisades, you know, Pacific Palisades, whatever burnt down to the ground. This is important. We should do this.

• 1:03:13Speaker 04

  There were a couple of roads in the Palisades.

• 1:03:14Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So, yeah, so you take these, these current ideas and take old grievances and try to get them through. But with the, but I, I just feel like on the roadless thing, there has to be, maybe I'm wrong, there has to be a specific.

• 1:03:33Steven Rinella?

  Individual, collection of individuals that, that have someone's ear. And there's like a thing, a specific thing.

• 1:03:44Speaker 04

  But I think-

• 1:03:44Steven Rinella?

  That they would like to see happen. You, you, I mean, I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but-

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  But it's Project 2025. Like so much of this stuff is things that got, that, and, you know, you, you say things in campaigns. They're not all well thought through.

• 1:04:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  And, and so a lot of this is based on really very doctrinaire, you know, positions that we're taking as part of the campaign that are now being forced down into these agencies.

• 1:04:16Steven Rinella?

  Got it. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's, it's not like some guy made a phone call. It's like-

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  Sometimes-

• 1:04:21Steven Rinella?

  If I could remake the country, I would remake it in this deregulated, industry first, extraction first model, which would include X, Y, and Z.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  And, and that's Russ Vogt at the O M B, the Office of Management and Budget, who like helped craft that whole plan and now it's implementation time. But it, it doesn't all work on the ground.

• 1:04:44Speaker 05

  But do you think those people are having the same conversations with their kids? No, I'm not going to have to deal with this.

• 1:04:51Speaker 05

  But-

• 1:04:52Steven Rinella?

  Grasshoppers and water lovers. I don't know about eating bugs, but I'll tell you with this, you, you will live in a natureless world.

• 1:05:01Steven Rinella?

  Okay. Here's one that you and I agree, might disagree on. We've agreed on most of these things, everything so far. Here's one we might disagree on.

• 1:05:09Steven Rinella?

  I, I'm going to move to the subject of renewables. Yep. Man, in the same way, the same way that I talk about being apprehensive, not apprehensive, adversarial toward Ambler Road. Or the same way I'm adversarial toward developing the Arctic National Wildlife Fund. Is adversarial the right word? I don't know what I'm trying to say. Don't like it. Yep. I don't like it.

• 1:05:36Steven Rinella?

  When someone talks about doing to the, doing things to landscapes that would feel that way to the landscape, like the landscape doesn't know that you're doing this for solar panels or a wind farm or oil. The acreage doesn't know. The acreage doesn't care. In some respects, the animals don't care. Like what they know is you industrialized it. Um, well, how like, and I'm not going to lecture you on this, but I just want to hear your thoughts on it. How do you feel? What do you think when you think of taking

• 1:06:13Steven Rinella?

  Bureau of Land Management lands, say?

• 1:06:16Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:06:17Steven Rinella?

  And in effect, industrializing them for renewables. Like, how does that balance out in your head?

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  So in New Mexico, we were kind of like Montana. We've got a lot of public land, but we've also got a lot of private land. And so we have not seen the intense industrial renewable development that I recently saw when I went and visited my, like where I was born, my aunt in Fallon, Nevada, and I spent time between Reno and Fallon. And I went, holy shit, like that's, that's a very intense use.

• 1:07:00Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:07:00Speaker 04

  And I think we should avoid that on public lands because there are other uses. That's not to say we shouldn't develop those renewables, but I don't think public land should be the first place.

• 1:07:10Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:07:12Speaker 04

  You know, we just did a three and a half gigawatt renewables development in New Mexico that I

• 1:07:19Steven Rinella?

  How much is that?

• 1:07:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it sounds like a lot.

• 1:07:21Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Speaker 04

  It's like three and a half nuclear power plants. It's the biggest clean energy project ever built in the Western Hemisphere.

• 1:07:31Steven Rinella?

  It's online?

• 1:07:32Speaker 04

  It is, it is energized and will soon, off takers will soon be taking the power. So the electricity's up. Tim turbines are spinning.

• 1:07:42Steven Rinella?

  And where does this sit?

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  It's hot. It sits on private land around the town of Corona, New Mexico.

• 1:07:49Steven Rinella?

  Okay. How many acres?

• 1:07:50Speaker 04

  A lot. And, and so typically it was

• 1:07:54Steven Rinella?

  Gigawatts worth?

• 1:07:56Speaker 04

  Gigawatts worth. And it was, you know, the, the local landowner, some, some liked it and some didn't. And so the ones who didn't want a turbine. Chose not to have a turbine on their land. The ones who did are getting a substantial amount of, you know, it impacted 1% of their cover, but it dramatically increased their ability to keep that ranch operation viable. That's a more balanced approach, I think, than when you see solar panels and you can't quail hunt in that spot anymore, or the latte can't use that, that public land anymore. And so it becomes a more nuanced question

• 1:08:36Speaker 04

  that I think applies to, I think the lesson that you articulated is it shouldn't matter whether it's traditional energy or new energy. We should be looking out, trying to make sure that the critters on the landscape are not overwhelmed by industrial development.

• 1:08:54Steven Rinella?

  What, what also, let's say the landowners that didn't participate, they don't want them on their land. It is, man, like, it's a big play on those people to be like, they don't want it on their land, but now their skyline, everything they look at is nothing but those things. And it probably impacts them negatively on value because now they're in the middle of a wind farm?

• 1:09:19Speaker 04

  We, we, we have not seen data for the second thing. I think the first thing is valid. But you also have to, like, I think there's a recognition in this country right now that we need to be a country that can build big things. And so you have to have those hard conversations and figure out where the, where the trade off is, where the juice is worth the squeeze and where it's not.

• 1:09:41Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:42Speaker 04

  But then that's 550 miles of, of, like, I worked on this project for 17 plus years, my entire.

• 1:09:55Speaker 04

  My entire time in federal public office. And it meant $20 billion of economic input into the states of New Mexico and Arizona. It meant an enormous amount of power onto the grid, a lot of really good jobs. And, you know, the people building that power line, they had, a lot of them had Lyona or IBW on one side of their hard hat and Trump on the other. You know, it's, those are the kind of decisions you have to make, but I don't think we need to be stupid about it. There are places that should never, never be developed too. And we kind of know where those special places are. Mm hmm. You guys got any comments on that one?

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, I guess, that, I mean, that's a tough conversation, right? But, so when you talk about like the give and take, what was the, this is what you're giving up, part of that conversation and how'd you tackle that?

• 1:10:53Speaker 04

  Well, a lot of it was around, where should all of these facilities go? So, you know, you don't want to, when you're doing a wind farm, if there's a sensitive species like a lesser prairie chicken, that's off the table. And if there's, when it comes to the route of the transmission line, what I, I, I think this whole industry is much more sophisticated than it was 20 years ago. And we're going to see the same level of unsophistication from all these AI data centers. A lot of projects got killed 20 years ago because they didn't do the front end work. You go in and you talk to everybody. You talk to the landowners, you talk to the conservation groups, you talk to the county.

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  One of the other lessons is if you want tolerance for a project, there better be some direct benefit to the people who are impacted by that project. And that's, that's all, like in China, they just, you know, send a, send an email and say, we're doing this and this dam's really important, so your house is going to have to, you're going to have to move. They don't do the whole public comment period. They do not do the public comment period. We took 18 years to try and get that balance right.

• 1:12:04Speaker 05

  And then are there like replace, you know, we always talk about replacement costs, which is largely like on public land a lot, but on a private.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  So the

• 1:12:15Speaker 05

  Project like you're talking about.

• 1:12:17Speaker 04

  In terms of, uh, one of the things the developer did is there in the midst of buying habitat in both Arizona and New Mexico. Uh, in the case of New Mexico, it's like to protect their, you know, uh, riparian Bosque habitat that we're not getting more of, right? That comes with water rights. That's really super precious stuff. The kind of thing you would see at a, uh, national wildlife refuge like Bosque del Apache or, or state wildlife management areas. And then there in the state of Arizona, I think, uh, because the, the local constituents were different and had different needs. They're actually looking at agave, uh, preservation,

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  like protecting agaves that are also, um, incredibly important for some of the bats that have been in decline in, in the Sonoran country.

• 1:13:11Speaker 05

  Interesting. Yeah. So it's like replacing wildlife services would, or, um, what is it? Sorry, I'm spacing. When we were talking about like a chunk of BLM, it's the, uh, environmental services, habitat services, replacing those for whatever the project is.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  Right. That's why like Conoco Phillips is huge with, uh, the greater sage grouse.

• 1:13:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:13:33Speaker 05

  Like they're playing, they gotta replace a lot of sage grouse habitat.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 04

  And so, you know, when, what I told them was early on, I'm like, okay, if, if you're going to have, for example, um, if there's going to be a, a situation where sandhill cranes or other water fowl are, are gonna, if we're gonna lose some to crashing into these towers, let's make sure we have more than enough habitat to more than compensate for that.

• 1:13:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Steven Rinella?

  In your view, am I right or wrong in thinking that, uh,

• 1:14:07Steven Rinella?

  We ought to be leaning into nuclear power from a habitat preservation standpoint, meaning it's it's local, it's localized, it's a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to acreage. There's a, there's a, I'm recognizing Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, like there's some real catastrophes that have come out of this in the past. But when I, you know, I look, not being an expert,

• 1:14:35Steven Rinella?

  by looking, I'm like, man, I feel like we should be revisiting this. Is it safer? Can it be made safer? Because it allows us to hang on to wildlife habitat and make juice.

• 1:14:45Speaker 04

  Yep. No, I think so. And I, I think what gives the, the biggest challenge for nuclear is that historically, it's never been able to be produced cheap enough to, to compete with other sources of power on the grid.

• 1:15:00Steven Rinella?

  I see.

• 1:15:01Speaker 04

  And

• 1:15:02Steven Rinella?

  I didn't know, I didn't even know that that was, that that was true.

• 1:15:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. It's considered an expensive way.

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Very much so.

• 1:15:08Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:15:09Speaker 04

  Um, but it, the, the idea, so you have these light water reactors that are the last forty years worth of, of nuclear development in this country, including two that got put on, uh, the grid during the Biden administration in Georgia. First time in years, we actually put a light water reactor on the grid. Those are the sort of traditional, big, complicated, and often big overruns in cost. What's being attempted right now is to, to create small modular reactors. So the idea is to have something that's more inherently safe in terms of if you lose power having an accident, it just trends towards stability. You don't have like this Rube Goldberg thing

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  where you have to do a whole bunch of stuff to cool this thing off. And if you can't cool it off, you're in big trouble. And then you have the situation that Japan went through a few years ago.

• 1:16:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I forgot, I forgot that one when I named Fukushima. Yeah, I should have named that one and not Chernobyl.

• 1:16:07Speaker 04

  And then if they're small, um, and simple in their design, you actually get the advantage that you get in a factory of bringing down cost over time. So every, every time the number of solar panels in the, in the country doubled, the cost for solar panels went down 20%. So it started out at like $77 a watt, and then it landed well under a dollar a watt. You can start to get a natural reduction in costs if you can make them small and modular. And the idea is if you can do that, and then there's, there's this willingness to pay more for

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  power right now because of all these data center demands, that you can have a new nuclear renaissance that is safer, that is more tailored to, you know, you can have one or you can have five depending on what your needs are. So there's a lot of work being done in that space right now by some really good companies. And I think hopefully in literally the next few years, we're going to see the first of those come online.

• 1:17:16Speaker 00

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:17:46Steven Rinella?

  Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Black Buffalo products are intended for adults aged 21 and older who are consumers of nicotine or tobacco. Now, you know how long it takes to build something that actually holds up? Well, Black Buffalo spent 20,000 hours on it, 20,000 hours, working alongside American farmers, growing and barn-curing leafy greens to mimic the taste and texture of real dip without the tobacco leaf or stem. That's not a shortcut. That's a commitment. They started this thing in 2015, right here

• 1:18:27Steven Rinella?

  in America, and they got it right. In wintergreen, mint, and straight, the taste you already know, in long cut and pouches. It dips like the real thing because they refuse to settle for less. Check out your local gas station or convenience store. Chances are, it's all Ready on a shelf near you or head to blackbuffalo.com and use code meat for 30% off your first order. Black Buffalo Tobacco Alternative. It's everything you love about dip, nothing you don't. The new dual threat Pro SD climber is the ultimate companion for both bow and rifle hunters. Thanks to its adjustable dual threat front bar. This innovative feature allows you to tailor

• 1:19:12Steven Rinella?

  the climber based on your preferred hunting method. So you can choose between two climbing modes and two hunting modes. So you can sit or stand climbing mode. All right. There's a bow hunting mode, a rifle hunting mode, meaning you can get it where the bar is up as a rifle rest, or it's clear. So you can draw your bow and swing and not have any trouble. And a hand climbing mode. With its new dual position seat, you have full control over your sitting height, ensuring an optimal vantage point for spotting game and taking that perfect shot. What I like about things, I don't like keeping a million different kinds of stands around. Leave it somewhere and use it for multiple things at multiple times a year. Get 20% off all tree stands by using the code meat eater at summitstands.com. That's

• 1:19:57Steven Rinella?

  a phenomenal deal. That's summitstands.com. I'm going to grossly oversimplify something and say that there is a partisan nature to energy sources. Yep. You know. But with nuclear. Well, I'm saying like. I'm just. Okay. I'm being facetious. Oh, you're being facetious. Oh, I thought you were being like legitimately skeptical. So I mean, like, you know, the American left generally supportive of renewables, the American right generally supportive of fossil fuels. Just, I mean, just generally. Yep. What like, is there a partisan split on nuclear? There was. Is it fashionable for one side or the other to like it? There was for a long time. And what was it? It was largely like you had.

• 1:20:45Speaker 04

  You know, after Three Mile Island, there were a lot of traditional environmental groups that worked very hard to put a stop to nuclear power. And there's a lot of conflation, too, between nuclear power and weapons. And, you know, I-

• 1:21:02Steven Rinella?

  Talked to the Iranians about that.

• 1:21:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. I worked in a research reactor in college. I then moved out to New Mexico, where we have Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs. What I've seen change over the course of the last 18 years is there are a lot more Democrats now from states like Delaware, Rhode Island, New Jersey, like including some very progressive members like Cory Booker, who have embraced nuclear. And so it's become pretty darn bipartisan. And in fact, in the last Congress, there was, I think it's called the Advance Act, that

• 1:21:43Speaker 04

  we moved all the way to the president's desk to try to pivot and have the right regulatory environment for some of these new designs and to have an American nuclear renaissance. And one step beyond that, just to make it interesting, is because I come from a technical background, I've always been fascinated with fusion because we've understood the physics forever, we just couldn't get the engineering stuff figured out. And I think we're seeing investment flow into fusion companies in a way that has never happened in the past. And so I think that's a, you know, down the road, keep an eye on that.

• 1:22:27Steven Rinella?

  Okay. I'd be lying if, like, if you, you know, I could tell my kids all about the water wars coming up. If I got under a lot of pressure to break down fission and fusion.

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  It's pretty.

• 1:22:44Steven Rinella?

  I tried, I tried to bring it back around to the water wars.

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  In fission, you're breaking stuff apart. And infusion, you're squeezing it all together.

• 1:22:54Steven Rinella?

  I could have said that, but that would be the end. And if someone said, but what does that mean? I would say, I don't know. I don't know what that means.

• 1:23:02Speaker 04

  In fission, you also have a lot of waste products. And infusion typically, you don't.

• 1:23:08Steven Rinella?

  Oh.

• 1:23:08Speaker 04

  And so that's another advantage.

• 1:23:10Steven Rinella?

  Which one generates waste?

• 1:23:11Speaker 04

  Uh, fission. So every light water reactor is a fission reactor. And we have, have always had this challenge of what do you do with all those, uh, spent nuclear rods?

• 1:23:21Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:22Steven Rinella?

  Oh, speaking of which. Where, um? In my garage. It's usually where these things go. This is, this is just a little side note.

• 1:23:34Steven Rinella?

  Where does it stand? Do you remember? And maybe it's still an issue. The, the Yucca Mountain repository.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Steven Rinella?

  Fight. What came of that? Where is all the stuff that was gonna go in Yucca Mountain?

• 1:23:48Speaker 04

  It's, uh, it's sitting at a bunch of sites around the country.

• 1:23:52Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  At, uh, light water reactors primarily sitting in cooling pools.

• 1:23:57Steven Rinella?

  So they've never, it's, we've for now abandoned the idea of having a central repository.

• 1:24:04Speaker 04

  Certainly in.

• 1:24:05Steven Rinella?

  Deep within the earth.

• 1:24:06Speaker 04

  In Nevada, because there was never buy-in from Nevada.

• 1:24:09Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Speaker 04

  Which is a tough way to, you know?

• 1:24:12Steven Rinella?

  That's a real tough sell.

• 1:24:13Speaker 04

  And, and you had Republicans and Democrats who represented Nevada over the years, including a majority leader. I mean, that's not a recipe for success.

• 1:24:22Steven Rinella?

  No, it's like, it's like, if you put it to a national vote, you know? You, it'd be funny to see how the vote would split with people that lived in the state and not in the state.

• 1:24:33Speaker 04

  I've seen this a bunch of times.

• 1:24:34Steven Rinella?

  I got an idea. Let's put it in, uh, your state.

• 1:24:37Speaker 04

  I've had California senators who are no longer with us. Look at New Mexico and go, oh, we're gonna send all this to you. And. That's a real dynamic in Congress. Same party as me, but you know, meanwhile, we've done our part. We actually have a deep salt repository that we use for transuranic waste. Not for power waste, but for things that the government has done over the years. And so New Mexico, in my view, has kind of done our part.

• 1:25:06Steven Rinella?

  Okay. What was that word you used?

• 1:25:08Speaker 04

  Tran- Transuranic waste and it's it's waste from the production of our nuclear deterrent that is being stored deep underground in in salt. And you know, you put the-

• 1:25:22Steven Rinella?

  I mean, like excavated into salt.

• 1:25:24Speaker 04

  Exactly. So like literally, there's a very deep elevator. They excavate out from there. They put the canisters from, you know, Los Alamos or Idaho National Lab or wherever into those blocks of salt, into those open caverns of salt. And then over the time, over time, the salt actually moves back in and just encapsulates.

• 1:25:46Steven Rinella?

  Huh.

• 1:25:47Speaker 05

  Right next to the Ark of the Covenant.

• 1:25:51Speaker 05

  What else?

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  It is New Mexico.

• 1:25:55Steven Rinella?

  A pair of truck keys I'm missing.

• 1:25:58Steven Rinella?

  Um, okay. Here's one that's gonna blow people's minds. There's like, uh, and a lot of talk about, a lot of talk in certain political circles about us having too much public land. Too much public land. Not something I tend to complain about, but there is like this, like, oh, we should, we got too much public land. Uh, you've been involved in a number of, you've been involved in a number of exploits, which have generated public land.

• 1:26:27Steven Rinella?

  Tell us those stories. You mentioned Sabo.

• 1:26:29Speaker 04

  People love it.

• 1:26:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Speaker 04

  Like, the thing is, I mean, you, I'm really intrigued with Montana. I want to spend more time here, but there are a lot of folks on the land here. Like, there are a lot, if you go hiking or fishing, you know.

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  My constituents want more places to hunt fish, sit around a campfire with their best friends and their family members and make great memories. And it's a proven economic generator. So I have never found it a negative to create, for example, a new wildlife management area in New Mexico, or to use land and water conservation fund dollars to, you know, we actually, the Vias Caldera National Preserve is an interesting model in that it is managed by the Park Service, but the way I wrote the legislation, the, the, the, um, the management of the elk hunt is, sits at New Mexico Game and Fish.

• 1:27:32Speaker 04

  And so it is, in my view, one of the best managed pieces of public ground in the West.

• 1:27:39Steven Rinella?

  That's a very interesting, that's an interesting formula to me.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, because we wanted, we, you know, we knew what, we had the community buy-in. They wanted all of these geologic, um, resources, the vulcanism, the, uh, the incredible of, you would love this, obsidian, uh, mines there that produced weapons-grade, you know, points for all over the Western United States and Mexico. All of those things, everybody knew the Park Service was the best thing to take care of those. But they also wanted it to be a continued tradition of, of fishing and elk hunting in particular. And so we figured out a way to do that.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  And in my view, it's been an amazing success. It is really, really healthy. Um, and you can walk off of one of the main gravel roads there and have a bull elk bugling at one o'clock in the afternoon, 50 yards off the road. It's a different din, it's like how elk used to be before they were all pressured. Because they have good travel management, but they also have this incredible backcountry elk hunt.

• 1:28:53Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah. And then, but, but get into the, the, the most recent story, there's a, there's a tribal component to it of a ranch that.

• 1:29:02Speaker 04

  We're talking about Vias Caldera?

• 1:29:05Steven Rinella?

  No, no, no, no, the one you guys just worked on.

• 1:29:07Speaker 04

  The El Bar?

• 1:29:09Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:10Speaker 04

  Okay, so El Bar.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  El Barre used to be one ranch. When it came up for sale a few years ago, it had been split into two ranches. It's in an area that's incredibly important to the Pueblos, which are a group of a little less than two dozen tribes in New Mexico and one in Texas. And it's around Mount Taylor, which is a very important religious site for both Pueblos and the Navajo Nation. When it came up for sale, people were like, we haven't been in there in generations. And so we made a run at making it a wildlife management area. So there were a lot of national environmental groups that do this kind of work, and maybe

• 1:29:58Speaker 04

  environmental is not the right word, but the people who do, you know, who actually buy land to protect it.

• 1:30:05Steven Rinella?

  So this is a, this is a family, a ranching family that is, they've decided it is time to sell.

• 1:30:13Speaker 04

  And instead of selling it as a trophy property to somebody from out of state, they were in discussions with Trust for Public Land about, let's make this a wildlife management area. So we had to raise, trying to remember, it was a 54,000 acre property split between two pieces, and we had to raise $34 million in 13 months. But people were excited about it. And the, and the Pueblos went to the legislature and the governor and said, this would be really great. Wildlife management areas have tags that go to residents. So that attracted a certain segment of the population in a state where we don't, where we frankly, as residents, struggled to get tags in New Mexico because our balance is, is not what

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  it is in other states. And so we had this amazing coming together of forces and were able to, in 13 months, create 54,000 acres of new public land.

• 1:31:10Steven Rinella?

  But like, where did that chunk of money? I mean, how much did the state have that they were willing to dedicate it to? Like, like, where does that money come from that fast?

• 1:31:20Speaker 04

  Uh, there were some people who, who gave zero interest loans to get it to close in the amount of time, like there were, there were all.

• 1:31:30Steven Rinella?

  Donor, like effectively a donor.

• 1:31:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's exactly right.

• 1:31:35Speaker 04

  I will na- name check one, Johnny Morris.

• 1:31:38Steven Rinella?

  Really?

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  From Bass Pro. From Bass Pro. And a, a number of other people that, that stepped forward and wrote checks so that.

• 1:31:45Steven Rinella?

  Like, understanding that time that.

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  That mattered.

• 1:31:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, time mattered.

• 1:31:49Speaker 04

  That the real limit here was not that we weren't going to be able to raise the money, but could we do it in the time that mattered? The legislature stepped forward. You know, we had those pueblo leaders, governors going to the governor and the legislature and saying, we gotta do this now. One of the, the really innovative things that we did on that project was state game and fish, um, have those dollars that come from the feds in terms of Pittman Robertson dollars, right? But they weren't sitting on a pile of it. So we said, if we, if some folks will help TPL close this deal, we can pay them back as our Pittman Robertson dollars come in over time. So the financing mechanism was as creative, uh, it is really what made that deal come together.

• 1:32:34Speaker 04

  And now we have a, I mean, it's 54,000 acres, but it's adjacent to a very special unit of National Forest Service land. It's adjacent to a, a number of BLM Wilderness Study areas. And so the complex there is really special. And I used to, you know, when I was guiding, um, outdoor groups back in the late nineties, I used to sit on top of Mount Taylor and look at that landscape and be like, man, I would like to hunt elk in there. We have already reintroduced, uh, thanks to the good folks at New Mexico Game and Fish, we've already reintroduced pronghorn back into that landscape.

• 1:33:14Steven Rinella?

  Are you kidding me, really?

• 1:33:14Speaker 04

  Within the first two years.

• 1:33:16Steven Rinella?

  Oh, wow. That's wild, man. Uh, congratulations on that one. Who was the, on, on that, on putting that convoluted process together?

• 1:33:26Steven Rinella?

  Who is the, um, you know, I think of people that spend their lives in mergers and acquisitions. Who is?

• 1:33:35Steven Rinella?

  Who like what agency, who is doing the, the like, okay, here's this money and that'll come in this pot, but then they're going to need their money back by that date and this money's coming in, no strings attached and.

• 1:33:47Speaker 04

  So in this case, Trust for Public Land was the lead NGO.

• 1:33:51Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  And.

• 1:33:52Steven Rinella?

  And they're doing all the bean counting.

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  Yep. And this is a guy that I've worked with on a whole bunch of land deals over the years. And they started out as little tiny land deals and, you know, filling and in holding here and there. And when this one came up, uh, he, he was like, you need to come see this property. And when I saw it, I was sold. I mean, there were elk running everywhere and there was a big flock of turkeys and it had all of these different elevations. So it had both summer and winter range habitat, um, a lot of vertical habitat that potentially could be bighorn sheep reintroduction sites in the future. And so I, I just played a role of connecting people.

• 1:34:31Steven Rinella?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:32Speaker 04

  And then we had leaders at the state legislature, uh, that did an incredible job. There's a, there's a guy there, a state representative who is the chair of the state, uh, of the finance committee in the house, Nathan Small, who was a real leader on this. And so Trust for Public Land was the glue. And then there were a whole bunch of other people that found ways to bring resources to the table and the timeframe that needed to be done.

• 1:35:00Steven Rinella?

  Hmm. Um, here's a civics question.

• 1:35:09Steven Rinella?

  Okay. You're, you're a US Senator. So your mandate is to go represent the people in New Mexico and Washington DC on federal policy. What is it, what is the dynamic when you knock on the door of like New Mexico's Wildlife Department? New Mexico came fish. Do you know what I mean? Are they, is there a little bit of like, whoa, what are you doing here?

• 1:35:28Speaker 04

  Sometimes.

• 1:35:30Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:31Steven Rinella?

  Sometimes.

• 1:35:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:32Speaker 04

  But, um, in New Mexico, we have a long history and we are a state that is, are you familiar with the, the phrase, the resource curse?

• 1:35:43Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:35:43Speaker 04

  You know, it's like. There are a lot of countries that have had commodity economies and it makes it harder to do the new things. It makes it harder to diversify. It makes it harder to... And so I've always believed that when you have, you know, you have challenge, real challenges with intergenerational poverty, when you don't have as many good jobs as you would like to have, like, we have a lot of challenges in New Mexico. And I have always believed, I am not going to stay in my federal lane. I will work with anyone who wants to work with me, whether that's a city councillor who's just trying to bring a really good business to their community, whether that's somebody at the state house who wants to

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  work on a wildlife management area. Like, I have run my office in a different way. We're not a think tank. It's not just my job to vote on individual pieces of legislation. If, if we have a team of people who can make something better in the state, even if it's not clearly in my lane, I will help.

• 1:36:53Steven Rinella?

  You guys got, what do you guys got?

• 1:36:55Speaker 05

  Do you want to go back to ping pong balls?

• 1:36:57Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, hit him with a ping pong ball. He doesn't like that analogy.

• 1:37:00Speaker 05

  It's very poetic, actually.

• 1:37:02Steven Rinella?

  Oh, no, he didn't, he likes, he didn't like the analogy in one place where I applied it, but go ahead.

• 1:37:07Speaker 05

  Uh, waters of the United States. That's like, that's a ping pong ball. It's getting battered around heavily and I'm not...

• 1:37:14Steven Rinella?

  Otis.

• 1:37:15Speaker 05

  Otis. Yeah. Um, in, you know, for our, our hunting folks, like the intermittent streams, intermittent wetlands, uh, we still hear a lot of sound bites from people being like, you know, these wetlands, sometimes they're not even wet. You know, which is exactly how they're...

• 1:37:34Steven Rinella?

  I get that one a lot, yeah.

• 1:37:35Speaker 05

  Oh, my God almighty. Um, what, uh...

• 1:37:41Speaker 05

  How much do you deal with this?

• 1:37:44Speaker 04

  A little bit. We're trying in New Mexico to get primacy back in the hands of the state.

• 1:37:52Steven Rinella?

  Lays a groundwork first, so people know we're

• 1:37:54Speaker 04

  So if if the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, who historically has been in charge of making sure that wetlands don't get just plowed up and developed willy nilly, is not going to do that because the waters of the US rule and the court rulings have said, if you're not connected to the Mississippi River, you're not really a wetland. In New Mexico, that's everything. Like, the entire members

• 1:38:25Steven Rinella?

  You guys are out.

• 1:38:27Speaker 04

  We have, even the Rio Grande goes dry sometimes in in modern day, you know, the climate that we're in now. So we basically cannot rely on the feds to protect those resources. And nothing is more like, New Mexico is a place that'll go to war over water. I mean, water's everything. Whether you're reliant on it for agriculture, reliant on it for industry, everybody recognizes it is the single biggest limiting factor in an arid state. And so the state is now working on taking that back and creating a structure to be able to protect waters in the state on their own without relying on the EPA.

• 1:39:10Speaker 05

  Interesting.

• 1:39:11Speaker 04

  And I think you'll see that in a number of places over the coming years.

• 1:39:15Steven Rinella?

  But can you can you explain a little bit? We did a show on this years ago. But can you explain a little bit, just sort of the core of the question, even outside of New Mexico, just a little background for people and go back to that thing where I said, picture the Mississippi. So this this like, it's like, for terms of national security, industry, energy, the US has a vested interest in protecting the Mississippi River, right? And there's this sort of political question of

• 1:39:48Steven Rinella?

  How far upstream in the thousands of directions, if you follow all those rivers?

• 1:39:54Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:39:55Steven Rinella?

  And in all the tributaries of those rivers and in all the marshes that feed those tributaries? How far upstream is it? America's business?

• 1:40:04Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:40:05Steven Rinella?

  What happens there and the ping pong being?

• 1:40:08Speaker 04

  A very different Supreme Court over time. And a pendulum swing from protecting a lot of wetlands. I mean, some remember when Daffy Duck was like the spokesperson for wetlands.

• 1:40:24Steven Rinella?

  No, I missed it.

• 1:40:25Speaker 04

  That was like a thing for a while. I think it was under the Bush administration, maybe to a time now where even if that a wetland is connected to another wetland, but it's all subsurface. It's not on the surface. Like it's not really considered protected.

• 1:40:42Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 1:40:42Speaker 04

  And so it's been a big pendulum swing. And the question is, if you care about wetlands and you're in this new world where the the feds are not going to protect wetlands at EPA, what are our other tools?

• 1:40:55Steven Rinella?

  And hence, hence your move or hence New Mexico.

• 1:40:58Speaker 04

  That's right. Looking at taking that over themselves.

• 1:41:02Speaker 05

  Right, this comes back to like, what can you do on your private property? Right, like that's kind of like the, the, the big question. Trying to be balanced out with the fact that like our prairie potholes. Right, those are our, our migratory bird factories.

• 1:41:22Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:41:22Speaker 05

  Um, all sorts of migratory birds, not just the ones we eat and plus our pollinators. And.

• 1:41:29Speaker 04

  And there are a lot of things that are just flat out exempted from, from the Clean Water Act. I mean, much of the agricultural impact in the Midwest.

• 1:41:40Speaker 04

  You know what tiling is?

• 1:41:42Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:42Speaker 04

  Where you're like, that, that's largely exempted from, from, you know, the Clean Water Act. So.

• 1:41:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Tiling refers to, and we were kind of like in the tiling capital of the world a while ago, duck hunting. But, uh, tiling refers to.

• 1:41:56Speaker 04

  Is this Illinois or where we're?

• 1:41:58Speaker 05

  We were in South Dakota.

• 1:41:59Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:00Steven Rinella?

  Maybe not the capital, but it was a real conversation.

• 1:42:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. Because of the downstream effects.

• 1:42:04Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Tiling refers to putting in, you're basically putting in perforated pipe and other pipe and just moving water faster. Moving water out to take land that would be too saturated to cultivate and drying it out. So you can cultivate it.

• 1:42:18Speaker 04

  So you're able to grow.

• 1:42:19Steven Rinella?

  Opening up massive acreage of, of previously too wet land, wetlands, um, drying them out to plant them.

• 1:42:27Speaker 04

  And then you're also impacting your, your flood spikes because now that water's going into the system much faster. So if you're going to have a, a flood peak, move down a, a given water course, it's going to be a much steeper peak. And so.

• 1:42:42Steven Rinella?

  You've lubed the whole thing up.

• 1:42:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. We were looking at, I mean, there's always more than one thing happening at the same time. We were looking at like real downstream effects of this, uh, in areas like outside of Aberdeen and, and Watertown, South Dakota, where it was like a post-apocalyptic landscape.

• 1:43:02Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Like, like the farm is underwater. The grain silo is sticking up still.

• 1:43:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. And side benefit, there's people out there in really fancy boats catching 11 inch perch.

• 1:43:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:13Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:43:14Steven Rinella?

  Or, or, um, getting a lot of ducks.

• 1:43:17Speaker 05

  Getting a lot of ducks.

• 1:43:18Steven Rinella?

  But also people fishing, catching fish off people's driveways.

• 1:43:24Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:43:24Steven Rinella?

  Or these guys explaining to us that the really good walleye fishing is the submerged roads.

• 1:43:32Speaker 05

  The county road.

• 1:43:33Steven Rinella?

  The count, the, the embankment, that the wall I really like to lay on the embankment of the county road. In places where you can wade, you can put chest waders on and wade the county road and just work the, work the embankments. Cause there's a wall I land on the embankments. It was surreal.

• 1:43:55Speaker 05

  It was, it was impactful.

• 1:43:57Steven Rinella?

  Hell year was that? There's a bunch of them.

• 1:44:02Speaker 05

  2020 rally.

• 1:44:04Steven Rinella?

  Surreal. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's great fish. You just wade down the road and you're basically fishing the ditch.

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean,

• 1:44:12Steven Rinella?

  laugh about. I mean, it's like,

• 1:44:13Speaker 05

  interesting one because like that was a huge, huge habitat. Uh, hunter led fight for so many years, like coincide with, with where Duck Stamp dollars went, which I know you're very familiar with. Um, and, and the rise of Ducks Unlimited and preserving the, the duck factories, right?

• 1:44:36Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  And now that pendulum swung so far the other way. And I'm like, where the hell's the education that we just had 20, 30 years ago on this subject? Like everybody should be up in arms on this one.

• 1:44:48Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch. OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:45:20Steven Rinella?

  Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. Black Buffalo products are intended for adults aged 21 and older who are consumers of nicotine or tobacco. Now you know how long it takes to build something that actually holds up? Well, Black Buffalo spent 20,000 hours on it. 20,000 hours working alongside American farmers, growing and barn curing leafy greens to mimic the taste and texture of real dip without the tobacco leaf or stem. That's not a shortcut. That's a commitment. They started this thing in 2015, right here in America, and they got it right.

• 1:46:04Steven Rinella?

  In wintergreen, mint, and straight, the taste you already know in long cut and pouches. It dips like the real thing because they refuse to settle for less. Check out your local gas station or convenience store. Chances are it's already on a shelf near you or head to blackbuffalo.com and use code MEAT for 30% off your first order. Black Buffalo Tobacco Alternative. It's everything you love about DIP, nothing you don't. The new Dual Threat Pro SD climber is the ultimate companion for both bow and rifle hunters, thanks to its adjustable dual threat front bar. This innovative feature allows you to tailor the climber based on your preferred hunting method.

• 1:46:49Steven Rinella?

  So you can choose between two climbing modes and two hunting modes. So you can sit or stand climbing mode. All right, there's a bow hunting mode, a rifle hunting mode, meaning you can get it where the bar is up as a rifle rest or it's clear so you can draw your bow and swing and not have any trouble. And a hand climbing mode with its new dual position seat. You have full control over your sitting height, ensuring an optimal vantage point for spotting game and taking that perfect shot. What I like about things, I don't like keeping a million different kinds of stands around. Leave it somewhere and use it for multiple things at multiple times a year. Get 20% off all tree stands by using the code MEATEATER at summitstands.com. That's a phenomenal deal.

• 1:47:33Steven Rinella?

  That's summitstands.com. I need, I need, I need to clarify a thing. I cut, we kind of jumped. So when we were in an area where tiling was very much part of the conversation. I don't want to conflate, I'm kind of conflating two things. We were in an area where locals were talking a lot about the impacts of tiling. Happened to be that it was also in flood stage. I don't want to conflate, I don't want listeners to think I'm conflating that, that, that the tiles caused, you know, there's some like linear relationship between those tiles and that flooding. Just the same trip. Right. It was the same trip where we're noticing these two things. I do want to tell you, because you're, you're a water rights access guy.

• 1:48:19Steven Rinella?

  There's also this very interesting battle brewing at the time there. Which was, let's, you have a lake and it's a public lake.

• 1:48:27Speaker 05

  Which is a state constitution deal in South Dakota too, I think. So it's very interesting.

• 1:48:32Steven Rinella?

  This is, yeah, the one we're getting at. So picture there's like, just anyone listening, picture the lake closest to you that you fish on.

• 1:48:38Speaker 04

  And the lake gets a lot bigger.

• 1:48:40Steven Rinella?

  Now imagine that the lake is a hundred times larger. Including it's over people's yards. So you have all your life gone to the lake and you've just kind of gone where the lake is and fished. Well, now you're fishing in someone's yard, right? There was this big fight. Where people were stringing buoy lines.

• 1:49:06Steven Rinella?

  People were stringing buoy lines to mark what would have been.

• 1:49:09Speaker 05

  Fence used to be.

• 1:49:10Steven Rinella?

  Like what they understood to be their property line became buoy lines.

• 1:49:14Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:49:14Steven Rinella?

  And they're fishing on their side of the buoy. And then you got on the other hand, and they're like, the lake, my ass. I'm in my yard. I'm on my farm. You couldn't come on my farm before. You're now fishing my farm. Other guys like, I'm in my boat. I'm on the lake.

• 1:49:35Speaker 05

  And part of what was a private lake, because it was completely surrounded by private land, now stretches out and touches the county road.

• 1:49:43Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:49:44Speaker 05

  And people.

• 1:49:44Speaker 04

  Which creates.

• 1:49:45Speaker 05

  A public access.

• 1:49:46Speaker 04

  Access point. Yeah.

• 1:49:47Steven Rinella?

  It was, it was so hard to figure out what's, I mean, it was one of those where, it was one of those issues where I could very clearly see all sides, but I had this incredible bias as a fisherman.

• 1:50:01Steven Rinella?

  To be, to think to myself, um, well, that really opens up a lot of spots.

• 1:50:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:50:06Steven Rinella?

  But I do understand how a guy could be like, why are you fishing on my farm?

• 1:50:11Speaker 05

  Right. You want to be like, listen, I totally get what you're saying. Could you just point to this map here and tell us where that wind row was?

• 1:50:17Speaker 04

  Historically.

• 1:50:18Speaker 05

  We're gonna do some jigging.

• 1:50:19Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, cuz there's gonna be crappies spawning. Yeah, there's crappies spawning on your hedgerow.

• 1:50:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. Historically, was that kind of flooding, something that happened?

• 1:50:28Steven Rinella?

  Man, I can't say that.

• 1:50:29Speaker 05

  So, yes.

• 1:50:30Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:50:31Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:50:31Speaker 05

  Uh, because they were, uh, I think it was NRCS or USGS was going down and pulling, uh, pollen samples.

• 1:50:38Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:50:39Speaker 05

  Right from the old shoreline.

• 1:50:40Steven Rinella?

  That's another thing.

• 1:50:41Speaker 04

  Doing course and.

• 1:50:42Speaker 05

  Yes, and so some of this is like, oh yeah, this is hundred year.

• 1:50:47Steven Rinella?

  That's right.

• 1:50:47Speaker 05

  Flood line stuff, but then it was determined to be greatly exacerbated because of acts like tiling, rerouting water in general, things like that. It's like.

• 1:50:58Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, you're right. They were telling us about that, like in sort of the who's right argument. They were sort of looking at what were historic lake levels. Um, yeah.

• 1:51:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, cuz like Devil's Lake, uh, has a great example of like, there's a marina that was built here in the seventies. Now it's totally underwater and then there's another one built at this stage and it's a quarter mile from the water. Type of thing, right? But it was like, the water was there long enough for somebody to build around it.

• 1:51:29Steven Rinella?

  Right.

• 1:51:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:30Steven Rinella?

  Got it. That was an interesting little.

• 1:51:32Speaker 05

  Oh, it's wild.

• 1:51:33Steven Rinella?

  Interesting little venture.

• 1:51:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:35Steven Rinella?

  What, uh, I've asked you a bunch of questions. I'm not gonna invite you to ask me questions, but.

• 1:51:41Steven Rinella?

  Uh, wha- wha- what do you, what do you wish we had touched on that we didn't get to?

• 1:51:46Speaker 04

  I think the biggest story of the year was the, the public land sell off, right?

• 1:51:50Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 1:51:51Speaker 04

  Um, and that was also the counter narrative. We had a lot of threats to the places that we care about in 2025. Uh, what gives me hope is the breadth of the, of the coalition that came together around. What got dropped on all of us out of, you know, the thin blue air that no, no one necessarily knew for sure that was coming until it happened and. I was just blown away by the breadth of that coalition, right? Like, it was, I think at one point I joked, it was like bunny huggers to bow hunters. Like, everybody in between.

• 1:52:34Speaker 04

  You had RV industry folks, you had OHV people, you had the greenest of the environmental groups, you had the hook and bullet community across the sporting sort of spectrum. Like, people just came together. And as soon as that was real, and especially once that map got published that the Wilderness Society did, that made it real for people. And it was like, no, it's not actually about housing, because these, like, these parcels in the middle of Western Alaska.

• 1:53:05Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, these like, these like islands off Southeast Alaska.

• 1:53:09Speaker 04

  People just stepped up, and the spontaneous nature of their pushback was so, it was, it was very much rooted in social media. And so normally, as an elected official, you can choose to ignore the people calling the front desk. You can choose to ignore the email. But any member of the Senate is on their phone a good couple hours a day, and they couldn't, they couldn't get away from it.

• 1:53:39Steven Rinella?

  I got it.

• 1:53:39Speaker 04

  People were just beside themselves, and it became a tsunami. And if we could do that on a few other issues, my God, the sky's the limit as to what you could get done.

• 1:53:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:53Speaker 05

  You know, and Steve, kind of tongue in cheek, he's like, he was like, so, there's too much public land. I think if it were accurate, it'd be more like, so I'm told there's too much public land. Because it's like, it's not the end user that is out there saying there's too much public land.

• 1:54:10Steven Rinella?

  Oh, that, yeah, that's like, that's the, I bring up that same thing all the time around, and I like to prod this question. It's like, the deer, too many deer.

• 1:54:22Steven Rinella?

  I'm like, man, all season long, not a single guy has called me to tell me, not a single one of my buddies has called me to complain about all the deer.

• 1:54:30Speaker 04

  I got a question for you. The worst season, just too many deer. I want to ask you, I'm worried about mule deer in particular. Mm hmm. And you, because I, you know, I apply for permits in New Mexico and my schedule's a bear. And so if I have a week off that I'm not in DC in October, like that's what I'm going to apply for. But you get to see mule deer across their range. Are you worried about the direction with mule deer?

• 1:54:59Steven Rinella?

  Very much so. And this is, this is a drop in the bucket, but it's, it's, um, it's a drop of the bucket, but it's just like a guidance thing, a family guidance thing. I've announced a moratorium for my family. We have a, we have a mule, this is gonna, like everything, you can't say anything that doesn't piss people off. Uh, I've announced a family moratorium on the harvest of mule deer does.

• 1:55:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:24Steven Rinella?

  Cause I'm just the same way, I'm warning them about eating the bugs and the fighting the wars over water. I'm more, I'm trying to warn them about a future when mule deer are no more, or mule deer aren't a hunt, or aren't a hunted thing anymore.

• 1:55:38Speaker 04

  That's right. Yeah.

• 1:55:38Steven Rinella?

  That they, or mule deer become like big horns, which used to be able to stand, like you read mountain man accounts, and they're counting 400 big horns on a hill where there are no big horns anymore.

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:55:50Steven Rinella?

  Right? And now you can apply in your state, if you live in the West, you can apply in your state for 20 years, for 30 years, and not hunt a big horn?

• 1:55:58Speaker 04

  I apply every year. I've never had a big horn.

• 1:56:00Steven Rinella?

  And they just, because they just live in the last little remaining pockets of perfect shit where all their enemies can't get them.

• 1:56:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:56:07Steven Rinella?

  And it's like, elk are great, but there's more elk in more places and it's, something's got to pay the price. Whitetails? I don't want to say, you know, whitetails are great. There's a lot of whitetails in a lot of places. Something's got to pay the price. It's like, and it's just again and again, mule deer get kicked in the nuts.

• 1:56:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:30Steven Rinella?

  They're, they're less tolerant.

• 1:56:31Speaker 04

  I'm really worried about.

• 1:56:32Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. Anybody can go like, I got mule deer in my yard. I see mule deer on the golf course. It's like, you do.

• 1:56:37Speaker 04

  That's the.

• 1:56:37Steven Rinella?

  But there weren't, there aren't as many that were there before it happened. They're sure. There's still a mule deer that, that licks your car window.

• 1:56:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:56:46Steven Rinella?

  Like, I get it. But there were 10 there before.

• 1:56:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. And if you go to the hills outside of town where they used to be all over the place, you're not going to see.

• 1:56:55Steven Rinella?

  No.

• 1:56:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:56Steven Rinella?

  It's, it's.

• 1:56:57Speaker 04

  I'm deeply worried about mule deer. It's a species and I would, I, I think there is a reticence among state game and fish agencies to admit how bad it is, because then we have to figure something out.

• 1:57:11Steven Rinella?

  Because it's like, and I'm always an advocate of like localized, you, you have to have localized regulatory structures.

• 1:57:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:20Steven Rinella?

  And a, a, a thing I like to, to, to explain when demonstrating the need for localized is how is it that we have elk hunting in America? When elk have only been recovered on less than 20% of their native range? That doesn't make sense. Well, because in certain parts of certain states, elk are doing fantastic.

• 1:57:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:57:42Steven Rinella?

  They're missing from Wisconsin for the most part. They're missing from Michigan for the most part. They're missing from all these places they were, but in some places we have them. So you can't say there's no elk hunting because they're not everywhere.

• 1:57:53Speaker 04

  And in some places we have numbers that are so high that they're actually impacting other natural resources. So of course we're going to hunt.

• 1:58:00Steven Rinella?

  So there is localized, but I just, with one thing I worry about with mule deer is that we've drawn the boxes so very, very small. Where we're like, one side of the river, we're trying to reduce harvest. This is here. There, there's a, in this state. One side of the river, we're trying to encourage a reduction in harvest.

• 1:58:23Steven Rinella?

  The other side of the river, we're killing does.

• 1:58:27Steven Rinella?

  And when you're on that river, what do you see? Do you walk back and forth across that river? It's just like we've gotten, I feel like we've shrunk some of them, the, the, the management stuff is kind of like, well, that guy's got problems with his field.

• 1:58:45Steven Rinella?

  And, and we're not letting them.

• 1:58:49Steven Rinella?

  Spread. I don't know. I'm worried. Yeah. I don't sit around. I'm not worried. I mean, I think that there's a brilliant future for whitetail hunting. There's a brilliant future for elk hunting. I don't think there's a brilliant future for mule deer hunting.

• 1:59:01Speaker 05

  Well, I think the game agencies have a hell of a deal on their hand, right? Like it's, it's, we need to find the ability for people to go out and have the opportunity and promote the opportunity because that's what brings the dollars in. But we have to constantly adapt to

• 1:59:25Speaker 05

  everything, like the, the fragmentation of landscape, the increase in, in population in states like Montana that typically haven't seen a big increase in population. The adaptation of very available new technology that increases the effect, the efficacy of hunters in the field a lot of times. And we don't, the, the agencies don't adapt fast. And in there, in fact, that's just not how they're built. It's like, we need to get the appropriate data together. And, and it's like, we're always behind. Right? So it, it's a tough job. It's a tough job. Senator, I

• 2:00:07Speaker 05

  got a, a secret miss, mission for you. Okay. I want, uh, when you're up in DC and you're rubbing shoulders with the other senators, I just want you to like casually drop and just be like, oh, yeah. Bunch of my constituents were calling me, uh, just talking about how, how bad the mule deer population is. And just see what, what the response is. Like, you guys ever had those types of days? All the mule deer hunters call in, write in?

• 2:00:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. One thing we can all agree on is that the mule deer hunters.

• 2:00:38Speaker 05

  What a pain in the ass.

• 2:00:38Speaker 06

  Yeah. Well, and I think too, it's like, I, I know there's a lot of people in Montana that are very, very concerned about the state of our mule deer herd and would welcome reduction in opportunity, or at least like a.

• 2:00:54Speaker 06

  You know, more of a

• 2:00:56Speaker 05

  Managed approach.

• 2:00:57Speaker 06

  More of a managed approach.

• 2:00:59Steven Rinella?

  I'm sure it's on there. I'm sure it's on the horizon.

• 2:01:01Speaker 06

  But there's a lot of people out there who would just kick and scream at the first sort of shrinking of the opportunity pool.

• 2:01:07Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's painful. It's painful.

• 2:01:09Speaker 06

  You gotta communicate the communicate to our fellow hunters, the need for that sort of step.

• 2:01:15Speaker 05

  If I could see, um, looking across the board and you're right, like we get a drop in and see a bunch of different management strategies, but like you look at like the, the length of the center fire rifle season in Oregon, where there's lots of big bulls and big mule deer, but they'll have like a five day center fire rifle season. And I see that as like a real possibility all across the West where it's like, okay, if you want to bring all the stuff out, the infrared and the, all the technology that's at your disposal, you gotta

• 2:01:53Speaker 05

  72 hour

• 2:01:54Speaker 06

  Most of our seasons are five, five day seasons.

• 2:01:56Speaker 05

  Right. You're gonna, and it's gonna be this little window.

• 2:01:59Steven Rinella?

  But I don't.

• 2:01:59Speaker 05

  But then if you want to have less, it's going to be this. And if you want to get more primitive, it's going to be this. So people can have the opportunity without, without the effect on the resource.

• 2:02:13Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, but what you're saying, I understand what you're saying, but there's a big difference between managing, like managing for trophy mule deer hunting and managing for the future of mule deer. If someone looks and says, what is the, what is the long-term challenges that mule deer face? The long-term challenges that mule deer face isn't that they're all getting shot.

• 2:02:35Speaker 05

  No, it, I'd put it at habitat, habitat fragmentation. Yeah.

• 2:02:40Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, habitat fragmentation. When I brought up, and, and I know I introduced the idea of it, but I mean, just like with my kids, um, I don't, would never even a deer, if a dear friend of mine was, had his kids shooting mule deer does, I'm not gonna say a word to them. Like at all, I'm not gonna think a negative thought, but I'm just, what I meant by that was just as a way of sort of giving my kids a heads up about something. I'm like, you know what? You guys shoot all the whitetail, that's not true because I complain when they shoot to me whitetail does, but then I gotta deal with them. But you guys get all the whitetail does you want, or just. We're not shooting mule deer does go shoot the whitetail does.

• 2:03:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, but you know, as we I'm not arguing with you here, but just as the example, it's like there's. It's like just that stacking up of effects, kind of like we were talking on on Ambler. And it's like, well. We're not going to regulate, unfortunately, like. The fragmentation of a big family ranch that wants to break it up.

• 2:03:39Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:41Speaker 05

  Which is a bummer. Well, you can try through folks like T P L who do a fantastic job.

• 2:03:45Steven Rinella?

  But it's not going to become a government position where some agency comes in and says, no, you got to keep it for the rest of your lives.

• 2:03:51Speaker 05

  Right, right, exactly.

• 2:03:54Speaker 04

  Well, and you know what happened with the sage grouse? We're just seeing this many years down the road. It's the same habitat challenges.

• 2:04:03Steven Rinella?

  I hope I'm wrong about mule deer. It's hard to picture that I'm wrong.

• 2:04:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, the like uniquely American species. Is I like, that's where we need some like American first, Americanism, right? Sage grouse, prairie chickens, antelope, mountain goats, like.

• 2:04:25Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, real America stuff.

• 2:04:26Speaker 05

  They don't I don't have. They don't have friends on other continents, right? Like we need some some popularity contests around those things.

• 2:04:33Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 2:04:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:04:35Steven Rinella?

  Uh, Senator Martin Hyatt, thanks for coming on and and and talking to us, man.

• 2:04:40Speaker 04

  It's been a long time. I'm glad I did this. Like, I think last time we did this was probably twenty fifteen or something.

• 2:04:45Steven Rinella?

  Was it right?

• 2:04:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:46Steven Rinella?

  Did we record in your office?

• 2:04:47Speaker 04

  In my office, yeah.

• 2:04:49Steven Rinella?

  Okay.

• 2:04:50Speaker 05

  Are you going to ask him the big question?

• 2:04:52Steven Rinella?

  Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.

• 2:04:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:04:54Steven Rinella?

  You mean like, what's he gonna do with his life?

• 2:04:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:04:56Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. So what happens with what you got term limits? Like, what goes on in New Mexico? What are you gonna do?

• 2:05:01Speaker 04

  Uh, there are no term limits. Um, you know, what I have said is. I'm I'm not running for governor right now. I'm focused on getting the country through a couple of hard years.

• 2:05:11Steven Rinella?

  Hmm.

• 2:05:11Speaker 04

  And then we'll go from there.

• 2:05:14Steven Rinella?

  Not running for governor.

• 2:05:15Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:05:16Steven Rinella?

  We had that was we had a dude on the other day that's running for governor of Iowa.

• 2:05:20Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, he's great.

• 2:05:22Steven Rinella?

  He's a hunter.

• 2:05:22Speaker 04

  I I've known him for a long time.

• 2:05:24Steven Rinella?

  He killed.

• 2:05:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:25Steven Rinella?

  Not oh, two oh nine, the two oh.

• 2:05:26Speaker 04

  The two.

• 2:05:29Speaker 04

  I'd be happy to go along.

• 2:05:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, he's.

• 2:05:33Steven Rinella?

  So when you say you're not running for governor.

• 2:05:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, there was a big, there was a big back and forth about whether I should run for governor in about a year ago and made a decision. Especially, I, I think, you know, I'm ranking member on energy and natural resources now.

• 2:05:48Steven Rinella?

  Yep.

• 2:05:49Speaker 04

  And so I get a lot of influence on potentially what happens there. We're obviously in the minority, which is not a lot of fun, but you know, I could, I could see a path where we're back in the majority and

• 2:06:01Speaker 04

  in a little over a year. So we'll see what happens.

• 2:06:03Steven Rinella?

  Is it, is it, I'm not talking about you, but I'm just saying like, if you look at the, in political history.

• 2:06:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:09Steven Rinella?

  Do people, there, there's sort of a hierarchy of influence, right? Like, like, you know, the president, if you're a president, you don't say, I'm, I'm stepping aside from being the president to be the governor. Right? It's just because, you know, you generally want the highest level of influence, just human nature.

• 2:06:29Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:06:30Steven Rinella?

  Are there cases where someone has left their office as a senator?

• 2:06:37Steven Rinella?

  In order to, in order to assume a role as a governor and not see their term through?

• 2:06:42Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't know about not see their term through, but like, it's a tough place to be right now. And so I think you're, you're seeing more house members leave to, to run for state offices.

• 2:06:54Steven Rinella?

  Got it.

• 2:06:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, and I think I would, I'd be very surprised if you don't see a lot of retirements in the House of Representatives in particular in the, in the coming weeks as people go home and spend the holidays with their families.

• 2:07:07Steven Rinella?

  Will, um.

• 2:07:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, because. We saw Marjorie Taylor Greene.

• 2:07:11Steven Rinella?

  Well, I was just gonna ask about her, but was there a, is it rumored that she?

• 2:07:14Speaker 04

  Just like Michael Bennett, who's a, you know, my colleague from Colorado, he's, he's running for governor in Colorado.

• 2:07:21Steven Rinella?

  And he's currently?

• 2:07:22Speaker 04

  He's currently the US Senator.

• 2:07:23Steven Rinella?

  But he's seeing his term through?

• 2:07:25Speaker 04

  Oh, that's a good question. I, I don't know what cycle he's on.

• 2:07:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. Man, I all the time think, I don't, I'll never do it. Like, I've told my wife I'll never do it, but I do think it'd be interesting to go into politics, man. But God probably hate it.

• 2:07:39Steven Rinella?

  You, you've had that, we've had that conversation before.

• 2:07:41Speaker 04

  I always think about, wouldn't that be the worst thing in the world?

• 2:07:43Steven Rinella?

  You'd hate it.

• 2:07:44Speaker 04

  You tried to talk me into running for president.

• 2:07:46Steven Rinella?

  You know what?

• 2:07:47Speaker 04

  I've got the disease bad enough. I don't need it worse.

• 2:07:49Steven Rinella?

  You brought it up. I wasn't gonna bring it up. Do you want me to talk about what happened?

• 2:07:52Speaker 04

  That's what I thought you were asking.

• 2:07:53Steven Rinella?

  Want me to talk about what happened that day? Or should we just not, just leave it privately between us?

• 2:07:57Speaker 04

  Well, I just think, uh, I think it's great that there are people. I think if you, if you are gonna run for president, one, you need to be all in. Like, all in, all in. Um, and it tends to be able to weather the, those campaigns. It also helps just to be a little full of yourself. And I'm in this because I wanna fight for my constituents who need it, and I wanna stand up for things like public land and wildlife that don't get enough attention.

• 2:08:34Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, I was bringing up with you, you brought it up, I was bringing it up with you, launching a primary challenge.

• 2:08:41Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 2:08:42Steven Rinella?

  And I remember that when I brought up to you, what would have happened?

• 2:08:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:46Steven Rinella?

  I was kinda, it was more, or almost like a civics question.

• 2:08:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:08:50Steven Rinella?

  I was like, why don't you do a primary challenge? And, um, and I remember that you didn't even give me an answer.

• 2:08:57Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, the, the answer is like, structurally, it is, it, that would almost be a fool's errand to run against a sitting president, even with the, the, you know, the weaknesses that we can now see in that.

• 2:09:14Steven Rinella?

  That would've been a fool's errand.

• 2:09:15Speaker 04

  And like, one, first off, I was one of the people who called for Jodas, Joe Biden to step aside. That said, I respect him deeply. He is somebody that I have a, like, this is a guy who would, will call up my kids out of the blue and be just like, hey, how are you doing? Like, um, randomly, honestly, because he met him when he swore me in as a, a senator. That said, I could see the writing on the wall, and, you know, that's why I was one of the people who stood up and said, we need to make a change here. None of it was ideal. He would've been an incredible one-term president. And instead, now we, we have another president who is showing signs of aging. And, uh,

• 2:09:59Speaker 04

  I'm not into it for, I don't need the stature. And I've watched presidents have to make very difficult life or death decisions. And I'm not sure that's my calling. So will I always, no matter what I'm doing, be focused on conservation? Hundred percent. And I'll work with anybody who, from the other side, or my side, or what have you, to make some progress there. Because the, the natural world is kind of what keeps me going. Like, I go home to New Mexico, or I'll go someplace with someone like yourself, and see what's left of the big natural world. And that recharges my batteries. And then I can go back and fight.

• 2:10:41Steven Rinella?

  Yeah. I just like to see them hunters in the, I like to see hunters and fishermen in the politics, man.

• 2:10:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:48Speaker 05

  I know, I mean, even though, even though you didn't kill a bull this year, I feel like I'd still endorse you, you know?

• 2:10:54Speaker 04

  Don't get me started.

• 2:10:57Steven Rinella?

  You could probably be, I'm guessing you'd be chasing whitetails back east to put some, to put some protein in my freezer.

• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:11:05Steven Rinella?

  I'm guessing it would be.

• 2:11:07Speaker 04

  I got entitled.

• 2:11:08Steven Rinella?

  The first bow hunting, I don't know, you don't want to, I know you're not comfortable with it, but I don't know that we've had an archery, we haven't had a bow hunter president yet.

• 2:11:17Speaker 04

  Probably not in a while.

• 2:11:19Speaker 05

  God, that'd be some bad PR. What do you do with all those Secret Service and stuff?

• 2:11:24Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:25Speaker 05

  Be like.

• 2:11:25Steven Rinella?

  Paul Ryan's bow hunter.

• 2:11:27Speaker 04

  That was his, that was his code name, Paul Ryan. Paul and I used to, you know, we were in the house. We both would sleep in our offices and, you know, I'd see him every morning in the, in the gym and brush teeth next to him and we would talk bow hunting.

• 2:11:43Steven Rinella?

  Oh, really?

• 2:11:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:45Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, it's a good thing to talk about with people. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on, man.

• 2:11:51Speaker 04

  My pleasure.

• 2:11:51Steven Rinella?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:52Speaker 04

  Keep up the fight.

• 2:11:53Speaker 05

  Thank you. You too.

• 2:11:55Steven Rinella?

  Yeah, yeah, I'd like you, like to hear you representing the perspective of people that love wild places. So, thank you very much.

• 2:12:03Speaker 05

  Public lands.

• 2:12:04Speaker 04

  Amen.

• 2:12:32Steven Rinella?

  If you spend a lot of time outdoors, you got dogs, you got kids, you know how hard it is to keep the floor of your rig clean. A thing we do in our, in our little fleet of vehicles that I have at my household, if you go look, open the door on any one of them, they all got WeatherTech. We get a car, we throw the mats out and put in WeatherTech. That way, when there's a mess, it's like your kid's fault, your dog's fault, it's the weather's fault, doesn't matter. You take them suckers out and hose them off and you're back to being good as new. I'm telling you, if you've got a vehicle, put WeatherTech in there, you're gonna be happy you did it. And check this out, American-made floor liners and cargo liners, okay? They laugh in the face of all weather. Go take a look for yourself today at weathertech.com. Timeout in the field is not free, okay? Every time you go in the woods, there's a trade-off

• 2:13:16Steven Rinella?

  happening. Like you leave work early, you miss your kid's game, whatever, you forego some family gathering. If that applies to you, what you gotta do is you gotta learn how to spend the right time out in the woods, the right time in the tree. An OnX Hunt's Deer Movement Forecast tells you when deer are most likely to be on their feet based on real conditions, so you're not missing the kid's game or burning paid time off on a day that's not gonna produce. The Deer Movement Forecast means missing fewer of the moments that matter, whether in the stand or back at home. Try it today in OnX Hunt. In military families, service is more than a job, it's a legacy. At American Military

• 2:13:57Steven Rinella?

  University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.

• 2:14:21Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.