On this week's interview episode, Cal sits down with Taylor Schmitz and Chris Horton to talk about a new bill that would protect decommissioned oil rigs as marine habitat for many of the species we love to pursue.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week Interview with Ryan cow Klan. Here's Cal. Hey,
they're friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to the Col's Week Interview, part podcast, part of
the Cow of the Wild podcast network. We're a network
within a network. I'm still figuring out how to properly
pitch this thing, but you're with us regardless, so you're
going to learn something this week. Our special interview session
(00:44):
is with the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, specifically with Taylor Schmiz
and Chris Horton. If you have not heard of the
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, that's one of the things you're going
to learn today, and then we're going to dig in
to some of the things that they're talking about. So
first off, we'll let these guys introduce themselves properly. Taylor,
(01:07):
why don't you go ahead? What do you do with
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Sure, thank you, Cal, and appreciate you having us on today. So,
as you mentioned, my name is Taylor Schmidts. I serve
as the director of Federal Relations for the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
I'm based out of Washington, d C. At least in
my professional capacity, but my personal capacity, I live in Maryland,
which is an important distinction in my mind because I
can at least get out hunting and fishing on the
(01:32):
weekends and spend time doing the things that I love.
So my role at the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, I work
on our federal policy issues and specifically I work with
the bipartisan, bi cameral Congressional Sportsman's Caucus, which is nothing
more to say than a group of like minded individuals
that are elected from across the country to serve in
(01:54):
both the House and the Senate that work to address
issues facing sportsmen and women and fish wildlife across the country.
I also currently serve as the chairman of the American
Wildlife Conservation Partners, which is a coalition of fifty one
of the nation's leading hunting, wildlife, conservation, and recreacial shooting
(02:14):
organizations who work under the same umbrella to develop consensus
around the issues facing sportsman and weemen conservation. So that's
something that I'm really passionate about and happy to be
leading here at CSF.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Awesome, happy to have you and you're well traveled, ma'am.
I'm on the road far too often, and I see
you most places, at most things. So Chris, what about yourself?
What do you do over there?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah? Thanks Kyle. My name is Chris Horton.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I'm the senior director of Fisheries Policy for the Congressional
Sportsman's Foundation. I work on all things fish policy, both
the federals in the state level, work with Taylor a
lot on our federal policy issues, and then our network
of state program team staff around the country that work
with state legislative sportss caucuses in their states on supportions
issues and particularly those that deal with fisheries and aquatic resources.
(03:12):
I started my career as a fisheries biologists many years ago,
and I loved it. Didn't think I'd ever do anything different,
But it didn't take me long to realize that if
you really want to make a difference in fisheries management,
you really have to get involved with the politics of
it sometimes.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
So now I found myself working in the political right now.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh yeah, that's new. On the BHA side of things,
We've been talking a lot about the adversity to politics
that a lot of folks who love being outside have
don't want anything to do with politics, and then when
(03:52):
you start working more and more, there were volunteering more
and more, you know, the ideas that you're going to
influence the policy because we want to see policy changes
or sometimes policies stay the same regarding the things that
(04:13):
we like to do outside. And the question is is like,
can you avoid the politics and work on policy.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, that's exactly right, cal I think.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Just a very recent example of this was that the
Delta Waterfalic but as we can where we saw each
other and there's a luncheon and roughly one hundred people
or so in the room, and there's a question asks
raise your hand if you love politics, and I think
probably five to eight people in the room answered. They
raise their hand, And then the next question was how
(04:48):
many people in the room get frustrated when government says,
you know, you can or cannot hunt this specific area,
And every single person raised their hand. So it's you know,
unfortunately sometimes the politics gets up in the policy and
vice versa, but they do go hand in hand together.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And it's interesting in your intro there, Taylor, you're saying
you're trying to find consensus. Can you explain that a
little bit from theF CSF perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, happy to. And I'll really frame it up from
the American Wildlife Conservation Partners, which is going on its
twenty fifth year as an entity, and really AWCP for short.
We use a lot of acronyms in this community, so
I'll try to limit them. But AWCP is an easy one.
Was founded because you had all these individual organizations, whether
(05:46):
it was policy specific, interest specific, critter specific, habitat specific,
all of them working and trying to move things for
the greater good for sportsmen and women. But nobody was
organized right, and nobody was saying, and how can we
leverage these individual organizations that some organizations have seven hundred
thousand plus members, How can we leverage all of this
(06:07):
to advance the greater good for conservation and access? So
AWCP was founded. Really, what we try to do is
say what are our top priorities that we are trying
to put forward to get policy makers to address in
the very near future. That's not to say that some
policies aren't aren't important, but what do we view as
(06:28):
the most likely to get done, and what are some
new initiatives that we would like Congress or the presidential
administration to address, But really it is just trying to
get you know, fifty one organizations growing in the same direction,
saying that these are community wide priorities and that we
all should be behind this and we should all be
working towards the greater good for the community.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And we know right now or you know as a
not too long ago, that we are going to have
a new administration here in January, I suppose. So where
does CSF fit in there? Like, what's the job of
(07:15):
the organization right now?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So one of the things that we are working on
through a to ECP actually is a document called Wildlife
for the twenty first Century, and it's nearly a thirty
page document that lets the entire community's priorities. So we
are nearing the final stages of that right now. Once
we get it finalized, we will give it to both
presidential candidates and say here are our priorities. We'd love
(07:41):
to sit down and talk with you all about what
this looks like in terms of things that you all
can work on and that we can help you work
on together. But where we fit in there at CSF
is really being the boots on the ground organization here
in DC and knowing a lot of these folks on
both sides of the aisle and making sure that conservation
(08:02):
and access continue to remain the nonpartisan issues that they are.
So to your point, Ryan, we will. We will certainly
have a different president next year, regardless of what happens
over the next few months. But the beauty of our issues,
as I mentioned, is that conservation access are nonpartisan issues,
and I think everybody can see themselves in these issues,
(08:23):
and that's something that we are really really happy and
fortunate to UH to to work on.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, and similar on the on the fishery side, I'm
working with the American Sport Fishing Association and some other
fishing conservation organizations to to do the same thing, to
develop those list of priorities for that that transition document
so that no matter who comes in, you know, we
we can present what are what are our priorities from
the recreational fishing and fisheries conservation perspectives, and we want
(08:52):
to regardless of who it is, we're ready to work
with you on those because again, Finn Thurn feathers should
transcend party lines.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, well, well said the The colors in the House
may change, but we're still going to be hunting and
angling no matter what.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Right right, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And to just take a quick step back if you
had to like sum it up, Congressional Sportsman's Foundation. Is
that a who's a part of that? Is that a
membership organization or a coalition?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
How?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
How does it work?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So we are very different here at the Congressional Sports
Foundation than most organizations in the conservation community. We are,
by and large and not a member based organizations. That's
not to say that we don't have individual donors, but
we are not an organization where you pay thirty five
dollars and receive a sticker or anything like that. Are
our members, for lack of a better term, or really
(09:55):
policymakers across the country at the federal and state level.
So the way that we work, which is very different
than every single organization in our space, is that we
work with sportsman's caucuses across the country. I mentioned the
Congressional Sports and Caucus, which is the largest bipartisan bi
cameral caucus on Capitol Hill with nearly two hundred and
(10:17):
fifty members from all fifty states, Republicans, Democrats, independents. Everybody
really is a member of that. Then we go down
to the state level with the National Assembly of Sports
and Caucuses, which is the umbrella for all fifty state
legislative Sports and caucuses. Roughly twenty three hundred or so
state legislators across the country are members of that, and
(10:38):
then we also have a Governor's Sports AND's Caucus, so
roughly thirty governors across the country. Again, everything is bipartisan
across the board. We are the nonpartisan education information arm
for those three different caucuses. And when you boil all
that down cal it really is roughly a third of
(11:00):
all elected legislators and governors across the country are a
member of one of our caucuses. So we really serve
as the legislator and governor's information education arm on all
issues related to hunting and fishing, trapping and recreacial shooting.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And how often are those folks seeking that education versus
your role being to make sure they're aware of the
issues and the things happen, and whether looking they're looking
for it or not.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, it certainly goes both ways. I say that we
at CSF try to be extremely proactive in getting information
up to Congress, up to state legislators in the governor's office,
so I'd like to think that we're doing a good
enough job where you know, legislators and governors aren't necessarily
reaching out to us. However, that certainly does happen. In
(11:55):
just an hour or so before we jumped on here,
I received a call from a congressional office and something
came up and the congressman was asking for clarity on
it and some additional background information, and it did help
clear the room a little bit, which was good. So
it certainly goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And are there it is it literally the entire gamut
of issues that CSF could be interested in and working on,
or there's some kind of mast Head mission statement type
of things that that CSF really pays attention to.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
So for us, anything that fits into that hunting, fishing,
recreational shooting and trapping bucket, whether that's access to federal
public lands, whether that's access to voluntary private lands on
the hunting side, shooting range construction, access to fisheries and
making sure there's healthy habitats for fisheries, which Chris can
(12:57):
speak to. We cover the whole gamut. We really pride
ourselves and the fact that we have our hands and
virtually every single policy being considered at the federal and
state level that impacts sportsmen across the board.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
And any topics kind of do or anything. What's the
fire that's knocking on our door right now?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So I'll start on the positive side. One thing that
I'm that I think everybody in the conservation community is
really excited about is an effort that just was introduced
in Congress about three weeks ago to conserve big game
migration corridors or migration corridors across the country, including big game,
but also other things like mountain, mountain, lion and waterfowl
(13:45):
and everything else that requires habitat connectivity for their lifespan.
And so we're really excited about that. In twenty eighteen,
then Secretary Zincy signed a Secretary Order it was really
a first of its kind to conserve big game migration corridors.
But the challenge has been coming up with funding for
that initiative. So this bill seeks to simply provide funding
(14:09):
for the efforts. Since twenty eighteen, and we talked about
how conservation is really that non partisan issue and typically
what happens when you have different presidencies is the new
administration comes in and gets rid of everything that the
previous administration did. But this migration corridors effort is something
that has withstood both administrations, being the Trump administration and
(14:32):
the Biden Harris administration, and then it's received a tremendous
amount of bipartisan support and has been a priority for
both administrations. But we need to get them the funding
that they need to make these migration corridors and our
efforts to conserve them successful. So that's just one right now.
We are working on some other big conservation packages and bills,
(14:56):
one recovering America's Wildlife fact which seeks to fun species
the greatest conservation need nearly twelve thousand of those species
across the country, and then a couple other here and there.
But one that we're really excited about that Chris is
the lead on is a program known as Rigs to Reefs.
So Chris, I'll let you jump in there.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
This is one of those you know, what's on fire
situations where at one point in time, we had somewhere
around seven thousand oil and gas platforms in the Gulf
of Mexico, and over time, when those platforms finished producing,
they have to be decommissioned or removed and we're down
to right at as of earlier today I checked, we're
(15:40):
down down the one thousand and seventy nine platforms that remain,
and unfortunately a bunch of those are about to come
out or should be getting decommissioning orders very soon. And
the significance of that is, if anybody that's ever fished
in the Gulf of Mexico, especially off of Louisiana, you've
probably fished around an oil and gas platform, because it
goes from fishing to catching because they're just loaded with life.
(16:03):
And any anybody it's ever dove one can tell you
it's they're just covered in coral and articles and fish.
They're just meccas in the middle of the ocean. So
we've created all these habitats that we that have become
incredibly important fishing destinations for recreational commercial fishermen, but they've
(16:23):
also contributed to biomass production in the Gulf uh and
we're losing them. So there is a program called rigster
reef where the platform owner can voluntarily enter into an
agreement with the state and the state can acquire the
ownership of that platform and refit. And there are some
(16:46):
challenges to that, and one of those is if it's
not in an established reef zone already that's been approved
by several federal agencies, then it has to be towed,
And if it has to be towed a very long distance,
then it's not economically feasible for for the platform owners
to donate to the Rigs to Reef. They'll just take
it ashore and scrap it and recoup some of their
costs there. So one of the things that we want
(17:10):
to do is is identify those platforms out there that
have had the most significant biomass and the most significant
reefish ecosystems around them, and let's work proactively to protect
those and keep those in so that when they come
offline or those that have already come offline, what can
we do to expeditte getting those into a state's Rigs
to Reef program. So, working with Congressman Graves and Congressman vc,
(17:34):
they introduced a bill called the Marine Fisheries Habitat Protection
Act late last year that would basically require NOAH to
do an assessment of the remaining structures and if there's
an identified reef fish community, then we can pause any
decommissioning for up to I think three years right now
and to allow that platform owner to have the opportunity
(17:56):
to work with a state to get it in the
rigs to reef program, because, as you know, I might
imagine then, the number of the permitting process is pretty cumbersome.
It takes anywhere from twenty four to forty eight months
to get one one platform into the rigs to reprogram,
and we have five hundred about to come out in
the next five years. So we're trying to figure out
a way to kind of stop the bleeding. Let's identify
where the most important habitats are and let's let's do
(18:18):
what we can to save those.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, you know, it's a definitely like a jump for
the folks that you're talking about who haven't seen this
stuff firsthand, and especially if they're not anglers, because you know,
there is nothing in the Gulf outside of these man
made structures, right and you know, a rig sitting out
(18:45):
there isn't necessarily something that makes people think of a
healthy ecosystem, healthy habitat. So that's kind of an educational
piece out there for the general public as well.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah. Absolutely, And the thing is it's not just a
Gulf coast issue.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
I mean, these are in federal waters. This habitat belongs
to all of us. I mean, I know folks from
Alaska that come down to the fish out of Venice,
Louisiana and target oftentimes around oil rigs because it can
be refish, it can be pelagics, a yellow fin tuna.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
That's one of.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
The places they usually started, some of the far offshore
oil and gas platforms because of all the bait fish
that's around them. You often often find schools of tuna
there as well, So they are incredibly important. If folks
have never fished in the Gulf of Mexico, they should
be on their bucket list because you will probably be
fishing around an oil and gas platform. Can really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, and you know the snapper has for recreational fishing
versus commercial take has always been a huge conversation, certainly
in my lifetime, and those rigs are major destination for
recreational anglers to go out there and get their recreational
(20:07):
take for red snapper. But also if you're going to
burn the gas to go out there, you can encounter
kind of everything right like Kobea they get on o
Wahu out there, yellow fin tuna, some billfish, it's pretty
(20:29):
pretty wild.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right everything.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
I mean, you can you can literally catch almost every
species around on gas platforms at some point in the
in the year. I mean, from king mackerel, Spanish mackerel,
I mean, if you want to go catch those fish,
mainly off of the coast of Alabama, and we've got
several old gas platforms really close to the to the beach,
and you see folks out there all the time that
don't not really know that much about saltwater fishing interest
(20:54):
trying to get into it or just trolling plugs around
these old gas platforms and catching kingfish because they're there.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
But yeah, they're just there. They have created.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah, they are artificial, but they have contributed to a
vibrant marine ecosystem because the otherwise mud sand bottom that
the Gulf of Mexico predominantly is like ninety eight percent
of it is, was just devoid of this kind of
bottom structure and habitat that created all these fisheries. It's
not just fish, I mean it's corals as well, And
(21:26):
there's been some studies there are actually two corals found
in abundance in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and these
old gas platforms that are listed on the IUCN, the
International Union with the Conservation Nature. They're in dangered species
list and they're critically endangered elsewhere in the world. Yet
they're thriving on the northern Gulf of Mexico o gas platforms.
(21:47):
So what a great opportunity for some climate resiliency there
because we have these corals that aren't succumbing to the
warm temperatures and bleaching effects because they were growing at
different elevations along these and they can they can get
down for that thermal I mean, they're the ones that
are growing in that deeper water have that thermal refuge.
So that could be great donor colonies for for restoration
(22:10):
efforts around the world. So it's not just fish, it's
corals as well.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So the cost is always a factor. But the main
hurdle here would would be we see with something that
we see a lot in the in the conservation world,
it's like, well, it's it's kind of written down someplace,
like the agreement to go out and establish this structure
(22:35):
came with the sentences that that said it's going to
get cut off and made to look like it was
never there at some point.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
YEP that's that's right.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Now they have to unless they enter it into a
register reprogram.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
It has to be removed.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Uh, the well capped and removed and returned to the bottom,
a clear, clean bottom, just like it was whenever they
constructed it.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
And that's that's the thing is.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
That even I mean whether they are donating it to
the rigs a REEF program or they're taking it to shore,
the well still has to be capped and safely secured
in either either instance. And then another thing about when
when you talk about the cost, it really is a
win win because the oil and gas company they have
(23:25):
some cost savings, yes, but they donate they cut a
check to the state agencies that is accepting the platform
and the rigs to REEF for half of their cost
of savings. So it may be the state may get
get a million dollar check to take oil and gas
platform be used for the fisheries management, conservation and monitoring
those platforms.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
So it truly is a truly is a win win.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
So we're trying to find a way to make it
easier to transition as me and these into the state's
rigs brief programs.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
We can and are the golf states that or is
this primary Louisiana or Texas, Alabama?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (24:08):
It's primarily yeah, the four old producing states, although ironically
the first rigs to reef program was in the only
state in the golf that does not have oil produce
software shores. But but Florida received the first I think
two or three or four old gas platforms in the
rigs to reef program, And I guess it was much
cheaper back in the day when they first established that
(24:28):
back in the I think it was the late eighties
to be able to tow a platform all the way
over there. But yes, it's primarily from Texas to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Okay. And then in that transfer process is liability at
a conversation here.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Yes, basically, the the the ol and gas producer will
always be liable for the well if that well to
ever start leaking again. The state never assumes liability for
that state assumes the liability for that platform. So say
it hurt or something breaks it up the old gas
company once they transfer ownership to the state, then the
state would be the ones to assume the liability for that.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
But uh, but to.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Date, of the some four hundred or five hundred platforms
that have been in the rixster reef program. There's not
been any any issues with with the need for concerns
about liability.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
So the States will the States and the Gulf will.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Usually take as many of those platforms as they can
feasibly handle.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And and that's is that because of that those recreational
fishery dollars and those commercial fishery dollars.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yes, I mean it's it's it's access and opportunity for
their anglers. I mean, they want to keep those platforms
out there because they're going to last decades, uh and
they're going to continue to provide good fisheries habitat. So yeah,
they're they want to provide their anglers with opportunities. Alabama
has a They don't have nearly as many onl GAS
platforms as as Louisiana, but many years ago they started
(26:03):
creating other artificial reefs. I mean it started off with
cars and old car bodies, and then it transitioned to
the Albama DC and R started using decommissioned military tanks
and sinking tanks. They've used liberty ships obviously, They've been
really aggressive at creating artificial reefs and they actually now
(26:26):
their primary reef that they build is a fifteen foot
tall concrete pyramid and they'll set these out in a rage,
usually three together. But they've got a trolling corridor where
they have several hundred and a long line stretching a
couple of miles that you control over. But they have
somewhere between ten and I've heard doctor Bruce shup before
(26:46):
he passed away. He mentioned that we had about seventeen
thousand artificial reefs out there, because in addition to the
ones the States are putting in, you can get a
personal permit to create your own reef. I have approved material,
and as long as it's put in one of the
reef zones, and you don't even have to have it,
you don't have to publish it. So they don't know
exactly how many they got out there, but there's there's
(27:09):
thousands of them.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So yeah, the next time you're out there with the
captain and they get real conscious about their waypoints on
their GPS, that may be what's going on. Right.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
A lot of them when you get on the boat
will say I don't want to see anybody's phones out
except to take a picture. But yeah, I did some
calculations I worked with the Alabama DCNR and I said, okay,
so you'll create these fifteen foot pyramids.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
We figured out the.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Cubic meters, and then we looked at just a four
legged pulled up a real example. Worked with an ol
gas company. Give me the specs on just a four
called a four piles. It has four legs oil and
gas platform that's in one hundred and thirty one feet
of water in Louisiana. It is going to be converted
to the rigs to reef program. But I wanted to
figure out, you know, how much would it cost or
replace the same volume of habitat with these pyramids, and
(27:59):
for that particular structure it would it would require three
hundred and ninety seven of those pyramids that cost five
hundred dollars per cubic meter to build, go on a
barge and transport out. So it's over almost around two
million dollars for that one platform if we replaced it
by having to build new artificial structure. So again that's
(28:22):
another way this whole programs will win win. We have
this free habits out out there. Not only is it free,
low and gas companies pay the states to take it,
and is there.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
You know, for these rigs that would have to be
moved into a reef zone, is there an option there
to designate new reef zones.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
That's exactly what the bill does.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
So if if if you, if they find an established
reef fish community as defined in the bill, and basically
that means if they find any fish managed under a
fishery management council, because right now it's not written specific
to the golf, could be applied elsewhere. But if they
find a community of fish or corals that are managed
(29:06):
under a regional fish re Management council's management plan, then
that that considers an established reef fish community. So the
area immediately around that structure can then be considered a
reef planning area, so that we could reef that structure
in place, which would be ideal because when you tow,
I mean obviously you're you're disturbing that habitat significantly and
(29:28):
you're just you're moving it, you're moving, you move in
the house, and uh, it would be great if we
can keep those right there. So that's what that's one
one aspect that this bill would do. Til you make
it easier to convert these structures to rix reef.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And and yeah, so is there where does the pushback
come from? Are there any platform owners that aren't into
this for a reason or another, or uh, you know,
primarily you know, I like to wrap up these sessions
with letting our audience know who who can they write
(30:04):
to or call or email And oftentimes you get that
form letter back that says, oh, you're writing on this.
We like what you're thinking, but this is why we're
not into it, right, and so you can write a
more informed letter if you know what the opposition thinks.
(30:26):
So where are the negatives?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I think one of our one of our biggest challenges
is that this is seen as a regional issue.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It's a Gulf of Mexico issue.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And again that's where we're really trying to get the
point across that it belongs to all of us. Anybody
can come down and fish these structures in the Gulf
of Mexico. If you want to go catch fish in
the Gulf of Mexico, find an old gas platform, because
you will do it. So overcoming this notion that this
is just a regional thing is in order to make
it a higher priority in Congress, and they have so
many other things that they you know they have to
(30:56):
have to deal with another aspect of it. The pushback
is really on some some language tweaks right now, because
what what happens is if the larger oil and gas
companies they sell their platforms to smaller ol gas companies
it when it's no longer economically feasible for them to
produce at that volume, and so they sell it to
(31:19):
smaller companies, and sometimes those smaller companies sell it to
even smaller companies. And then in twenty twenty, during the pandemic,
I don't know if most people will recall or not,
but all went to own a barrel of oil went
to negative, and so a number of these small companies
just went bankrupt. So what happens when when that happens,
is when they go bankrupt and walk away from it,
(31:41):
the ownership of that platform reverts back up the chain
until it gets to a company that's not that hasn't
collapsed and it's still operable. So all of a sudden,
some of these bigger companies have hundreds of platforms back
on the books that they didn't that they sold many
years ago, and they're liable.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
For decommissioning those at this point.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
So some of them are just pulling them out as
quickly as they can so and part of that as well,
maybe too far for them to toe.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's just not economically feasible for them to do it.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And you know, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement,
the federal agency that's responsible for the decommissioning, is issuing
in decommissioning owners. You've got to get this out. You
got this out. So they're just getting it out. So
if we can find established reefish communities, we can make
it easier for them to reef in place, and we
can give them two to three years to work with
the state agencies.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
That'll be a big help.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Right. So yeah, So some of these companies are saying, hey,
a great idea, but it's it's too much of a
liability on our books to have a lot of patience.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Here, right, yep, that's it.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
But in reality, from from just the average English perspective,
I think helping us raise awareness with their members of
Congress no matter where they live, that hey, these are
important habitats and and there's tons of stuff out there
on the value of bloil and gas platforms for fishing.
We've got a we've got a landing page on our
website that folks can go to and it's I don't
(33:09):
have to h read.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
It's why you do that. You know, it's not just
folks who go down and fish in Louisiana. Louisiana is
the the only state behind I should say that, the
second UH state in the Union, second only to Alaska
for UH fish export. So they're they're pulling a lot
(33:34):
of fish out of Louisiana waters that go to a
lot of markets all over the place.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
So yeah, when you think about it, I mean, Louisiana
is on the receiving end of are one of our
largest rivers that drains two thirds of the country. So
you have all these nutrients coming down that normally without
any hard structure. There has to be hard structure to
form these these communities, refish communities, but with nothing there
(34:00):
with the sand and mud bottom, these nutrients get taken
up by fito plankton, which are microscopic plants that are
eaten by zoplankton, but they're just drifting in the water column.
They'll drift away from the shore and into the Gulf
Loop current and never be taken up locally. But when
you have hard structures, and you get barnacles, and you
(34:20):
get sea sile organisms like oysters and things. Start filtering
the water and collecting these zoplankton, then you start accumulating
that bile mass that has otherwise been leaving and just
building it all right there.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And what I guess any other concerns here? You know,
I would assume eventually all of these structures are going
to degrade to a point where they end up in
the water. Are there any environmental concerns, like long, long
term that we need to be concerned about.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Well, federal law will not allow that to happen. They
have to come out. I mean, those those that are
standing are going to have to come out or be
converted to rigs to reefs. And whenever they are putting
the rigs to reef program, one of the one of
the things that has to occur is that on the
on the top deck where all the stuff is the
(35:17):
housing and the helicopter pads and all the equipment and
the pumps, that all has to be removed and the
deck has to be cleaned and it has to be
inspected to make sure that there are no contaminants so
that when they do when we talk about reef in place.
What they do is actually cut the platform and a
certain depth below the water line, and that depth is
normally eighty feet, but you can I have seen where
(35:40):
the Coast Guard has given variances to some of them
that are in less likely or out of major shipping
lanes for large container ships, and I've seen some cut
it sixty five feet. But they'll just take that top
deck after it's cleaned with a crane, they'll cut the
legs and they'll take that piece and set it right
down beside the structure that they left still attached to
the bottom. So uh, it's briefing in places is by
(36:05):
far the best option. But they are cleaned and there
is no concern at that point. Again, like I said,
the well is plugged regardless if they're completely removed or
donate to the race reprogram.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Sure, And I mean there's there's an environmental cost of
bringing a big barge out there too, and there is
and telling that whatever it is all the way back
in to get parted out.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Right, So yes, yeah, there's tremendous, tremendous carbon footprint in that.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, nothing's free, Nope.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah. And then so is this a lobbying effort from
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation side of things. It are there avenues
for public outreach like how how can the audience kind.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Of get involved here?
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Yeah, again, reaching out to their members of Congress and
just saying this is, this is a priority for fishermen
and I'm an angler even though they again they may
live in live in Indiana. But that's really our job
right now is to help educate legislators beyond. Because the
Gulf Coast delegation all on board because they know the value,
(37:18):
the economic benefits, the social benefits of having this habitat
and the water and keeping it in the water. We've
got to convince those those members that are beyond the
Gulf Coast that this is, this is important enough habitat
to the nation that it's worth protecting, it's worth saving.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, if you're a landlocked person like myself, it's really
easy to come up with some rough numbers on just
how much you spend in these states when you go
on fishing trips, right, shocking. Sometimes it's to get home,
(37:56):
But those are important numbers, right. It's like, yeah, you know,
every year, every two years, every five years, we run
a house. We were there for a week. We eat out,
but the primary focus is we're down there to catch
fish or attempt to right, right, yeah, so please increase
(38:17):
our odds.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yes, make it, make it catching, not just fishing.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ocean is seldom
overly nice to me. We got to battle it out.
They were like a fifty to fifty partnership.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Well it's a I just I grew up in Arkansas,
in the Hills of Arkansas, and I was I was
fishing when I was five years old and just loved it.
But it wasn't until I moved to Florida for another
job many years ago that I got really thrust into
the saltwater world. And you take a boy from the
hills of Arkansas and put me in in the saltwater environment,
(39:02):
it's like this, It's a whole nother world.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Man.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
There's so many things to catch and just so many
things to fish for a different times of the year,
there's always something biden and uh yeah. If if folks
haven't have it saltwater fished, I would highly recommend that
they get down to the Gulf of Mexico because that's
that's some of the best fishing you can ever experience.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
The heck, yeah, the heck yeah, and yeah, I mean
we're we're gonna host some trips down there this October.
And I mean really, if you're a hunter and an angler, uh,
that word October probably a little perked your ears up
a little bit, like that's the type of trade that
we're talking about here. You don't you don't leave Montana
(39:43):
in October to go fishing unless it's really good.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
You got bull reds in close and you got yellowfin
tuna that are that are really stacking up off the
coast of Louisiana that time of year, and Alabama and.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Other states if you can get out that far.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Just the nice thing about Venice is that it's stuck
far enough out in the Louisiana Delta, that Mississippi River
delta that you've got a much shorter run to some
of these fisheries. And that's why October, Man, if you
haven't booked the hotel room down there, you better get
it booked soon, because everybody goes down there to go
fishing that time of the year because this is so good.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, yep, we're looking forward to it. So and then Taylor,
is there any other ways for folks to get involved
or ask some questions about Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, or you know,
if they wanted to say, hey, I listened to the podcast,
(40:40):
I wrote my congressional representative and told them about this
Riggs REEF program. Now I want to ask you to
pay attention to something else that I'm interested Dan, how
would they do that?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of easy ways there.
Cal It's one checking out our website, Renational sportsman dot org.
We also have social media pages just like everybody else,
which you can find them is through our website. And
the other one the other two options that are a
little bit different in our community is one we do
a weekly Sportsman's Voice and it's just everything that our
(41:17):
community and we at CSF are working on in that
particular week here in DC, but across the country and
in state capitals. And then the other ways with our
sports AND's Voice podcast was just captures everything that we've
been talking about and working on across the country. So
really that sports AND's Voice newsletter is a great way
to stay up to date on everything that we're tracking
(41:38):
here at the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
And then Chris did you say that there's a specific
sign up page for We.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
Do have a Rigs to Reef landing page. It's I
don't think you can get there from our website, but
it's Congressional Sportsmen dot Org slash page slash rigs dash
to dash reefs Awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
So, uh, enough googling around, you're going to be able
to find that.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Yes, yep, you should be able to. And uh, I've
got a lot more. We've got a lot more information
on I've got some references to to the science behind it,
because that's that was always one of the arguments that
we've we've heard even from Noah, is that well, these
are just fish attractors, they're not not fish producers. Well,
I think there's plenty of studies out there now, and
some very recent that demonstrate that, no, they are fish producers.
(42:30):
Uh and and those references resided there.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I mean, if if you're growing coral and you got
got the the bivalves out there, you're probably producing fish.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
There's in fact, there's there's probably fish that haven't seen
anything else in the Gulf, right yep, yep, absolutely, Well, yeah,
we will also put these pages and references up on
the Cal of the wild page at the Mediator dot
(43:08):
com to provide those easy links for you and also
keep you in the loop with all other things that
these fellows keep me addressed of all the good work
that Congressional Sportsman's Foundation is doing up there on Capitol Hill,
(43:29):
so we don't have to go out there.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Well, we sort of appreciate the time. Gal.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, thank you, Cal. We are here to protect our outdoor,
our outdoor opportunities, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Remember to write in
to ask c A L. That's Askcal at the meeteater
dot com. Let me know what's going on in your
neck of the woods. And if you have questions for
Taylor and Chris and Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, please let me know.
We can always have him back on or I can
(44:00):
get in touch with them and get those things answered
for you. So Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, now you know. Thanks again.
We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
M
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week Interview with Ryan cow Klan. Here's Cal. Hey,
they're friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to the Col's Week Interview, part podcast, part of
the Cow of the Wild podcast network. We're a network
within a network. I'm still figuring out how to properly
pitch this thing, but you're with us regardless, so you're
going to learn something this week. Our special interview session
(00:44):
is with the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, specifically with Taylor Schmiz
and Chris Horton. If you have not heard of the
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, that's one of the things you're going
to learn today, and then we're going to dig in
to some of the things that they're talking about. So
first off, we'll let these guys introduce themselves properly. Taylor,
(01:07):
why don't you go ahead? What do you do with
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Sure, thank you, Cal, and appreciate you having us on today. So,
as you mentioned, my name is Taylor Schmidts. I serve
as the director of Federal Relations for the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
I'm based out of Washington, d C. At least in
my professional capacity, but my personal capacity, I live in Maryland,
which is an important distinction in my mind because I
can at least get out hunting and fishing on the
(01:32):
weekends and spend time doing the things that I love.
So my role at the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, I work
on our federal policy issues and specifically I work with
the bipartisan, bi cameral Congressional Sportsman's Caucus, which is nothing
more to say than a group of like minded individuals
that are elected from across the country to serve in
(01:54):
both the House and the Senate that work to address
issues facing sportsmen and women and fish wildlife across the country.
I also currently serve as the chairman of the American
Wildlife Conservation Partners, which is a coalition of fifty one
of the nation's leading hunting, wildlife, conservation, and recreacial shooting
(02:14):
organizations who work under the same umbrella to develop consensus
around the issues facing sportsman and weemen conservation. So that's
something that I'm really passionate about and happy to be
leading here at CSF.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Awesome, happy to have you and you're well traveled, ma'am.
I'm on the road far too often, and I see
you most places, at most things. So Chris, what about yourself?
What do you do over there?
Speaker 4 (02:45):
Yeah? Thanks Kyle. My name is Chris Horton.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
I'm the senior director of Fisheries Policy for the Congressional
Sportsman's Foundation. I work on all things fish policy, both
the federals in the state level, work with Taylor a
lot on our federal policy issues, and then our network
of state program team staff around the country that work
with state legislative sportss caucuses in their states on supportions
issues and particularly those that deal with fisheries and aquatic resources.
(03:12):
I started my career as a fisheries biologists many years ago,
and I loved it. Didn't think I'd ever do anything different,
But it didn't take me long to realize that if
you really want to make a difference in fisheries management,
you really have to get involved with the politics of
it sometimes.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
So now I found myself working in the political right now.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Oh yeah, that's new. On the BHA side of things,
We've been talking a lot about the adversity to politics
that a lot of folks who love being outside have
don't want anything to do with politics, and then when
(03:52):
you start working more and more, there were volunteering more
and more, you know, the ideas that you're going to
influence the policy because we want to see policy changes
or sometimes policies stay the same regarding the things that
(04:13):
we like to do outside. And the question is is like,
can you avoid the politics and work on policy.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, that's exactly right, cal I think.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Just a very recent example of this was that the
Delta Waterfalic but as we can where we saw each
other and there's a luncheon and roughly one hundred people
or so in the room, and there's a question asks
raise your hand if you love politics, and I think
probably five to eight people in the room answered. They
raise their hand, And then the next question was how
(04:48):
many people in the room get frustrated when government says,
you know, you can or cannot hunt this specific area,
And every single person raised their hand. So it's you know,
unfortunately sometimes the politics gets up in the policy and
vice versa, but they do go hand in hand together.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
And it's interesting in your intro there, Taylor, you're saying
you're trying to find consensus. Can you explain that a
little bit from theF CSF perspective.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, happy to. And I'll really frame it up from
the American Wildlife Conservation Partners, which is going on its
twenty fifth year as an entity, and really AWCP for short.
We use a lot of acronyms in this community, so
I'll try to limit them. But AWCP is an easy one.
Was founded because you had all these individual organizations, whether
(05:46):
it was policy specific, interest specific, critter specific, habitat specific,
all of them working and trying to move things for
the greater good for sportsmen and women. But nobody was
organized right, and nobody was saying, and how can we
leverage these individual organizations that some organizations have seven hundred
thousand plus members, How can we leverage all of this
(06:07):
to advance the greater good for conservation and access? So
AWCP was founded. Really, what we try to do is
say what are our top priorities that we are trying
to put forward to get policy makers to address in
the very near future. That's not to say that some
policies aren't aren't important, but what do we view as
(06:28):
the most likely to get done, and what are some
new initiatives that we would like Congress or the presidential
administration to address, But really it is just trying to
get you know, fifty one organizations growing in the same direction,
saying that these are community wide priorities and that we
all should be behind this and we should all be
working towards the greater good for the community.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
And we know right now or you know as a
not too long ago, that we are going to have
a new administration here in January, I suppose. So where
does CSF fit in there? Like, what's the job of
(07:15):
the organization right now?
Speaker 3 (07:20):
So one of the things that we are working on
through a to ECP actually is a document called Wildlife
for the twenty first Century, and it's nearly a thirty
page document that lets the entire community's priorities. So we
are nearing the final stages of that right now. Once
we get it finalized, we will give it to both
presidential candidates and say here are our priorities. We'd love
(07:41):
to sit down and talk with you all about what
this looks like in terms of things that you all
can work on and that we can help you work
on together. But where we fit in there at CSF
is really being the boots on the ground organization here
in DC and knowing a lot of these folks on
both sides of the aisle and making sure that conservation
(08:02):
and access continue to remain the nonpartisan issues that they are.
So to your point, Ryan, we will. We will certainly
have a different president next year, regardless of what happens
over the next few months. But the beauty of our issues,
as I mentioned, is that conservation access are nonpartisan issues,
and I think everybody can see themselves in these issues,
(08:23):
and that's something that we are really really happy and
fortunate to UH to to work on.
Speaker 5 (08:31):
Yeah, and similar on the on the fishery side, I'm
working with the American Sport Fishing Association and some other
fishing conservation organizations to to do the same thing, to
develop those list of priorities for that that transition document
so that no matter who comes in, you know, we
we can present what are what are our priorities from
the recreational fishing and fisheries conservation perspectives, and we want
(08:52):
to regardless of who it is, we're ready to work
with you on those because again, Finn Thurn feathers should
transcend party lines.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, well, well said the The colors in the House
may change, but we're still going to be hunting and
angling no matter what.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Right right, exactly right.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And to just take a quick step back if you
had to like sum it up, Congressional Sportsman's Foundation. Is
that a who's a part of that? Is that a
membership organization or a coalition?
Speaker 4 (09:31):
How?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
How does it work?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
So we are very different here at the Congressional Sports
Foundation than most organizations in the conservation community. We are,
by and large and not a member based organizations. That's
not to say that we don't have individual donors, but
we are not an organization where you pay thirty five
dollars and receive a sticker or anything like that. Are
our members, for lack of a better term, or really
(09:55):
policymakers across the country at the federal and state level.
So the way that we work, which is very different
than every single organization in our space, is that we
work with sportsman's caucuses across the country. I mentioned the
Congressional Sports and Caucus, which is the largest bipartisan bi
cameral caucus on Capitol Hill with nearly two hundred and
(10:17):
fifty members from all fifty states, Republicans, Democrats, independents. Everybody
really is a member of that. Then we go down
to the state level with the National Assembly of Sports
and Caucuses, which is the umbrella for all fifty state
legislative Sports and caucuses. Roughly twenty three hundred or so
state legislators across the country are members of that, and
(10:38):
then we also have a Governor's Sports AND's Caucus, so
roughly thirty governors across the country. Again, everything is bipartisan
across the board. We are the nonpartisan education information arm
for those three different caucuses. And when you boil all
that down cal it really is roughly a third of
(11:00):
all elected legislators and governors across the country are a
member of one of our caucuses. So we really serve
as the legislator and governor's information education arm on all
issues related to hunting and fishing, trapping and recreacial shooting.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
And how often are those folks seeking that education versus
your role being to make sure they're aware of the
issues and the things happen, and whether looking they're looking
for it or not.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, it certainly goes both ways. I say that we
at CSF try to be extremely proactive in getting information
up to Congress, up to state legislators in the governor's office,
so I'd like to think that we're doing a good
enough job where you know, legislators and governors aren't necessarily
reaching out to us. However, that certainly does happen. In
(11:55):
just an hour or so before we jumped on here,
I received a call from a congressional office and something
came up and the congressman was asking for clarity on
it and some additional background information, and it did help
clear the room a little bit, which was good. So
it certainly goes both ways.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
And are there it is it literally the entire gamut
of issues that CSF could be interested in and working on,
or there's some kind of mast Head mission statement type
of things that that CSF really pays attention to.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
So for us, anything that fits into that hunting, fishing,
recreational shooting and trapping bucket, whether that's access to federal
public lands, whether that's access to voluntary private lands on
the hunting side, shooting range construction, access to fisheries and
making sure there's healthy habitats for fisheries, which Chris can
(12:57):
speak to. We cover the whole gamut. We really pride
ourselves and the fact that we have our hands and
virtually every single policy being considered at the federal and
state level that impacts sportsmen across the board.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
And any topics kind of do or anything. What's the
fire that's knocking on our door right now?
Speaker 3 (13:21):
So I'll start on the positive side. One thing that
I'm that I think everybody in the conservation community is
really excited about is an effort that just was introduced
in Congress about three weeks ago to conserve big game
migration corridors or migration corridors across the country, including big game,
but also other things like mountain, mountain, lion and waterfowl
(13:45):
and everything else that requires habitat connectivity for their lifespan.
And so we're really excited about that. In twenty eighteen,
then Secretary Zincy signed a Secretary Order it was really
a first of its kind to conserve big game migration corridors.
But the challenge has been coming up with funding for
that initiative. So this bill seeks to simply provide funding
(14:09):
for the efforts. Since twenty eighteen, and we talked about
how conservation is really that non partisan issue and typically
what happens when you have different presidencies is the new
administration comes in and gets rid of everything that the
previous administration did. But this migration corridors effort is something
that has withstood both administrations, being the Trump administration and
(14:32):
the Biden Harris administration, and then it's received a tremendous
amount of bipartisan support and has been a priority for
both administrations. But we need to get them the funding
that they need to make these migration corridors and our
efforts to conserve them successful. So that's just one right now.
We are working on some other big conservation packages and bills,
(14:56):
one recovering America's Wildlife fact which seeks to fun species
the greatest conservation need nearly twelve thousand of those species
across the country, and then a couple other here and there.
But one that we're really excited about that Chris is
the lead on is a program known as Rigs to Reefs.
So Chris, I'll let you jump in there.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:18):
This is one of those you know, what's on fire
situations where at one point in time, we had somewhere
around seven thousand oil and gas platforms in the Gulf
of Mexico, and over time, when those platforms finished producing,
they have to be decommissioned or removed and we're down
to right at as of earlier today I checked, we're
(15:40):
down down the one thousand and seventy nine platforms that remain,
and unfortunately a bunch of those are about to come
out or should be getting decommissioning orders very soon. And
the significance of that is, if anybody that's ever fished
in the Gulf of Mexico, especially off of Louisiana, you've
probably fished around an oil and gas platform, because it
goes from fishing to catching because they're just loaded with life.
(16:03):
And any anybody it's ever dove one can tell you
it's they're just covered in coral and articles and fish.
They're just meccas in the middle of the ocean. So
we've created all these habitats that we that have become
incredibly important fishing destinations for recreational commercial fishermen, but they've
(16:23):
also contributed to biomass production in the Gulf uh and
we're losing them. So there is a program called rigster
reef where the platform owner can voluntarily enter into an
agreement with the state and the state can acquire the
ownership of that platform and refit. And there are some
(16:46):
challenges to that, and one of those is if it's
not in an established reef zone already that's been approved
by several federal agencies, then it has to be towed,
And if it has to be towed a very long distance,
then it's not economically feasible for for the platform owners
to donate to the Rigs to Reef. They'll just take
it ashore and scrap it and recoup some of their
costs there. So one of the things that we want
(17:10):
to do is is identify those platforms out there that
have had the most significant biomass and the most significant
reefish ecosystems around them, and let's work proactively to protect
those and keep those in so that when they come
offline or those that have already come offline, what can
we do to expeditte getting those into a state's Rigs
to Reef program. So, working with Congressman Graves and Congressman vc,
(17:34):
they introduced a bill called the Marine Fisheries Habitat Protection
Act late last year that would basically require NOAH to
do an assessment of the remaining structures and if there's
an identified reef fish community, then we can pause any
decommissioning for up to I think three years right now
and to allow that platform owner to have the opportunity
(17:56):
to work with a state to get it in the
rigs to reef program, because, as you know, I might
imagine then, the number of the permitting process is pretty cumbersome.
It takes anywhere from twenty four to forty eight months
to get one one platform into the rigs to reprogram,
and we have five hundred about to come out in
the next five years. So we're trying to figure out
a way to kind of stop the bleeding. Let's identify
where the most important habitats are and let's let's do
(18:18):
what we can to save those.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, you know, it's a definitely like a jump for
the folks that you're talking about who haven't seen this
stuff firsthand, and especially if they're not anglers, because you know,
there is nothing in the Gulf outside of these man
made structures, right and you know, a rig sitting out
(18:45):
there isn't necessarily something that makes people think of a
healthy ecosystem, healthy habitat. So that's kind of an educational
piece out there for the general public as well.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah. Absolutely, And the thing is it's not just a
Gulf coast issue.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
I mean, these are in federal waters. This habitat belongs
to all of us. I mean, I know folks from
Alaska that come down to the fish out of Venice,
Louisiana and target oftentimes around oil rigs because it can
be refish, it can be pelagics, a yellow fin tuna.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
That's one of.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
The places they usually started, some of the far offshore
oil and gas platforms because of all the bait fish
that's around them. You often often find schools of tuna
there as well, So they are incredibly important. If folks
have never fished in the Gulf of Mexico, they should
be on their bucket list because you will probably be
fishing around an oil and gas platform. Can really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, and you know the snapper has for recreational fishing
versus commercial take has always been a huge conversation, certainly
in my lifetime, and those rigs are major destination for
recreational anglers to go out there and get their recreational
(20:07):
take for red snapper. But also if you're going to
burn the gas to go out there, you can encounter
kind of everything right like Kobea they get on o
Wahu out there, yellow fin tuna, some billfish, it's pretty
(20:29):
pretty wild.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Right everything.
Speaker 5 (20:31):
I mean, you can you can literally catch almost every
species around on gas platforms at some point in the
in the year. I mean, from king mackerel, Spanish mackerel,
I mean, if you want to go catch those fish,
mainly off of the coast of Alabama, and we've got
several old gas platforms really close to the to the beach,
and you see folks out there all the time that
don't not really know that much about saltwater fishing interest
(20:54):
trying to get into it or just trolling plugs around
these old gas platforms and catching kingfish because they're there.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
But yeah, they're just there. They have created.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
Yeah, they are artificial, but they have contributed to a
vibrant marine ecosystem because the otherwise mud sand bottom that
the Gulf of Mexico predominantly is like ninety eight percent
of it is, was just devoid of this kind of
bottom structure and habitat that created all these fisheries. It's
not just fish, I mean it's corals as well, And
(21:26):
there's been some studies there are actually two corals found
in abundance in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and these
old gas platforms that are listed on the IUCN, the
International Union with the Conservation Nature. They're in dangered species
list and they're critically endangered elsewhere in the world. Yet
they're thriving on the northern Gulf of Mexico o gas platforms.
(21:47):
So what a great opportunity for some climate resiliency there
because we have these corals that aren't succumbing to the
warm temperatures and bleaching effects because they were growing at
different elevations along these and they can they can get
down for that thermal I mean, they're the ones that
are growing in that deeper water have that thermal refuge.
So that could be great donor colonies for for restoration
(22:10):
efforts around the world. So it's not just fish, it's
corals as well.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
So the cost is always a factor. But the main
hurdle here would would be we see with something that
we see a lot in the in the conservation world,
it's like, well, it's it's kind of written down someplace,
like the agreement to go out and establish this structure
(22:35):
came with the sentences that that said it's going to
get cut off and made to look like it was
never there at some point.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
YEP that's that's right.
Speaker 5 (22:47):
Now they have to unless they enter it into a
register reprogram.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
It has to be removed.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Uh, the well capped and removed and returned to the bottom,
a clear, clean bottom, just like it was whenever they
constructed it.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
And that's that's the thing is.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
That even I mean whether they are donating it to
the rigs a REEF program or they're taking it to shore,
the well still has to be capped and safely secured
in either either instance. And then another thing about when
when you talk about the cost, it really is a
win win because the oil and gas company they have
(23:25):
some cost savings, yes, but they donate they cut a
check to the state agencies that is accepting the platform
and the rigs to REEF for half of their cost
of savings. So it may be the state may get
get a million dollar check to take oil and gas
platform be used for the fisheries management, conservation and monitoring
those platforms.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
So it truly is a truly is a win win.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
So we're trying to find a way to make it
easier to transition as me and these into the state's
rigs brief programs.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
We can and are the golf states that or is
this primary Louisiana or Texas, Alabama?
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Is it?
Speaker 5 (24:08):
It's primarily yeah, the four old producing states, although ironically
the first rigs to reef program was in the only
state in the golf that does not have oil produce
software shores. But but Florida received the first I think
two or three or four old gas platforms in the
rigs to reef program, And I guess it was much
cheaper back in the day when they first established that
(24:28):
back in the I think it was the late eighties
to be able to tow a platform all the way
over there. But yes, it's primarily from Texas to Alabama.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Okay. And then in that transfer process is liability at
a conversation here.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
Yes, basically, the the the ol and gas producer will
always be liable for the well if that well to
ever start leaking again. The state never assumes liability for
that state assumes the liability for that platform. So say
it hurt or something breaks it up the old gas
company once they transfer ownership to the state, then the
state would be the ones to assume the liability for that.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
But uh, but to.
Speaker 5 (25:13):
Date, of the some four hundred or five hundred platforms
that have been in the rixster reef program. There's not
been any any issues with with the need for concerns
about liability.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
So the States will the States and the Gulf will.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Usually take as many of those platforms as they can
feasibly handle.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And and that's is that because of that those recreational
fishery dollars and those commercial fishery dollars.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
Yes, I mean it's it's it's access and opportunity for
their anglers. I mean, they want to keep those platforms
out there because they're going to last decades, uh and
they're going to continue to provide good fisheries habitat. So yeah,
they're they want to provide their anglers with opportunities. Alabama
has a They don't have nearly as many onl GAS
platforms as as Louisiana, but many years ago they started
(26:03):
creating other artificial reefs. I mean it started off with
cars and old car bodies, and then it transitioned to
the Albama DC and R started using decommissioned military tanks
and sinking tanks. They've used liberty ships obviously, They've been
really aggressive at creating artificial reefs and they actually now
(26:26):
their primary reef that they build is a fifteen foot
tall concrete pyramid and they'll set these out in a rage,
usually three together. But they've got a trolling corridor where
they have several hundred and a long line stretching a
couple of miles that you control over. But they have
somewhere between ten and I've heard doctor Bruce shup before
(26:46):
he passed away. He mentioned that we had about seventeen
thousand artificial reefs out there, because in addition to the
ones the States are putting in, you can get a
personal permit to create your own reef. I have approved material,
and as long as it's put in one of the
reef zones, and you don't even have to have it,
you don't have to publish it. So they don't know
exactly how many they got out there, but there's there's
(27:09):
thousands of them.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
So yeah, the next time you're out there with the
captain and they get real conscious about their waypoints on
their GPS, that may be what's going on. Right.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
A lot of them when you get on the boat
will say I don't want to see anybody's phones out
except to take a picture. But yeah, I did some
calculations I worked with the Alabama DCNR and I said, okay,
so you'll create these fifteen foot pyramids.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
We figured out the.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Cubic meters, and then we looked at just a four
legged pulled up a real example. Worked with an ol
gas company. Give me the specs on just a four
called a four piles. It has four legs oil and
gas platform that's in one hundred and thirty one feet
of water in Louisiana. It is going to be converted
to the rigs to reef program. But I wanted to
figure out, you know, how much would it cost or
replace the same volume of habitat with these pyramids, and
(27:59):
for that particular structure it would it would require three
hundred and ninety seven of those pyramids that cost five
hundred dollars per cubic meter to build, go on a
barge and transport out. So it's over almost around two
million dollars for that one platform if we replaced it
by having to build new artificial structure. So again that's
(28:22):
another way this whole programs will win win. We have
this free habits out out there. Not only is it free,
low and gas companies pay the states to take it,
and is there.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
You know, for these rigs that would have to be
moved into a reef zone, is there an option there
to designate new reef zones.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
That's exactly what the bill does.
Speaker 5 (28:44):
So if if if you, if they find an established
reef fish community as defined in the bill, and basically
that means if they find any fish managed under a
fishery management council, because right now it's not written specific
to the golf, could be applied elsewhere. But if they
find a community of fish or corals that are managed
(29:06):
under a regional fish re Management council's management plan, then
that that considers an established reef fish community. So the
area immediately around that structure can then be considered a
reef planning area, so that we could reef that structure
in place, which would be ideal because when you tow,
I mean obviously you're you're disturbing that habitat significantly and
(29:28):
you're just you're moving it, you're moving, you move in
the house, and uh, it would be great if we
can keep those right there. So that's what that's one
one aspect that this bill would do. Til you make
it easier to convert these structures to rix reef.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And and yeah, so is there where does the pushback
come from? Are there any platform owners that aren't into
this for a reason or another, or uh, you know,
primarily you know, I like to wrap up these sessions
with letting our audience know who who can they write
(30:04):
to or call or email And oftentimes you get that
form letter back that says, oh, you're writing on this.
We like what you're thinking, but this is why we're
not into it, right, and so you can write a
more informed letter if you know what the opposition thinks.
(30:26):
So where are the negatives?
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I think one of our one of our biggest challenges
is that this is seen as a regional issue.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
It's a Gulf of Mexico issue.
Speaker 5 (30:35):
And again that's where we're really trying to get the
point across that it belongs to all of us. Anybody
can come down and fish these structures in the Gulf
of Mexico. If you want to go catch fish in
the Gulf of Mexico, find an old gas platform, because
you will do it. So overcoming this notion that this
is just a regional thing is in order to make
it a higher priority in Congress, and they have so
many other things that they you know they have to
(30:56):
have to deal with another aspect of it. The pushback
is really on some some language tweaks right now, because
what what happens is if the larger oil and gas
companies they sell their platforms to smaller ol gas companies
it when it's no longer economically feasible for them to
produce at that volume, and so they sell it to
(31:19):
smaller companies, and sometimes those smaller companies sell it to
even smaller companies. And then in twenty twenty, during the pandemic,
I don't know if most people will recall or not,
but all went to own a barrel of oil went
to negative, and so a number of these small companies
just went bankrupt. So what happens when when that happens,
is when they go bankrupt and walk away from it,
(31:41):
the ownership of that platform reverts back up the chain
until it gets to a company that's not that hasn't
collapsed and it's still operable. So all of a sudden,
some of these bigger companies have hundreds of platforms back
on the books that they didn't that they sold many
years ago, and they're liable.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
For decommissioning those at this point.
Speaker 5 (32:03):
So some of them are just pulling them out as
quickly as they can so and part of that as well,
maybe too far for them to toe.
Speaker 4 (32:10):
It's just not economically feasible for them to do it.
Speaker 5 (32:13):
And you know, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement,
the federal agency that's responsible for the decommissioning, is issuing
in decommissioning owners. You've got to get this out. You
got this out. So they're just getting it out. So
if we can find established reefish communities, we can make
it easier for them to reef in place, and we
can give them two to three years to work with
the state agencies.
Speaker 4 (32:32):
That'll be a big help.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Right. So yeah, So some of these companies are saying, hey,
a great idea, but it's it's too much of a
liability on our books to have a lot of patience.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Here, right, yep, that's it.
Speaker 5 (32:45):
But in reality, from from just the average English perspective,
I think helping us raise awareness with their members of
Congress no matter where they live, that hey, these are
important habitats and and there's tons of stuff out there
on the value of bloil and gas platforms for fishing.
We've got a we've got a landing page on our
website that folks can go to and it's I don't
(33:09):
have to h read.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
It's why you do that. You know, it's not just
folks who go down and fish in Louisiana. Louisiana is
the the only state behind I should say that, the
second UH state in the Union, second only to Alaska
for UH fish export. So they're they're pulling a lot
(33:34):
of fish out of Louisiana waters that go to a
lot of markets all over the place.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
So yeah, when you think about it, I mean, Louisiana
is on the receiving end of are one of our
largest rivers that drains two thirds of the country. So
you have all these nutrients coming down that normally without
any hard structure. There has to be hard structure to
form these these communities, refish communities, but with nothing there
(34:00):
with the sand and mud bottom, these nutrients get taken
up by fito plankton, which are microscopic plants that are
eaten by zoplankton, but they're just drifting in the water column.
They'll drift away from the shore and into the Gulf
Loop current and never be taken up locally. But when
you have hard structures, and you get barnacles, and you
(34:20):
get sea sile organisms like oysters and things. Start filtering
the water and collecting these zoplankton, then you start accumulating
that bile mass that has otherwise been leaving and just
building it all right there.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
And what I guess any other concerns here? You know,
I would assume eventually all of these structures are going
to degrade to a point where they end up in
the water. Are there any environmental concerns, like long, long
term that we need to be concerned about.
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Well, federal law will not allow that to happen. They
have to come out. I mean, those those that are
standing are going to have to come out or be
converted to rigs to reefs. And whenever they are putting
the rigs to reef program, one of the one of
the things that has to occur is that on the
on the top deck where all the stuff is the
(35:17):
housing and the helicopter pads and all the equipment and
the pumps, that all has to be removed and the
deck has to be cleaned and it has to be
inspected to make sure that there are no contaminants so
that when they do when we talk about reef in place.
What they do is actually cut the platform and a
certain depth below the water line, and that depth is
normally eighty feet, but you can I have seen where
(35:40):
the Coast Guard has given variances to some of them
that are in less likely or out of major shipping
lanes for large container ships, and I've seen some cut
it sixty five feet. But they'll just take that top
deck after it's cleaned with a crane, they'll cut the
legs and they'll take that piece and set it right
down beside the structure that they left still attached to
the bottom. So uh, it's briefing in places is by
(36:05):
far the best option. But they are cleaned and there
is no concern at that point. Again, like I said,
the well is plugged regardless if they're completely removed or
donate to the race reprogram.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
Sure, And I mean there's there's an environmental cost of
bringing a big barge out there too, and there is
and telling that whatever it is all the way back
in to get parted out.
Speaker 5 (36:30):
Right, So yes, yeah, there's tremendous, tremendous carbon footprint in that.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Yeah, nothing's free, Nope.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah. And then so is this a lobbying effort from
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation side of things. It are there avenues
for public outreach like how how can the audience kind.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
Of get involved here?
Speaker 5 (36:57):
Yeah, again, reaching out to their members of Congress and
just saying this is, this is a priority for fishermen
and I'm an angler even though they again they may
live in live in Indiana. But that's really our job
right now is to help educate legislators beyond. Because the
Gulf Coast delegation all on board because they know the value,
(37:18):
the economic benefits, the social benefits of having this habitat
and the water and keeping it in the water. We've
got to convince those those members that are beyond the
Gulf Coast that this is, this is important enough habitat
to the nation that it's worth protecting, it's worth saving.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, if you're a landlocked person like myself, it's really
easy to come up with some rough numbers on just
how much you spend in these states when you go
on fishing trips, right, shocking. Sometimes it's to get home,
(37:56):
But those are important numbers, right. It's like, yeah, you know,
every year, every two years, every five years, we run
a house. We were there for a week. We eat out,
but the primary focus is we're down there to catch
fish or attempt to right, right, yeah, so please increase
(38:17):
our odds.
Speaker 4 (38:18):
Yes, make it, make it catching, not just fishing.
Speaker 2 (38:22):
There you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. The ocean is seldom
overly nice to me. We got to battle it out.
They were like a fifty to fifty partnership.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
Well it's a I just I grew up in Arkansas,
in the Hills of Arkansas, and I was I was
fishing when I was five years old and just loved it.
But it wasn't until I moved to Florida for another
job many years ago that I got really thrust into
the saltwater world. And you take a boy from the
hills of Arkansas and put me in in the saltwater environment,
(39:02):
it's like this, It's a whole nother world.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
Man.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
There's so many things to catch and just so many
things to fish for a different times of the year,
there's always something biden and uh yeah. If if folks
haven't have it saltwater fished, I would highly recommend that
they get down to the Gulf of Mexico because that's
that's some of the best fishing you can ever experience.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
The heck, yeah, the heck yeah, and yeah, I mean
we're we're gonna host some trips down there this October.
And I mean really, if you're a hunter and an angler, uh,
that word October probably a little perked your ears up
a little bit, like that's the type of trade that
we're talking about here. You don't you don't leave Montana
(39:43):
in October to go fishing unless it's really good.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
You got bull reds in close and you got yellowfin
tuna that are that are really stacking up off the
coast of Louisiana that time of year, and Alabama and.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Other states if you can get out that far.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Just the nice thing about Venice is that it's stuck
far enough out in the Louisiana Delta, that Mississippi River
delta that you've got a much shorter run to some
of these fisheries. And that's why October, Man, if you
haven't booked the hotel room down there, you better get
it booked soon, because everybody goes down there to go
fishing that time of the year because this is so good.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, yep, we're looking forward to it. So and then Taylor,
is there any other ways for folks to get involved
or ask some questions about Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, or you know,
if they wanted to say, hey, I listened to the podcast,
(40:40):
I wrote my congressional representative and told them about this
Riggs REEF program. Now I want to ask you to
pay attention to something else that I'm interested Dan, how
would they do that?
Speaker 3 (40:54):
Yeah, I think there's a couple of easy ways there.
Cal It's one checking out our website, Renational sportsman dot org.
We also have social media pages just like everybody else,
which you can find them is through our website. And
the other one the other two options that are a
little bit different in our community is one we do
a weekly Sportsman's Voice and it's just everything that our
(41:17):
community and we at CSF are working on in that
particular week here in DC, but across the country and
in state capitals. And then the other ways with our
sports AND's Voice podcast was just captures everything that we've
been talking about and working on across the country. So
really that sports AND's Voice newsletter is a great way
to stay up to date on everything that we're tracking
(41:38):
here at the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
And then Chris did you say that there's a specific
sign up page for We.
Speaker 5 (41:48):
Do have a Rigs to Reef landing page. It's I
don't think you can get there from our website, but
it's Congressional Sportsmen dot Org slash page slash rigs dash
to dash reefs Awesome.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
So, uh, enough googling around, you're going to be able
to find that.
Speaker 5 (42:07):
Yes, yep, you should be able to. And uh, I've
got a lot more. We've got a lot more information
on I've got some references to to the science behind it,
because that's that was always one of the arguments that
we've we've heard even from Noah, is that well, these
are just fish attractors, they're not not fish producers. Well,
I think there's plenty of studies out there now, and
some very recent that demonstrate that, no, they are fish producers.
(42:30):
Uh and and those references resided there.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
I mean, if if you're growing coral and you got
got the the bivalves out there, you're probably producing fish.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Right.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
There's in fact, there's there's probably fish that haven't seen
anything else in the Gulf, right yep, yep, absolutely, Well, yeah,
we will also put these pages and references up on
the Cal of the wild page at the Mediator dot
(43:08):
com to provide those easy links for you and also
keep you in the loop with all other things that
these fellows keep me addressed of all the good work
that Congressional Sportsman's Foundation is doing up there on Capitol Hill,
(43:29):
so we don't have to go out there.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Well, we sort of appreciate the time. Gal.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Yeah, thank you, Cal. We are here to protect our outdoor,
our outdoor opportunities, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Awesome. Thank you guys so much. Remember to write in
to ask c A L. That's Askcal at the meeteater
dot com. Let me know what's going on in your
neck of the woods. And if you have questions for
Taylor and Chris and Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, please let me know.
We can always have him back on or I can
(44:00):
get in touch with them and get those things answered
for you. So Congressional Sportsman's Foundation, now you know. Thanks again.
We'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 4 (44:10):
M
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