June 27, 2025 • 73 mins
In this week's interview episode, Cal sits down with Wired to Hunt's Mark Kenyon to give you all the latest on the public land battle in Washington, D.C., as well as a trip update from their adventure in the Arctic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week in Review with Ryan col Kallan. Here's Cal.
Hey all you Col's week in Review listeners, Cal the wild.
I feel like there should be like a hour hour
there or maybe at this point in time with the
(00:32):
state of current events. Uh, what's the last last song
that they played on the Titanic?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Anyway, Celindian, Oh God.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
A hero for women of a certain age. That buttery
smooth voice is Mark Kenyon of the Wired to Hunt podcast.
And you are probably paying attention to Mark these days
because he's putting out a lot of really fantastic, well
(01:05):
researched conservation news through all of his channels. It's much appreciated.
Mark Kenyon is currently residing in the Great State of Idaho,
working on a full time move over there. But Mark
and I just got done with a really spectacular trip
(01:27):
to the Alretic National Wildlife Refuge. We're like crazy, spoiled
kid stuff asked to join a trip up there. Literally
the job was just to come see it. And spoiler alert,
if you want to start an extractive business, you shouldn't
(01:53):
go see this place, because if you do you wouldn't
do it like it's just it's it's a hard landscape
to walk away from and think it doesn't matter. But
we're gonna get into that. We're gonna talk about the
roadless Rule, We're gonna talk about where we are right
(02:14):
now with the public lands, fight in the Senate, and
probably a bunch of other stuff. So Mark Kenyon, happy
to have you on the show. What's happening? Man?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh man, I'm happy to be here too, And you're right,
there's no shortage of stuff to talk about. It seems
like every day there's some big new piece of news,
there's some twist in the story. So so yeah, we've
got our hands full here, as does everyone who cares
about these things.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And everyone is caring about these things. I one of
the most. I was full, so like riddled with anxiety
on that trip. I tried to give that trip away
to everybody we know, even though I my sales pitch
is like I desperately want to go on this trip,
(03:04):
but I just can't swing it. Please go on this
and tell me all about it, And nobody took me
up on it due to you know, family re unions
and I don't know, kids being born and things like that.
So but I was so riddled with anxiety over the
state of the potential loss of public lands that I
(03:27):
didn't want to be disconnected from the world for a week,
which is the exact opposite of how I am all
the rest of the time.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I think what we learned, though, Kel was that maybe
you and I need to take off for these trips
more often, because in the five days between when we
left and went off grid to when we came back,
a lot happened that was, you know, largely positive, wouldn't
you say?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah? I mean it was like a light switch all
of a sudden, like flipped and that feeling of like
shouting into the void like hey, this is happening. You
can make a difference. You got to get active. This
is real, and people being like, well, it's a nice
(04:16):
day of fish. That kind of switched over to like,
holy shit, it's in my backyard. Wilderness Society released those maps.
That was a huge, huge catalyst, I believe, because all
(04:36):
of a sudden, people were like, oh my god, hunters
love reading maps, right, They're like, this is real. I
recognize some of these spots. We just came out of
a BHA board meeting, one of our board members, James
Brandenburg from Arkansas, was like the spot where I learned
(04:58):
about public lands. They were on a family road trip
to Colorado. The kids needed to stretch their legs. They
went out and they were hiking around. They kept seeing
these signs being like your public lands, your public lands.
And one of his kids was like, Dad, what what
is public land? And he had to google it?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right, And ever since then he was like, I cannot
believe we have this and have access to this, And
ever since then has been like kind of an evangelist
for public lands. That spot is up for sale, right,
and thousands and thousands of stories like that, because the
(05:42):
sales pitch had a Senator Mike Lee is like, oh,
these these places aren't iconic landscapes. They don't matter. They're
low bounden variety, garden variety. Right. And to somebody who
doesn't leave DC and only cares about the machinations of
(06:05):
the federal government and how to divest people of something
so valuable to the rank and file of America, they
don't matter, right, And that's that's like a hard thing
with certain people. Is this particular individual Senator Mike Lee
(06:28):
out of Utah, like he is a true believer in
the fact that land is only valuable once it's lost
its ecological value, like the things that people who care
about hunting, fishing, wide open spaces care about. Once those
things are gone, then that land is living up to
(06:51):
its true potential, which is, you know, producing income. But
you know it's like where the where do we get
our food?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, so many, so many questions there. I felt the
same way that when I saw that map, because I
saw a mountain that was right next to the mountain
that I killed my first elk. I saw a piece
of national forest where my kids had their first backpacking
trip ever. I saw the place that I went for
a trail run the day before I saw that map,
(07:25):
So that definitely hit home.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
For me too.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's amazing the breadth of possible lands that were, you know,
up for grabs in that sale. Now it does sound
like things are changing now, hopefully, but I'm sure we'll
cover that in more detail. But there's a lot in
flux right now, and largely because of I mean, there's
some rule type stuff that's dictating some of this, but
(07:49):
then there's also no doubt about it, like public pressure
is making a difference right now.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, and we're seeing the things that we know to
be true, but for whatever reason, we'ren't being talked about
out in the open, which is this stuff belongs to everybody,
It matters to everybody. And what I'm seeing is the
belly of the bell curve of America sometimes pot bellied
(08:18):
belly of the Bell Curve of America is saying, oh,
that stuff matters, it's ours, It is benefiting America as is.
And as we talked about a lot, right like, this
is the stuff that families can access, that people can
(08:38):
access before after work or over their lunch hours. It's
the stuff that you can quickly get to for a
short weekend. And what happens when all that front country's gone?
What happens to the back country. We just penned a
letter on behalf of hunting specif Businesses that release today.
(09:04):
I think we're calling it like the Hunting Brands Hunt
Brands Coalition, just stating like the clear economics of what
will happen to hunting industry brands, This includes firearm ammunition
manufacturers if we lose access to places, right and it's
(09:26):
like every season is somebody's first season and somebody's last season.
I put in terms of bird dogs, like you're bringing
on a new puppy and you're doing that last retirement
hunt with an old dog. Then that happens every season.
(09:47):
Every season is critical and when we remove access, like
we know, this is not hyperbole, it's an absolute fact.
Access is the thing that brings people in to hunting
and fishing, and it's the thing that closes people out.
It's the thing that makes people hang up their waiters
(10:07):
and shotguns straps and say, you know what, it's too
much of a pain in the ass anymore. So it
impacts all around man.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And I think that's that's a big part of why
this has been you know, this is broken out of
some of the usual patterns that you see when it
comes to some issues related to public lands or wildlife
for the environment. We're starting to see people speak out
on this, but maybe traditionally haven't. We're seeing some brands
and some individuals who maybe have been you know, resistant
(10:42):
to criticizing some of the things happening in recent times
all of a sudden saying okay, yeah, this is this
is something we all need to speak out. And so
you're hearing pushback on this from you know, Republicans, Democrats,
and everyone in between. I mean, this is as bipartisan
of a pushback as you could ever ask for. And
I view that despite a lot of the stuff being
(11:02):
really concerning, the one silver lining I see out of
this is that it's showcasing the influence and the impact
that we can make when it comes to you know,
standing up for public places, wildlife, wild places. That the
impact we can have when we do this across the
party divide. When when when we can kind of bridge
(11:23):
the gap between left and right or hunt and fish
and you know.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Ari I crowd.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
When these parties and groups come together on some stuff
that we have shared interests in, you know, we can
change things, We can move the needle. And that is encouraging.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It is and I think you know, Republican elected officials
are starting to understand that if they sit back and
let Mike Lee represent the entirety of the Republican Party,
that's not a winning strategy. No, that's a losing strategy.
And for everybody else there is a version of this
(12:01):
where if you didn't speak up over and over and
over again, we were going to lose something. Right, So
the yeah. I mean there's a lot of versions of
this right, And we talked in the conservation space, and
(12:24):
that's like conservation organizations as well as individuals, motivated individuals
who are willing to speak out about this stuff and
catch some heat for it. Right. It's pretty funny how
this conversation turned from like an anti Trump conversation to
(12:48):
a pro hunting, fishing, public land, public access, outdoor recreation argument,
which big shocker. Everybody across the political spectrum is in
favor for right, like we need our access, we need
our open spaces. It's it's been interesting to see how
(13:12):
this this ball has moved, right.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, so kil do you think you do you want
to get folks up a speed on what has just
come out as of last night or this morning, at
least as of us recording this, because you know, while
we were in Alaska, the you know, the Senate version
of the bill became wildly understood by folks. That's when
really the opposition became kind of viral when we came back.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
When we got back, we.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Got news that senators from Idaho were coming out against it,
you know, some continued public comments of opposition from your
senators there in Montana somewhat. And then just last night
slash earlier this morning, we got another piece of big news.
Is now the time to kind of explain that.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, we we can do that. We need to talk
about like the fun, amazing stuff of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge too. So yeah, very succinctly, the Senate is
in the balls in the Senate's court as far as
like the budget game. So all your state senators are
(14:22):
working on their individual pieces of this budget pie. How
Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Mike Lee had
put together a plan Mike Lee slid in his public
land sales provision, which was dumping gasoline on a raging fire.
(14:45):
Very divisive. It's becoming more and more clear that there
wasn't room for compromise on this. It also turns out,
as of last night, it was determined to be in
violation of the bird rule, which it is the bird rule,
(15:07):
but I think just for fundsies, it's when things are
subject to the bird rule, it's referred to as the
bird bath. And you know, I'm not an expert on
this one, but essentially what it is is when one
party controls the House and the Senate, you need fewer
(15:32):
votes to get things done. It's like a easy ticket
to ride. The Bird rule comes in to make sure
that things can't be passed because there is this concentration
of power that aren't specific to the budget process. So
(16:01):
it's super efficient because the Republicans in this case have
the House and the Senate. But that's not like a
ticket to steal type of thing, right, can't just jam
everything in because you're conveniently passing something like the budget.
So in this case, Mike Lee's public land sell off
(16:22):
was found to be in violation of the bird rule
and that as well as Ambler Road were removed. It
was leaked that they were removed last night. It was
confirmed early this morning, and that's great. However, it's not
(16:44):
done yet. None of the language is set. We haven't
seen the text yet. Yea, And right now Mike Lee
is running around like his head's on fire and his
ass is catching as the man one said to try
to make as many allies as he can on revised
(17:06):
language of land selloff. So he kind of went for like,
to any reasonable person, what would be like the whole Enchilada,
millions of acres of public land being sold to a
much smaller version where he's trying to make possibly primarily
(17:30):
Bureau of Land Management lands only for sale within a
certain radius of previous or previously existing infrastructure, towns, municipalities,
which is a more reasonable approach, so reasonable in fact
that through FLIPFA and flip MA, those types of land
(17:54):
sales are already provided for YEP and FLIPFA and flip MA.
And I don't want to bog people down in acronyms,
but the big thing that you need to know is
these are small documents that are basically put together to
tell the American taxpayer what the value is of that
(18:18):
tract of land, so we know if we're getting a
fair deal by selling it off. And then in those
provisions that cash the revenue generated from those sales would
go back into finding land replacement land, possibly not of
equal acreage, but of higher strategic value. So Mike Lee
(18:44):
is just trying to get his dream accomplished at the
expense of the American people. What he says this is
for is already provided for in a way that the AMA,
our con taxpayer, has already voted on. We've already signed off,
stamped on, it's been subject to public approval, and it's
(19:10):
one of those things. It's not perfect for everybody, but
the American voter approved of this, and it passed, and
it exists. The legal framework exists, and it is not
in this budget process where revenues do not go back
to the American people, they go into this empty freaking debt,
(19:33):
void bucket that not a single person on the planet
or in the United States of America will ever feel
it is gone and we will not see the benefit
of it. Yeah, certain words, I know, but I mean,
it's it is just the freaking reality kids, A little appropriate.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I gotta ask you this question, though.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So in the tweet that likely sent out recently overnight,
I think it was talking about the changes he's going
to try to make in his new version to try
to pass the bird rules. Yeah, he mentions, as you
alluded to, he's going to remove all of the Forest
Service lands from the sale.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
No, no, no, Mark, you missed some key language there. He said,
I won't sell our forests. And when the hell did
Mike Lee start considering any of this public land as ours?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
That is funny, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
He's conveniently trying to become a user now, right, which
there's an amazing This is a total of off topic,
but there's a great article that does a deep dive
into how the state of Utah hired a PR firm
to help them develop their language in their strategy for
pitching the land sale or land transfer movement, and part
(20:56):
of it was using language from Randy and other people
in the hunting industry and nbha yeah, and like analyzing
it to learn Okay, this is how they're talking about,
how do we use their language and kind of co
opt that language to get those same people to believe
us instead.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Can you believe that shit?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean we've been talking about
it for a long time, right, So, I mean we
got to remember, like the Utah part of this started
with a case that they tried to expedite to the
United States Supreme Court, Yeah, to steal our BLM land.
Yeah right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, but let me get to this.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Okay, So he says they're going to get rid of
the Forest Service lands in the sale, they're going to
significantly reduce the amount of BLM land to just lands
within five miles of population centers. But here's the one
that gets me that I'm just curious about if you
know anything about this, He says they are going to
in this new version, they're going to establish freedom zones
to ensure these lands benefit American families.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
But the hell are freedom zone?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So freedom zones come from this like tech world. God,
there's kind of like some libertarian notion here, there's kind
of some yeah, I mean, it's kind of like rooted
in anti government, but like freedom cities were a buzzword
(22:24):
under the previous Trump administration, and that that's where that
language comes from. So basically it's like an autonomous zone.
Ask the city as Seattle how that worked out for
tech folks with big money to come in and do
whatever the hell they want. But their pitch is it's
going to be like, you know, the ultimate city because
(22:47):
it's built, you know, by tech oligarchs. Basically they use
different words, if you can imagine that.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
So that sounds terrific.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, And and what's amazing to me, right is I
you any contractor any contractor in any of these states
could sit down and write a reasonable affordable housing development plan.
(23:23):
And that is one thing we have not seen this
dude do. So if it's about affordable housing, where is
the affordable housing plan like it is doesn't exist because
that is not what this is about. Why because that
is already provided for. Like Biden sold off some big
chunks that actually got sold ultimately sold under Trump, but
(23:49):
that was something that was rubber stamped under him, you know,
back in Oh gosh, I want to say the seventies,
we have the another Nevada version of flipfah, and then
you know what, a lot of folks because it is
(24:10):
political and therefore full of screw us and rage is
you know, part of Harris's plan had she been elected,
was to continue some sales in Nevada. Right, However, those
are done under the legal framework that already exists in
(24:30):
a way that has way that actually has benefit to
the American people.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And some guardrails.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Right, Yes, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
A lot happening right now and a lot still TBD
right like we're waiting to see the real final language
of whatever this new version is. We're waiting to see.
You know, I know that Ambler supposedly struck out of this,
but there's possibly new language around stuff from the Western Arctic,
and if we still don't know about Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge stuff yet, all sorts of news on so many fronts.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I mean that is the the thing. It's it's
a game of whack a mole political strategy, Like you're
not going to be able to get them all. The
reason that we bring up boundary waters, Artic National Wildlife Refuge,
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or what is it, National Petroleum Reserve, National.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Control Reserve, Alaska, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Alaska, Yeah, Oak Flat. All you know, all these places
is because they're incredible and specifically where you and I
were at, Man, Like, where the hell is ducks unlimited
(25:57):
on that? Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I know, I mean there's Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So the Arctic Plane is a giant nesting ground and
literally birds from all over the world. And when I
say all over the world, every place other than Australia
will come and stop over on the Arctic Plane. All
fifty states, in all fifty states. This is a duck
(26:28):
and goose production factory. It's one of those places that
is so far flung, it's it's out of sight and
out of mind. However, like my observation is, man, pretty
damn easy to get there. I left Missoula, Montana, like
(26:49):
seven to fifteen pm and was up in the Brooks
Range at like three pm, Alaska time the next day. Yeah,
so it's inconvenient, but it's right there too, like you
can get there fast, and it's staggering, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Would it be helpful for me to give like a
very fast rundown of like what this place is history
wise and scale?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, man, because I feel like even the man with
the folder.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
The man with the full I literally do have like
a forage thick binder that we got on this trip
that I'm very excited about. But yeah, so so this place,
the Arctic National Wilafe Refuge, it was established.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
In nineteen seven.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Can you hear that?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Dog?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I can't here snort?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, trace, Oh no, keep this in phil That's called discipline,
all right.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So the Arctic National Wilife Refuge.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It was originally established in nineteen sixty by the Eisenhower
administration by way of many years of folks advocating for it,
folks like Oloffs and Marty Mury, who are well famed
in Wyoming. In many parts across the country, Eldo Leopold
advocated for Bob Marshall advocated for it. A whole bunch
(28:20):
of folks that are pretty well known in the conservation
world still to this day. But nineteen sixty was officially
created and it was made about about nine million acres
were established as a refuge at that point to be
protected for wildlife habitat. Fast forward another twenty years and
in nineteen eighty the Carter administration had this huge bill passed.
(28:41):
It was the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act, I think,
and that is what established many of the national parks
and wildlife refuges and willderness areas in Alaska. And what
that one does, it doubled the size of the refuge,
so it was now about nineteen million acres as of
nineteen eight But they had to make a kind of
(29:04):
a little compromise concession there to get that bill passed
on that front. And what it did is that it
set aside a big chunk of the refuge is wilderness,
but a one point five million acre section of it,
known as the Coastal Plane, was to be studied for
future decisions on whether it should be preserved as wilderness
(29:24):
alone or if it could be open to oil extraction
in the future. And so that one point five million area,
the Coastal Area, or some people referred to as the
ten oh two. That is what I'm sure we'll get to.
That's this kind of contended part of the refuge. And
to your point, you know this nearly almost twenty million
acre piece of public land, it's i think the second
(29:46):
largest piece of public land in the nation, second to
only the the Western Arctic. That National Petroleum Reserve Alaska
that's the largest. This is I think the second largest.
As you mentioned, the Coastal Plane is a duck and
bird factory, migrator birds from all over the world. The
largest caribou herd left in the world is here. There's muskos,
(30:07):
there's polar bears, the largest inland denning site, the most
inland denning sites in Alaska exist here for polar bears.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
There's grizzly bears.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Wolves, muskos, dimensioned muskos, and lord knows how much else.
I mean, it's vast, it's huge. There's the Brooks Range
Mountains as you mentioned, and then this Coastal Plane ecosystem,
so several very different kind of landscapes that provide this
diversity of habitat that leads to the vast wildlife. And
(30:38):
the final thing I'll say is that people often refer
to this as the American serengetty, like, this is our
version of the African serengetti. This is this vast ecosystem
where there are huge, sprawling herds of wildlife still migrating
across the landscape. This caribou herd moves something like twenty
seven hundred miles a year as it travels across the
(30:59):
refue huge into Canada and back. So you know, we've
got something on scale here, on par here with anything
else in the world. And it's pretty amazing that to
your point, that that's here in our country, that's you know,
to some day accessible to us as Americans and man,
(31:20):
like you said, we were just spoiled kid lucky to
get to see it and experience it ourselves. But it's uh,
it it met and maybe exceeded all expectations I had
because it's somewhere I've I've read about, I've watched films about,
I've dreamed about for years. To finally see it in
the flesh was.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
A transformative I had, like two you know, very like
emotional points, like I have literally constructed my life with
many sacrifices relationship wise, uh, financial wise, uh, over the
(32:04):
course of my life to stay outside as much as
possible and and be in wild places. I'm easily impressed.
But the Brooks Range I was told ahead of time
by a good backpacking buddy of mine, Old Brad Brooks,
that it was one of the most impressive places he's
(32:27):
ever been, possibly the most impressive place he's ever been.
And I was really blown away. But there are two
times where I literally had, you know, knots in my
guts and just like a heavy emotional thoughts. Which one
(32:58):
I'm gonna do this in reverse order. One was flying
from our first camp, which would be in general terms,
would be on a southern portion of the Porcupine caribou
herd migration. We flew literally on the same path as
the caribou that we're coming through camp, over several mountain
(33:22):
passes to what I would call like the Gates of
the Mountains, where a short hike from Camp number two
brought you onto the coastal plane. And if anybody's been
in eastern Montana driving west towards like Glacier National Park,
we talk about the rocky mountain front or the front,
(33:45):
and it's this severe landscape where it is high prairie
and then it just hits these wall walls of mountains,
and this is is similar that not the same, but
very similar. And on that flight, following these ancient caribou paths,
(34:06):
I just didn't expect the valleys to keep going. Like
the scale and complexity of the landscape was so much,
so immense that you know, when I've spent a ton
of time in the frank Church and the Bob Marshall
here in the lower forty eight, and they're hemmed in
(34:30):
by like man made boundaries. Right, It's like, got Highway
ninety three on the east side. He got Hell's Canyon
on the west side, but there's all these highways and
dirt roads in between. Highway twelve to the north. You
got you know, civilization, Stanley, Idaho is like the little
tip of the frank down there on the south end.
(34:50):
And then the Bob Marshall Wilderness has just like a
brutal complex checkerboard of private land on the east side
that's getting worse and worse and constricting access. You got
(35:11):
Glacier National Park on the norst west side, Mariah's Pass,
you got the Mission Valley that's populated. You got the
Blackfoot Corridor that's a huge recreation corridor, essentially like it's
rung with people, right, And I can look at those
maps and be in those places, and I spent a
ton of time in there, and they're they're beautiful and
(35:31):
immense on their own, but they are peopled. They're way
more people than we were. And I can look at
those maps and be like, oh, yeah, I can hoof
it out of here, I can hunt it this way,
I can break it up in these ways, flying through
those mountains and looking at the way that each valley
(35:55):
didn't end like it it kept turning and twisting and
going on out of sight or culminating in this giant
glacial ice cap in a mountain to climb that led
to another valley. It just kept opening up and getting
bigger and bigger and bigger. And it wasn't rung by civilization,
(36:21):
like there's points of contact, there's airstrips and small communities
in an ocean, but you couldn't walk out of there.
And where I started to just kind of get panicky
and sad is the fact that I looked at that
stuff and it was so it was calling me right,
(36:45):
like I wanted to go there. I wanted to explore.
I wanted to see it all, and as a forty
two year old man, it was just smacking me in
the face that I could spend the rest of my
life up there and not scratch the surface. And the
reality is I could be born up there and live
it and breathe it every day and not scratch the surface.
But it was conflicting because I was like, Oh, I
(37:08):
shouldn't even start, I shouldn't even be here. It's too good,
It's it's too awesome. I you know, it was like
it was just just a lot to take in and
I just haven't had that feeling before. And then the
other time that like I just had a what the
(37:32):
hell type of moment. Was we hiked up to that
peak above Gamp and I and we were aware of
this gimmick, right, this this for sale sign that Lily
and our crew had brought up specific for this point,
but she was pissed about having to haul it up there,
and and nobody liked the idea, and it was a gimmick.
(37:57):
And and we climb up onto this peak and we're
looking around at this onspiring landscape and I throw up
the binoculars and I look down at camp and I'm like, oh,
the for sale sign is up and she had brought
like your cookie cutter white vinyl for sale sign, Property
(38:20):
twenty one, Remax name, whatever real estate company you can
think of. They use those signs. They're ubiquitous, you know them.
You see it, you're like, oh, that is a for
sale sign. That's a real estate sign. And she has
got this thing staked out, and I just, you know,
(38:42):
I was like, Oh, Lily's got the for sale sign up.
And then I kept looking at it and I was like, Oh,
that really makes me feel something here, and it's I
think for me, it was like a mix of betrayal
and certainly pissed offedness, but I think mostly like betrayal,
(39:04):
and maybe that comes from like a lifetime of of
underappreciating public lands. And then all of a sudden you're
slapped in the face with like, oh, yeah, they're gonna
take it away. You just saw this briefly, but we're
gonna sell it, right. And then we hiked off that mountain,
(39:27):
got back to camp and that for sale side still up,
and those feelings didn't go away. If anything, they got
more complex and stronger. But it was just like an unexpected,
very visceral, real reaction to something that wasn't a surprise,
Like we knew that the gimmick was going up, we
(39:48):
packed it with us, but then seeing it on the
landscape was horrifying.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
What made it feel a whole lot more real. I mean,
this proposed all these and it's.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Not like this is new.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Different versions of this have been proposed repeatedly over time,
but now this latest one seemed even more threatening than ever.
And then to see a place that's so amazing, and
then to see that physical representation of this god awful
idea right there. Yeah, I mean it's like hits you
in the face, attention grabbing. And I don't like it either,
(40:24):
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I did not, you know, the.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Emotional moments scale. I had one of those two, and
I felt the same two things you mentioned. But I
had another really strong moment for myself, which was when
we got to camp too, which is the one that
you described there that was near the coastal plane, and
we all set up our camps and then kind of
people went off in their own direction. You went off
(40:50):
looking for a moose paddle to the south. I headed
to the north, and I climbed up on top of
this knob that was right on the edge of the
coastal plane, and I'm up there by myself, about three
miles from camp and got to really see the coastal
plain for the first time. And so you could see,
like you mentioned this like big wide, open grassy plain.
(41:10):
You can literally see twenty twenty some miles all the
way to the Arctic Ocean. You can see the pack ice.
It's like all this huge frozen white pack ice expanse
across the ocean there and then to either side, to
the east and west, you're just seeing this never ending
grassland and you can literally see I mean, I don't know.
I knew it was like twenty two or twenty five
miles to the ocean to my north, and I could
(41:32):
see at least maybe three times that far to the
east or west, so I don't know, sixty seventy eighty
miles maybe more to the east or west. And as
far as you can see it is this unbelievable wild
expanse that you know is populated by caribou and muskos, bears,
all the things that we talked about the beginning. And
I remember just sitting there and just being so in
(41:52):
awe of that landscape, so appreciative that we still have
a place like this, but then also so simultaneously struck
by the very real possibility of that changing in the
relative short term. And this is the first time in
my life that I've been somewhere where I could see
something so tangibly that might be dramatically different in a
(42:15):
number of years. Because this coastal plane, as I mentioned,
that's the one point five million acre section that they've
debated over the over decades about whether or not to
open that to oil leases. And in this reconciliation bill
right now being debated, if it were to pass as
(42:35):
the language is in there currently, it would mandate opening
the refuge to oil drilling. It would fast track that process,
and it could lead you know, as we talk to
these people who have you know, deep experience with us,
it could lead to in a matter of a handful
of years, this wide open, incredible wildlife habitat becoming vastly different.
(42:57):
In five years, maybe if this passes as it's written
right now, we might go back there in five years
and see instead industrial quarter built across the plane. You know,
oil rigs, gas flares, you know, housing for workers, semi trucks.
(43:18):
Lord knows what else. I mean, this just unbelievable. Wilderness
resource could be dramatically different. And I sat there on
top of that mountain looking down on that thinking, number one,
this is amazing. Number two I want my children and
other future generations to be able to experience this, and
(43:39):
number three the real slap you in the face reality
that that might not be possible. And as I sat
there and contemplate all that, I had very real, a
very real emotional response.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
It was.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It was.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Daunting.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was it was both inspiring to see what's there
now and really discouraging to consider what might be there someday.
And I've never seen that contrast so starkly and in
such a real way right in front of my face
like I did then.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
It was It's almost like, you know what I was
saying about Every hunting season is a little puppy bird
Dogs first season or old bird Dogs last season, and
it's like we were having both of those seasons at
the same time.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
It's like, here's this place. Even if you come back,
you'll never see it the same way again if this
development goes through. And folks, I'm a total realist. I
burn a shitload of gas, so much of my life
(44:55):
comes out of the ground in one way or another,
as does yours. The fun fact is is we don't
need these resources, not right now. They are safely underground,
and ultimately one of the most valuable resources underneath one
of the most valuable resources this planet has right now,
(45:18):
which is wide open space that hasn't been developed, like
this is something that is only going to go up
in value forever and ever, and the world at large
is losing these landscapes at an incredibly fast rate, like
we don't understand the value of these places. Not in
(45:43):
the context of our time here on this planet. I
can confidently tell you that I mean. Just one fun
fact to noodle on is once the snow and ice
melt has run off all the fresh water up there,
of which there is an unbelievable amount, and it's tasty,
(46:05):
it takes It's a thousand year old water by the
time it bubbles up to the surface out there on
the Arctic plane. So the water that seeps in, leeches
in to the tops of those mountains and gets down
into the aquifer is a thousand years old, thousand year
(46:26):
old snowflakes and rain drops by the time it bubbles
up on the surface of that plane, So you're literally,
you know, drinking the water that fell on some poor
hunters shoulders a thousand years ago, got brushed off a
muskox back a thousand years ago, which is wild to
(46:50):
think about. And if you can put things in that context,
there's so much more that we obviously do not know.
I mean, we're dealing with timelines on landscapes that we
just don't quite have the capacity to understand right now.
(47:11):
So I push back on the development of these places
because I think, or maybe naively want to believe that
if we keep working on our development technology that one
(47:31):
day we'll be able to extract from these reserves when
we absolutely need them and in a way that does
not impact the landscape, certainly not in a way that's
going to like quite literally kill off the last remaining
(47:59):
healthy caribou herd right or untold amounts of migratory birds.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Cal's like, even if we were to, like to your point,
we have we need resources, we need these things. I
understand that, but aren't there some places where maybe it's
not the right place at the right time to do it,
especially these last pristine few places, which, to your point
are are one of the rarest resources left and will
(48:35):
only increase in that value. You know, as I understand it,
there's somewhere between like six and ten billion barrels hypothetically
underneath the coastal plane, which I'm going to get the
SPECIFICUS here wrong, but I think I remember reading something
like that would only account for enough oil to be
used in the United States for six months to a year, and.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Those we don't know that, right, it is it's hypothetical.
We don't know what those reserves are. The speculation is
that if it was really worth getting it already would
have been got at this point. And just the exploration
(49:26):
practice is pretty brutal on the landscape as far as
the impacts of the great term here thumper trucks going
across the tundra and doing the seismic readings to determine
what's in the ground. And so I mentioned the infrastructure
(49:50):
needed to support people doing the work, and then the
reality is like this stuff where it's at has got
to be subsidized by the US government in order to
make it profitable for the companies that want to do
(50:12):
the extraction. So it's it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul,
and nobody has been able to explain this to me
in a way that it actually makes sense fiscal or otherwise.
If you can man Guest number one at the top
of the show, I would love, love, love to learn
(50:34):
more and hear it. But that's the whole point of
doing these moratoriums. In my mind. The Boundary Waters moratorium,
which is something we need to talk about too, is like,
it's a twenty year moratorium. Show me use that twenty
(50:56):
years to show me a better plan that's not going
to have tremendous downstream effects that would negate any sort
of fiscal positive. You could pull out of this project
and we'll talk about it. Then.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
You know, well, because with all these things kel especially
up in the Arctic, it's it's a short term resource
extraction opportunity in this case hypothetically, but.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
A nearly forever impact on the landscape.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So it's it's not one of those things that you
can like, well, yeah, we'll do it for a little
bit and we'll.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Turn it back to how it was.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
That's just not possible, and so you're you're getting a
short term benefit at the price of an extremely long
term cost on those other fronts. That's that's a really
questionable swap as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Absolutely, man, Absolutely, the reasoning for the the time line
right like doesn't exist. I don't know what the what
the what the rush is for.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Yeah. Well, and it's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
It almost seems like every every everything we've read so
far and talked to folks have, you know, said, they've
echoed what you just mentioned, which is that the economics
of drilling in this particular place right now are just
not there, Like, it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective,
but politicians continue to pursue it regardless. And it almost
(52:30):
seems like it's become more of like a trophy, like
a political football thrown around, and folks just want to
open it up and make it happen to to say
they did it, or to spite the opposition, to inspite
the you know, the greenies or the environmentalists or whatever
you want to call anyone that supports this area. So
it feels almost spiteful in that way. Given all of that,
(52:52):
and like you said, like if they were to do it,
there's there's rumors and talk of well they're you know,
if this gets past, the government will simply subsidize and
or you know, influence even foreign companies to invest and
do this kind of stuff just because they want to
get it done, even though it's not profitable. So yea,
(53:14):
for so many reasons. It seems like a bad idea
to me, even more so now that we've actually experienced
what it's like now.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Absolutely and you know, it's those economic facts right of
that landscape is tremendously valuable. It's only going to go
up in value as is. There's already gosh, I can't
(53:45):
remember how many businesses. There's already already a lot of
businesses up on that landscape operating for different industries and capacities,
including what we'd call recreation, right like flying people in
to check birds off the bird list, hunt all sorts
of species, uh, climb ski uh, pack raft raft fish.
(54:11):
And those dollars that are collected and then redistributed by
the local businesses are recent are recirculated on average between
three and five times. And whereas the extractive industries when
they go in there, the bulk of that wealth is
(54:35):
is literally shipped off with the oil like it's those
are extractive dollars that do not circulate over and over
in those communities. And when you you try to balance
out the wreckage that landscape is going to cause and
the timeline in which the profitability will be in effect,
(54:59):
I guess you'd say, it just paints like a really
bleak picture of like what the hell of our goals are?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, well, here's the thing kill I've you know, I
know you've dove into this a lot yourself, but I've
read like extensively into the history of our public land system,
how we got these places, all of the conservation history
that led us to this point, and every you know,
every decade, every single year since we first established the
(55:33):
early parts of our public land system, every year since,
there have been debates and arguments over the same set
of issues. The same idea is, like we want to
take out resources or we want to conserve these places,
and the same general things have been argued over and
over and over and over. When you look back at
every one of the battles within this fight that conservationists
(55:54):
have won, every one of these places we have been
able to protect in some kind of way or conserve
in some kind Every single one of them. You look
back on it now, and folks look back on it,
they say, repeatedly, oh my gosh, how did we ever
consider losing Mount Deinnali in that area. Oh my gosh,
we are so lucky that we still have the area
around the tongus.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
They were trying to raise it to the ground. They
were trying to, you know, just cut every single thing that.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Oh my gosh, how lucky are we that we have
the Bob Marshall Wilderness or Glacier National Park. Can you
imagine life without Yellowstone or all these different places. Back
at the time, there were so many business interests that said,
this is crazy to set this side apart, this stuff apart,
This is a land grab, this is nuts. You guys
are crazy. We need to take the resources. We need
to extract the oil, we need to cut the timmer,
(56:42):
we need to do whatever it is. And they painted
the conservationists or preservationists as nut jobs. But then fifty
years down the road, you look back and everyone says,
thank goodness, we protected this spot. It's so valuable, it's
so special, it's so worthwhile. And I think that's going
to be the case now. These last few places that
(57:02):
we have, like this, We're never going to get them
back if we sacrifice them now and fifty years from now,
when my kids are, you know, raising families of their own,
they're going to look back on this and they're either
going to say to themselves, man, I'm really proud of
my you know, my dad and his friends and his
(57:22):
you know, cohort of people in that generation who stood
up and protected these places that now in twenty seventy
we still have around and people can appreciate and value
is so so special and rare. Or they're going to
look back on this to say, geez, they they took
their foot off the pedal. They didn't live up to
Roosevelt and Pinchot and Grennelle and Leopold.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
I don't want that to be the case.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
No, no, And I don't understand why there's like this
attempted fire sale on our natural resources right now, when
it's evident, like the world over, so much of our
(58:10):
models of extraction, land use, and land management are so
highly regarded, and right now it's like we're trying to
tear them down. When you bring up the tongus, right,
it's like we got to talk about the roadless rule,
(58:31):
which you should probably take the lead on this one.
But for folks who don't know, the roadless rule pertains
to like I think it's fifty eight or fifty nine
million acres of ground in the US, and that rule
(58:52):
has been an impediment to certain extractive industry, is mining
and logging being really like the top two. I will
point out that I had a buddy that used to
work at Mitas Gold. They're out of Yellow Pine, Idaho,
(59:14):
and we used to roll up there for the Yellow
Pine Harmonica Festival. If you've never been, it's pretty darn sweet.
Used to have a honor bar so you could grab
beers out of the fridge and stuff some cash. Anyway,
they would they were in a roadless area that mine,
but they would when the price of gold was high enough,
(59:36):
they would just mine with helicopters so that they would
roll cruise in with helicopter, drop everybody off, do the work,
and then take the or out and the personnel at
the end of the day via a helicopter. So rollless
rule didn't stop everything, but it did force industries to
(01:00:00):
to extract in other ways and sometimes much more costly.
But Mark, do you want to want to tackle the
roadless rule.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, So starting in the nineteen thirties, kil folks like
Elder Leopold and Bob Marshall started looking at our National
Forest Service lands and saying, wow, they are getting carved
up to pieces right now, the last few places that
we have. Even in the nineteen thirties, they were beginning
to realize this, these last few places that do not
(01:00:32):
have roads provide this unique value that probably should be
protected now because everything else is getting very quickly kind
of developed in one way or another. So starting then,
they began a process within the National Forest Service of
inventoring the last remaining roadless areas, and they started designating them.
(01:00:53):
There was like L two and L one lands within
the Forest Service were kind of like de facto wilderness.
Those areas were kept track of and getting some special
protections until the sixties when the Wilderness Act came into play,
and that is when some places within the Forest Service
and other public lands were designated as like Capital W wilderness,
(01:01:14):
which meante no motorized vehicles, no development, et cetera. But
then there still were other lands, specifically within the Forest
Service that were inventoried as roadless but not yet protected
with Capital w wilderness protections, but they still were unroaded,
which you know, roads bring with them a lot of
different detriments when it comes to like wildlife or experience
(01:01:38):
or ecosystem impact, stuff like that. The Forest Service has
nearly four hundred thousand miles of roads that it has
created so far, which I believe makes it one of
the largest road managers in the world, I think is
what I remember hearing so tremendous amount of road construction
they've done to this point. In two thousand and one,
(01:02:02):
a rule was created called the Roadless Rule, which had
been advocated for a whole bunch of decades leading up
to that, basically saying, all right, these last chunks of
forest lands that we have national force that do not
have roads yet, let's keep those last places unroaded because
we already have four hundred thousand miles of other roads
crisscrossing and carving all this other stuff. Let's leave these
(01:02:24):
last few places in a slightly more protected place, so
that yes, there are you know, hundreds of millions of
acres of lands that are accessible by road, that are developed,
that are utilized for resource extraction or easy access recreation, hunting, fishing,
all those kinds of things. But this sixty million acre
chunk we will have in this state will let this
(01:02:47):
area remain in this unroaded state so that you do
have that kind of experience and those places still, you know,
available for wildlife that do not respond well to roads,
typically like you know, grizzly bears, elk, all these things
would prefer to be in unroaded areas. So since two
thousand and one we've had that, and it is you know,
I mean, these are the places that many of us love.
(01:03:08):
These are the places that many of us hike into
for elk hunting or backcountry fishing trips.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Or yeah, specifically four on the map.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, I mean, these are these spots like if you
are a diehard elk hunter or a mule deer hunter
or anything like that, I mean, these are usually.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
The best of the best.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
And as of yesterday now, the administration has announced that
they are going to roll back remove the roadless rule
and open up this nearly sixty million acres to new
road development and all the other things that come with that.
It's a huge it's a huge deal. I don't think
a lot of people understand that. But this is this
(01:03:46):
is not that this is almost like saying we're going
to roll back the Wilderness Act because the roadless Rule
has created to some degree a close approximation to wilderness
for sixty million acres and removing that is a massive
thing that I'm not sure the average everyday person is
aware of because it just doesn't get talked.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
About a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
But I sure hope folks learn about it now because
this is a big one.
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
It is a big one. It is a big one,
And do you know where we're at on that. I
know there's gonna be like and already are a lot
of lawsuits on this announcement, but I'm not clear on
whether or not, like we have a chance to comment yet,
(01:04:35):
other than you know, asking our senators and representatives to
push back on this again.
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
So so I'm not one of this, but my assumption
would be that right the announcement came out yesterday, I
believe they're gonna have to put some text around this,
which then will have to be eventually released to the
public register. And once it's released to the public register,
I think it has to be open to comment. So
at some point there will be a public comment period
(01:05:05):
on this proposed rule change. We'll have an opportunity to
weigh in. Not to what degree they take our comments
into you know, account, you know, that's questionable, but at
least there will be a chance to weigh in on this.
And then, yes, I think there's gonna be a lot
of litigation. I think there'll be some orgs suing on
this one. But because it is an administrative action, like
(01:05:27):
an executive administrative action, this isn't anything that you know,
Congress can help us stop or anything like that. This
is this is a the administration wants to do this thing.
They're going to start changing the rule. They're going to
propose that, they're going to put it out there, and
then unless you know, the court system can stop it,
it'll happen.
Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Yep. Yeah, well, uh, Secretary Bergham and Secretary Rawlins I,
I I'd like to see their plan, Like have they
thought about this one? Are they familiar with what it is?
Do they know the why? Like, tell me the why?
(01:06:09):
You know, obviously we use a lot of timber in
our lives too. I'm gonna need the math on what
exists in these areas, the juice and the squeeze argument,
just to just put it in context. Right.
Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Oh yeah, well, you know, we've been down this road before.
If you if you look at what happened in the
eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds when there was no
there were no guardrails on you know, taking wildlife and
selling it or you know, developing mines or oil fields
(01:06:46):
or you know, logging timber or doing anything. When when
there were not regulations, when there weren't some kind of
guardrails in place, some kind of moderation in place, what happened.
It's the tragedy of the commons, is what folks referred
to it as we just we use this stuff till
it's gone. Everyone races to get their peace, and it
ends up decimated. That's why we lost passenger pigeons, That's
(01:07:10):
why we almost lost buffalo. That's why so many of
our wildlife populations came just to the very brink because
a quote unquote wild West as we kind of know
of it now, like an unregulated you know, race to take, take,
take that doesn't work in the long term. And now
what folks.
Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Seemed also to do in the nineteen sixties and nineteen
seventies when much of this four hundred thousand miles of
road was built. It was the government that built those
roads for the timber companies, right, in order to make
it profitable enough for the timber companies to go in
and harvest that timber. True, right, And here in the
(01:07:52):
era of Doge and something that we talk about on
fire management is we it's like, well, the free market's
going to take care of that. So is that is
the free market going to protect us from the fact
that you can't build, maintain a road into these areas
and extract the timber and make it pencil out. Because
(01:08:16):
we know for damn sure living here in Montana that
this idea of people taking unmarketable fuels out of the
forest in the name of wildfire management is something that
you pay for, not get paid to do, right, Like
there's no market here in the West for the products
(01:08:39):
that you get for timber that's under four inches in
diameter and brush. So yeah, I don't again, I need
need somebody to explain it to me. Mark, you got
you got time for one more one more thought? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Yeah, you want my thought or you have a question
for me?
Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
No, I want I want your thought here, Like, let's
let's uh end on positive. What do you suggest folks
do well.
Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I think the one big positive from this whole thing
is something we talk towards the beginning, which is, despite
all of this news, despite a handful of knuckleheads who
want to tear this thing down that we have, it
does seem that we still have a voice, especially when
we work across parties, when we work across demographics, when
(01:09:37):
we work across you know, recreation type of choice, when
the hunters and the hikers, and the Democrats and the
Republicans and the environmentalists and the conservationists and the Montanans
and the Massachusetts folks, when we can, you know, realize
that we really care about ninety percent of the same things,
and we work together towards protecting or advocating for the
(01:10:00):
those things.
Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
We do have.
Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Some say, still we can, we can still be heard.
We can put the fire to the feet of some
of these folks who continue to push some of these
you know, short term gain ideas that will hurt.
Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Us in the long term.
Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
I think that it proves that our phone calls, our emails,
our messages, our visits to the capital or to the
state capital, or our signs that we hold up in
front of the capitol building whatever it is, it all
can help, it all can make a difference, and we
just got to keep on, keep it on. This isn't
going to be like, oh we want it today. This
(01:10:37):
is going to be I think something we're going to
have to continue pounding on for a while. But it
is not fruitless, it is not hopeless. We can make
a difference and we are and we can keep on
doing so if we keep it up.
Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Well said man, well said, we got to wrap it up.
I'll just throw in if you're waiting to pay play
party politics. By weighing in on an election cycle, you're
basically saying that you're willing to give up everything until
that election cycle starts. So if you're not participating right now,
(01:11:14):
you're just a bum in my eyes, and you're not invested.
That's the reality where we're at. Like your conservation stamp
is a great thing, paying for your licenses and tags
is a great thing, But right now it's not enough.
You got to use your voice too, show up, play
your part, make phone calls, make those staffers and those
(01:11:37):
senators and representatives' offices know your voice and like you
so they become an advocate for you. It's not that hard.
They're real people such as you are, and start playing
in this game. You owe it to yourself and everybody
around you if you really really do give a shit.
So also hit the old BHA Action Alert Center. We've got,
(01:12:02):
as of this recording, over one hundred thousand people that
have clicked that button and either called or emailed their
representative or senator. And being able to point to those
numbers is tremendously valuable when you're up there lobbying on
(01:12:22):
the hill. So I appreciate you as per usual. Right
in to ask c A. L. That's Askcal at the
Meat Eater dot com. Let me know what's going on
in your neck of the woods. If you got something
good to say on this one for old Mark Kenyon,
you can hit him up directly, or you can hit
(01:12:42):
me up and we'll have him back on this this
show to address those questions. Thanks again, We'll talk to
you next week. Thanks Mark,
From Meat Eaters World News headquarters in Bozeman, Montana. This
is Col's Week in Review with Ryan col Kallan. Here's Cal.
Hey all you Col's week in Review listeners, Cal the wild.
I feel like there should be like a hour hour
there or maybe at this point in time with the
(00:32):
state of current events. Uh, what's the last last song
that they played on the Titanic?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Anyway, Celindian, Oh God.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
A hero for women of a certain age. That buttery
smooth voice is Mark Kenyon of the Wired to Hunt podcast.
And you are probably paying attention to Mark these days
because he's putting out a lot of really fantastic, well
(01:05):
researched conservation news through all of his channels. It's much appreciated.
Mark Kenyon is currently residing in the Great State of Idaho,
working on a full time move over there. But Mark
and I just got done with a really spectacular trip
(01:27):
to the Alretic National Wildlife Refuge. We're like crazy, spoiled
kid stuff asked to join a trip up there. Literally
the job was just to come see it. And spoiler alert,
if you want to start an extractive business, you shouldn't
(01:53):
go see this place, because if you do you wouldn't
do it like it's just it's it's a hard landscape
to walk away from and think it doesn't matter. But
we're gonna get into that. We're gonna talk about the
roadless Rule, We're gonna talk about where we are right
(02:14):
now with the public lands, fight in the Senate, and
probably a bunch of other stuff. So Mark Kenyon, happy
to have you on the show. What's happening? Man?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Oh man, I'm happy to be here too, And you're right,
there's no shortage of stuff to talk about. It seems
like every day there's some big new piece of news,
there's some twist in the story. So so yeah, we've
got our hands full here, as does everyone who cares
about these things.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
And everyone is caring about these things. I one of
the most. I was full, so like riddled with anxiety
on that trip. I tried to give that trip away
to everybody we know, even though I my sales pitch
is like I desperately want to go on this trip,
(03:04):
but I just can't swing it. Please go on this
and tell me all about it, And nobody took me
up on it due to you know, family re unions
and I don't know, kids being born and things like that.
So but I was so riddled with anxiety over the
state of the potential loss of public lands that I
(03:27):
didn't want to be disconnected from the world for a week,
which is the exact opposite of how I am all
the rest of the time.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I think what we learned, though, Kel was that maybe
you and I need to take off for these trips
more often, because in the five days between when we
left and went off grid to when we came back,
a lot happened that was, you know, largely positive, wouldn't
you say?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah? I mean it was like a light switch all
of a sudden, like flipped and that feeling of like
shouting into the void like hey, this is happening. You
can make a difference. You got to get active. This
is real, and people being like, well, it's a nice
(04:16):
day of fish. That kind of switched over to like,
holy shit, it's in my backyard. Wilderness Society released those maps.
That was a huge, huge catalyst, I believe, because all
(04:36):
of a sudden, people were like, oh my god, hunters
love reading maps, right, They're like, this is real. I
recognize some of these spots. We just came out of
a BHA board meeting, one of our board members, James
Brandenburg from Arkansas, was like the spot where I learned
(04:58):
about public lands. They were on a family road trip
to Colorado. The kids needed to stretch their legs. They
went out and they were hiking around. They kept seeing
these signs being like your public lands, your public lands.
And one of his kids was like, Dad, what what
is public land? And he had to google it?
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Right, And ever since then he was like, I cannot
believe we have this and have access to this, And
ever since then has been like kind of an evangelist
for public lands. That spot is up for sale, right,
and thousands and thousands of stories like that, because the
(05:42):
sales pitch had a Senator Mike Lee is like, oh,
these these places aren't iconic landscapes. They don't matter. They're
low bounden variety, garden variety. Right. And to somebody who
doesn't leave DC and only cares about the machinations of
(06:05):
the federal government and how to divest people of something
so valuable to the rank and file of America, they
don't matter, right, And that's that's like a hard thing
with certain people. Is this particular individual Senator Mike Lee
(06:28):
out of Utah, like he is a true believer in
the fact that land is only valuable once it's lost
its ecological value, like the things that people who care
about hunting, fishing, wide open spaces care about. Once those
things are gone, then that land is living up to
(06:51):
its true potential, which is, you know, producing income. But
you know it's like where the where do we get
our food?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah, so many, so many questions there. I felt the
same way that when I saw that map, because I
saw a mountain that was right next to the mountain
that I killed my first elk. I saw a piece
of national forest where my kids had their first backpacking
trip ever. I saw the place that I went for
a trail run the day before I saw that map,
(07:25):
So that definitely hit home.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
For me too.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
It's amazing the breadth of possible lands that were, you know,
up for grabs in that sale. Now it does sound
like things are changing now, hopefully, but I'm sure we'll
cover that in more detail. But there's a lot in
flux right now, and largely because of I mean, there's
some rule type stuff that's dictating some of this, but
(07:49):
then there's also no doubt about it, like public pressure
is making a difference right now.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, and we're seeing the things that we know to
be true, but for whatever reason, we'ren't being talked about
out in the open, which is this stuff belongs to everybody,
It matters to everybody. And what I'm seeing is the
belly of the bell curve of America sometimes pot bellied
(08:18):
belly of the Bell Curve of America is saying, oh,
that stuff matters, it's ours, It is benefiting America as is.
And as we talked about a lot, right like, this
is the stuff that families can access, that people can
(08:38):
access before after work or over their lunch hours. It's
the stuff that you can quickly get to for a
short weekend. And what happens when all that front country's gone?
What happens to the back country. We just penned a
letter on behalf of hunting specif Businesses that release today.
(09:04):
I think we're calling it like the Hunting Brands Hunt
Brands Coalition, just stating like the clear economics of what
will happen to hunting industry brands, This includes firearm ammunition
manufacturers if we lose access to places, right and it's
(09:26):
like every season is somebody's first season and somebody's last season.
I put in terms of bird dogs, like you're bringing
on a new puppy and you're doing that last retirement
hunt with an old dog. Then that happens every season.
(09:47):
Every season is critical and when we remove access, like
we know, this is not hyperbole, it's an absolute fact.
Access is the thing that brings people in to hunting
and fishing, and it's the thing that closes people out.
It's the thing that makes people hang up their waiters
(10:07):
and shotguns straps and say, you know what, it's too
much of a pain in the ass anymore. So it
impacts all around man.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
And I think that's that's a big part of why
this has been you know, this is broken out of
some of the usual patterns that you see when it
comes to some issues related to public lands or wildlife
for the environment. We're starting to see people speak out
on this, but maybe traditionally haven't. We're seeing some brands
and some individuals who maybe have been you know, resistant
(10:42):
to criticizing some of the things happening in recent times
all of a sudden saying okay, yeah, this is this
is something we all need to speak out. And so
you're hearing pushback on this from you know, Republicans, Democrats,
and everyone in between. I mean, this is as bipartisan
of a pushback as you could ever ask for. And
I view that despite a lot of the stuff being
(11:02):
really concerning, the one silver lining I see out of
this is that it's showcasing the influence and the impact
that we can make when it comes to you know,
standing up for public places, wildlife, wild places. That the
impact we can have when we do this across the
party divide. When when when we can kind of bridge
(11:23):
the gap between left and right or hunt and fish
and you know.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Ari I crowd.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
When these parties and groups come together on some stuff
that we have shared interests in, you know, we can
change things, We can move the needle. And that is encouraging.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
It is and I think you know, Republican elected officials
are starting to understand that if they sit back and
let Mike Lee represent the entirety of the Republican Party,
that's not a winning strategy. No, that's a losing strategy.
And for everybody else there is a version of this
(12:01):
where if you didn't speak up over and over and
over again, we were going to lose something. Right, So
the yeah. I mean there's a lot of versions of
this right, And we talked in the conservation space, and
(12:24):
that's like conservation organizations as well as individuals, motivated individuals
who are willing to speak out about this stuff and
catch some heat for it. Right. It's pretty funny how
this conversation turned from like an anti Trump conversation to
(12:48):
a pro hunting, fishing, public land, public access, outdoor recreation argument,
which big shocker. Everybody across the political spectrum is in
favor for right, like we need our access, we need
our open spaces. It's it's been interesting to see how
(13:12):
this this ball has moved, right.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, so kil do you think you do you want
to get folks up a speed on what has just
come out as of last night or this morning, at
least as of us recording this, because you know, while
we were in Alaska, the you know, the Senate version
of the bill became wildly understood by folks. That's when
really the opposition became kind of viral when we came back.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
When we got back, we.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Got news that senators from Idaho were coming out against it,
you know, some continued public comments of opposition from your
senators there in Montana somewhat. And then just last night
slash earlier this morning, we got another piece of big news.
Is now the time to kind of explain that.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, we we can do that. We need to talk
about like the fun, amazing stuff of the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge too. So yeah, very succinctly, the Senate is
in the balls in the Senate's court as far as
like the budget game. So all your state senators are
(14:22):
working on their individual pieces of this budget pie. How
Senate Energy Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Mike Lee had
put together a plan Mike Lee slid in his public
land sales provision, which was dumping gasoline on a raging fire.
(14:45):
Very divisive. It's becoming more and more clear that there
wasn't room for compromise on this. It also turns out,
as of last night, it was determined to be in
violation of the bird rule, which it is the bird rule,
(15:07):
but I think just for fundsies, it's when things are
subject to the bird rule, it's referred to as the
bird bath. And you know, I'm not an expert on
this one, but essentially what it is is when one
party controls the House and the Senate, you need fewer
(15:32):
votes to get things done. It's like a easy ticket
to ride. The Bird rule comes in to make sure
that things can't be passed because there is this concentration
of power that aren't specific to the budget process. So
(16:01):
it's super efficient because the Republicans in this case have
the House and the Senate. But that's not like a
ticket to steal type of thing, right, can't just jam
everything in because you're conveniently passing something like the budget.
So in this case, Mike Lee's public land sell off
(16:22):
was found to be in violation of the bird rule
and that as well as Ambler Road were removed. It
was leaked that they were removed last night. It was
confirmed early this morning, and that's great. However, it's not
(16:44):
done yet. None of the language is set. We haven't
seen the text yet. Yea, And right now Mike Lee
is running around like his head's on fire and his
ass is catching as the man one said to try
to make as many allies as he can on revised
(17:06):
language of land selloff. So he kind of went for like,
to any reasonable person, what would be like the whole Enchilada,
millions of acres of public land being sold to a
much smaller version where he's trying to make possibly primarily
(17:30):
Bureau of Land Management lands only for sale within a
certain radius of previous or previously existing infrastructure, towns, municipalities,
which is a more reasonable approach, so reasonable in fact
that through FLIPFA and flip MA, those types of land
(17:54):
sales are already provided for YEP and FLIPFA and flip MA.
And I don't want to bog people down in acronyms,
but the big thing that you need to know is
these are small documents that are basically put together to
tell the American taxpayer what the value is of that
(18:18):
tract of land, so we know if we're getting a
fair deal by selling it off. And then in those
provisions that cash the revenue generated from those sales would
go back into finding land replacement land, possibly not of
equal acreage, but of higher strategic value. So Mike Lee
(18:44):
is just trying to get his dream accomplished at the
expense of the American people. What he says this is
for is already provided for in a way that the AMA,
our con taxpayer, has already voted on. We've already signed off,
stamped on, it's been subject to public approval, and it's
(19:10):
one of those things. It's not perfect for everybody, but
the American voter approved of this, and it passed, and
it exists. The legal framework exists, and it is not
in this budget process where revenues do not go back
to the American people, they go into this empty freaking debt,
(19:33):
void bucket that not a single person on the planet
or in the United States of America will ever feel
it is gone and we will not see the benefit
of it. Yeah, certain words, I know, but I mean,
it's it is just the freaking reality kids, A little appropriate.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I gotta ask you this question, though.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So in the tweet that likely sent out recently overnight,
I think it was talking about the changes he's going
to try to make in his new version to try
to pass the bird rules. Yeah, he mentions, as you
alluded to, he's going to remove all of the Forest
Service lands from the sale.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
No, no, no, Mark, you missed some key language there. He said,
I won't sell our forests. And when the hell did
Mike Lee start considering any of this public land as ours?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
That is funny, that's funny.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
He's conveniently trying to become a user now, right, which
there's an amazing This is a total of off topic,
but there's a great article that does a deep dive
into how the state of Utah hired a PR firm
to help them develop their language in their strategy for
pitching the land sale or land transfer movement, and part
(20:56):
of it was using language from Randy and other people
in the hunting industry and nbha yeah, and like analyzing
it to learn Okay, this is how they're talking about,
how do we use their language and kind of co
opt that language to get those same people to believe
us instead.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Can you believe that shit?
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, I mean yeah, I mean we've been talking about
it for a long time, right, So, I mean we
got to remember, like the Utah part of this started
with a case that they tried to expedite to the
United States Supreme Court, Yeah, to steal our BLM land.
Yeah right, so.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, but let me get to this.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Okay, So he says they're going to get rid of
the Forest Service lands in the sale, they're going to
significantly reduce the amount of BLM land to just lands
within five miles of population centers. But here's the one
that gets me that I'm just curious about if you
know anything about this, He says they are going to
in this new version, they're going to establish freedom zones
to ensure these lands benefit American families.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
But the hell are freedom zone?
Speaker 1 (22:00):
So freedom zones come from this like tech world. God,
there's kind of like some libertarian notion here, there's kind
of some yeah, I mean, it's kind of like rooted
in anti government, but like freedom cities were a buzzword
(22:24):
under the previous Trump administration, and that that's where that
language comes from. So basically it's like an autonomous zone.
Ask the city as Seattle how that worked out for
tech folks with big money to come in and do
whatever the hell they want. But their pitch is it's
going to be like, you know, the ultimate city because
(22:47):
it's built, you know, by tech oligarchs. Basically they use
different words, if you can imagine that.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
So that sounds terrific.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, And and what's amazing to me, right is I
you any contractor any contractor in any of these states
could sit down and write a reasonable affordable housing development plan.
(23:23):
And that is one thing we have not seen this
dude do. So if it's about affordable housing, where is
the affordable housing plan like it is doesn't exist because
that is not what this is about. Why because that
is already provided for. Like Biden sold off some big
chunks that actually got sold ultimately sold under Trump, but
(23:49):
that was something that was rubber stamped under him, you know,
back in Oh gosh, I want to say the seventies,
we have the another Nevada version of flipfah, and then
you know what, a lot of folks because it is
(24:10):
political and therefore full of screw us and rage is
you know, part of Harris's plan had she been elected,
was to continue some sales in Nevada. Right, However, those
are done under the legal framework that already exists in
(24:30):
a way that has way that actually has benefit to
the American people.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And some guardrails.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Right, Yes, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
A lot happening right now and a lot still TBD
right like we're waiting to see the real final language
of whatever this new version is. We're waiting to see.
You know, I know that Ambler supposedly struck out of this,
but there's possibly new language around stuff from the Western Arctic,
and if we still don't know about Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge stuff yet, all sorts of news on so many fronts.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Yeah, I mean that is the the thing. It's it's
a game of whack a mole political strategy, Like you're
not going to be able to get them all. The
reason that we bring up boundary waters, Artic National Wildlife Refuge,
the Strategic Petroleum Reserve or what is it, National Petroleum Reserve, National.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Control Reserve, Alaska, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Alaska, Yeah, Oak Flat. All you know, all these places
is because they're incredible and specifically where you and I
were at, Man, Like, where the hell is ducks unlimited
(25:57):
on that? Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I know, I mean there's Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So the Arctic Plane is a giant nesting ground and
literally birds from all over the world. And when I
say all over the world, every place other than Australia
will come and stop over on the Arctic Plane. All
fifty states, in all fifty states. This is a duck
(26:28):
and goose production factory. It's one of those places that
is so far flung, it's it's out of sight and
out of mind. However, like my observation is, man, pretty
damn easy to get there. I left Missoula, Montana, like
(26:49):
seven to fifteen pm and was up in the Brooks
Range at like three pm, Alaska time the next day. Yeah,
so it's inconvenient, but it's right there too, like you
can get there fast, and it's staggering, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Would it be helpful for me to give like a
very fast rundown of like what this place is history
wise and scale?
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Yeah, man, because I feel like even the man with
the folder.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
The man with the full I literally do have like
a forage thick binder that we got on this trip
that I'm very excited about. But yeah, so so this place,
the Arctic National Wilafe Refuge, it was established.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
In nineteen seven.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Can you hear that?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Dog?
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I can't here snort?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Yeah, trace, Oh no, keep this in phil That's called discipline,
all right.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
So the Arctic National Wilife Refuge.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
It was originally established in nineteen sixty by the Eisenhower
administration by way of many years of folks advocating for it,
folks like Oloffs and Marty Mury, who are well famed
in Wyoming. In many parts across the country, Eldo Leopold
advocated for Bob Marshall advocated for it. A whole bunch
(28:20):
of folks that are pretty well known in the conservation
world still to this day. But nineteen sixty was officially
created and it was made about about nine million acres
were established as a refuge at that point to be
protected for wildlife habitat. Fast forward another twenty years and
in nineteen eighty the Carter administration had this huge bill passed.
(28:41):
It was the Alaska National Interests Lands Conservation Act, I think,
and that is what established many of the national parks
and wildlife refuges and willderness areas in Alaska. And what
that one does, it doubled the size of the refuge,
so it was now about nineteen million acres as of
nineteen eight But they had to make a kind of
(29:04):
a little compromise concession there to get that bill passed
on that front. And what it did is that it
set aside a big chunk of the refuge is wilderness,
but a one point five million acre section of it,
known as the Coastal Plane, was to be studied for
future decisions on whether it should be preserved as wilderness
(29:24):
alone or if it could be open to oil extraction
in the future. And so that one point five million area,
the Coastal Area, or some people referred to as the
ten oh two. That is what I'm sure we'll get to.
That's this kind of contended part of the refuge. And
to your point, you know this nearly almost twenty million
acre piece of public land, it's i think the second
(29:46):
largest piece of public land in the nation, second to
only the the Western Arctic. That National Petroleum Reserve Alaska
that's the largest. This is I think the second largest.
As you mentioned, the Coastal Plane is a duck and
bird factory, migrator birds from all over the world. The
largest caribou herd left in the world is here. There's muskos,
(30:07):
there's polar bears, the largest inland denning site, the most
inland denning sites in Alaska exist here for polar bears.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
There's grizzly bears.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Wolves, muskos, dimensioned muskos, and lord knows how much else.
I mean, it's vast, it's huge. There's the Brooks Range
Mountains as you mentioned, and then this Coastal Plane ecosystem,
so several very different kind of landscapes that provide this
diversity of habitat that leads to the vast wildlife. And
(30:38):
the final thing I'll say is that people often refer
to this as the American serengetty, like, this is our
version of the African serengetti. This is this vast ecosystem
where there are huge, sprawling herds of wildlife still migrating
across the landscape. This caribou herd moves something like twenty
seven hundred miles a year as it travels across the
(30:59):
refue huge into Canada and back. So you know, we've
got something on scale here, on par here with anything
else in the world. And it's pretty amazing that to
your point, that that's here in our country, that's you know,
to some day accessible to us as Americans and man,
(31:20):
like you said, we were just spoiled kid lucky to
get to see it and experience it ourselves. But it's uh,
it it met and maybe exceeded all expectations I had
because it's somewhere I've I've read about, I've watched films about,
I've dreamed about for years. To finally see it in
the flesh was.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
A transformative I had, like two you know, very like
emotional points, like I have literally constructed my life with
many sacrifices relationship wise, uh, financial wise, uh, over the
(32:04):
course of my life to stay outside as much as
possible and and be in wild places. I'm easily impressed.
But the Brooks Range I was told ahead of time
by a good backpacking buddy of mine, Old Brad Brooks,
that it was one of the most impressive places he's
(32:27):
ever been, possibly the most impressive place he's ever been.
And I was really blown away. But there are two
times where I literally had, you know, knots in my
guts and just like a heavy emotional thoughts. Which one
(32:58):
I'm gonna do this in reverse order. One was flying
from our first camp, which would be in general terms,
would be on a southern portion of the Porcupine caribou
herd migration. We flew literally on the same path as
the caribou that we're coming through camp, over several mountain
(33:22):
passes to what I would call like the Gates of
the Mountains, where a short hike from Camp number two
brought you onto the coastal plane. And if anybody's been
in eastern Montana driving west towards like Glacier National Park,
we talk about the rocky mountain front or the front,
(33:45):
and it's this severe landscape where it is high prairie
and then it just hits these wall walls of mountains,
and this is is similar that not the same, but
very similar. And on that flight, following these ancient caribou paths,
(34:06):
I just didn't expect the valleys to keep going. Like
the scale and complexity of the landscape was so much,
so immense that you know, when I've spent a ton
of time in the frank Church and the Bob Marshall
here in the lower forty eight, and they're hemmed in
(34:30):
by like man made boundaries. Right, It's like, got Highway
ninety three on the east side. He got Hell's Canyon
on the west side, but there's all these highways and
dirt roads in between. Highway twelve to the north. You
got you know, civilization, Stanley, Idaho is like the little
tip of the frank down there on the south end.
(34:50):
And then the Bob Marshall Wilderness has just like a
brutal complex checkerboard of private land on the east side
that's getting worse and worse and constricting access. You got
(35:11):
Glacier National Park on the norst west side, Mariah's Pass,
you got the Mission Valley that's populated. You got the
Blackfoot Corridor that's a huge recreation corridor, essentially like it's
rung with people, right, And I can look at those
maps and be in those places, and I spent a
ton of time in there, and they're they're beautiful and
(35:31):
immense on their own, but they are peopled. They're way
more people than we were. And I can look at
those maps and be like, oh, yeah, I can hoof
it out of here, I can hunt it this way,
I can break it up in these ways, flying through
those mountains and looking at the way that each valley
(35:55):
didn't end like it it kept turning and twisting and
going on out of sight or culminating in this giant
glacial ice cap in a mountain to climb that led
to another valley. It just kept opening up and getting
bigger and bigger and bigger. And it wasn't rung by civilization,
(36:21):
like there's points of contact, there's airstrips and small communities
in an ocean, but you couldn't walk out of there.
And where I started to just kind of get panicky
and sad is the fact that I looked at that
stuff and it was so it was calling me right,
(36:45):
like I wanted to go there. I wanted to explore.
I wanted to see it all, and as a forty
two year old man, it was just smacking me in
the face that I could spend the rest of my
life up there and not scratch the surface. And the
reality is I could be born up there and live
it and breathe it every day and not scratch the surface.
But it was conflicting because I was like, Oh, I
(37:08):
shouldn't even start, I shouldn't even be here. It's too good,
It's it's too awesome. I you know, it was like
it was just just a lot to take in and
I just haven't had that feeling before. And then the
other time that like I just had a what the
(37:32):
hell type of moment. Was we hiked up to that
peak above Gamp and I and we were aware of
this gimmick, right, this this for sale sign that Lily
and our crew had brought up specific for this point,
but she was pissed about having to haul it up there,
and and nobody liked the idea, and it was a gimmick.
(37:57):
And and we climb up onto this peak and we're
looking around at this onspiring landscape and I throw up
the binoculars and I look down at camp and I'm like, oh,
the for sale sign is up and she had brought
like your cookie cutter white vinyl for sale sign, Property
(38:20):
twenty one, Remax name, whatever real estate company you can
think of. They use those signs. They're ubiquitous, you know them.
You see it, you're like, oh, that is a for
sale sign. That's a real estate sign. And she has
got this thing staked out, and I just, you know,
(38:42):
I was like, Oh, Lily's got the for sale sign up.
And then I kept looking at it and I was like, Oh,
that really makes me feel something here, and it's I
think for me, it was like a mix of betrayal
and certainly pissed offedness, but I think mostly like betrayal,
(39:04):
and maybe that comes from like a lifetime of of
underappreciating public lands. And then all of a sudden you're
slapped in the face with like, oh, yeah, they're gonna
take it away. You just saw this briefly, but we're
gonna sell it, right. And then we hiked off that mountain,
(39:27):
got back to camp and that for sale side still up,
and those feelings didn't go away. If anything, they got
more complex and stronger. But it was just like an unexpected,
very visceral, real reaction to something that wasn't a surprise,
Like we knew that the gimmick was going up, we
(39:48):
packed it with us, but then seeing it on the
landscape was horrifying.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
What made it feel a whole lot more real. I mean,
this proposed all these and it's.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Not like this is new.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Different versions of this have been proposed repeatedly over time,
but now this latest one seemed even more threatening than ever.
And then to see a place that's so amazing, and
then to see that physical representation of this god awful
idea right there. Yeah, I mean it's like hits you
in the face, attention grabbing. And I don't like it either,
(40:24):
that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I did not, you know, the.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Emotional moments scale. I had one of those two, and
I felt the same two things you mentioned. But I
had another really strong moment for myself, which was when
we got to camp too, which is the one that
you described there that was near the coastal plane, and
we all set up our camps and then kind of
people went off in their own direction. You went off
(40:50):
looking for a moose paddle to the south. I headed
to the north, and I climbed up on top of
this knob that was right on the edge of the
coastal plane, and I'm up there by myself, about three
miles from camp and got to really see the coastal
plain for the first time. And so you could see,
like you mentioned this like big wide, open grassy plain.
(41:10):
You can literally see twenty twenty some miles all the
way to the Arctic Ocean. You can see the pack ice.
It's like all this huge frozen white pack ice expanse
across the ocean there and then to either side, to
the east and west, you're just seeing this never ending
grassland and you can literally see I mean, I don't know.
I knew it was like twenty two or twenty five
miles to the ocean to my north, and I could
(41:32):
see at least maybe three times that far to the
east or west, so I don't know, sixty seventy eighty
miles maybe more to the east or west. And as
far as you can see it is this unbelievable wild
expanse that you know is populated by caribou and muskos, bears,
all the things that we talked about the beginning. And
I remember just sitting there and just being so in
(41:52):
awe of that landscape, so appreciative that we still have
a place like this, but then also so simultaneously struck
by the very real possibility of that changing in the
relative short term. And this is the first time in
my life that I've been somewhere where I could see
something so tangibly that might be dramatically different in a
(42:15):
number of years. Because this coastal plane, as I mentioned,
that's the one point five million acre section that they've
debated over the over decades about whether or not to
open that to oil leases. And in this reconciliation bill
right now being debated, if it were to pass as
(42:35):
the language is in there currently, it would mandate opening
the refuge to oil drilling. It would fast track that process,
and it could lead you know, as we talk to
these people who have you know, deep experience with us,
it could lead to in a matter of a handful
of years, this wide open, incredible wildlife habitat becoming vastly different.
(42:57):
In five years, maybe if this passes as it's written
right now, we might go back there in five years
and see instead industrial quarter built across the plane. You know,
oil rigs, gas flares, you know, housing for workers, semi trucks.
(43:18):
Lord knows what else. I mean, this just unbelievable. Wilderness
resource could be dramatically different. And I sat there on
top of that mountain looking down on that thinking, number one,
this is amazing. Number two I want my children and
other future generations to be able to experience this, and
(43:39):
number three the real slap you in the face reality
that that might not be possible. And as I sat
there and contemplate all that, I had very real, a
very real emotional response.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
It was.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
It was.
Speaker 3 (43:56):
Daunting.
Speaker 2 (43:57):
It was it was both inspiring to see what's there
now and really discouraging to consider what might be there someday.
And I've never seen that contrast so starkly and in
such a real way right in front of my face
like I did then.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
It was It's almost like, you know what I was
saying about Every hunting season is a little puppy bird
Dogs first season or old bird Dogs last season, and
it's like we were having both of those seasons at
the same time.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
That's a great one.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
It's like, here's this place. Even if you come back,
you'll never see it the same way again if this
development goes through. And folks, I'm a total realist. I
burn a shitload of gas, so much of my life
(44:55):
comes out of the ground in one way or another,
as does yours. The fun fact is is we don't
need these resources, not right now. They are safely underground,
and ultimately one of the most valuable resources underneath one
of the most valuable resources this planet has right now,
(45:18):
which is wide open space that hasn't been developed, like
this is something that is only going to go up
in value forever and ever, and the world at large
is losing these landscapes at an incredibly fast rate, like
we don't understand the value of these places. Not in
(45:43):
the context of our time here on this planet. I
can confidently tell you that I mean. Just one fun
fact to noodle on is once the snow and ice
melt has run off all the fresh water up there,
of which there is an unbelievable amount, and it's tasty,
(46:05):
it takes It's a thousand year old water by the
time it bubbles up to the surface out there on
the Arctic plane. So the water that seeps in, leeches
in to the tops of those mountains and gets down
into the aquifer is a thousand years old, thousand year
(46:26):
old snowflakes and rain drops by the time it bubbles
up on the surface of that plane, So you're literally,
you know, drinking the water that fell on some poor
hunters shoulders a thousand years ago, got brushed off a
muskox back a thousand years ago, which is wild to
(46:50):
think about. And if you can put things in that context,
there's so much more that we obviously do not know.
I mean, we're dealing with timelines on landscapes that we
just don't quite have the capacity to understand right now.
(47:11):
So I push back on the development of these places
because I think, or maybe naively want to believe that
if we keep working on our development technology that one
(47:31):
day we'll be able to extract from these reserves when
we absolutely need them and in a way that does
not impact the landscape, certainly not in a way that's
going to like quite literally kill off the last remaining
(47:59):
healthy caribou herd right or untold amounts of migratory birds.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
And that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Cal's like, even if we were to, like to your point,
we have we need resources, we need these things. I
understand that, but aren't there some places where maybe it's
not the right place at the right time to do it,
especially these last pristine few places, which, to your point
are are one of the rarest resources left and will
(48:35):
only increase in that value. You know, as I understand it,
there's somewhere between like six and ten billion barrels hypothetically
underneath the coastal plane, which I'm going to get the
SPECIFICUS here wrong, but I think I remember reading something
like that would only account for enough oil to be
used in the United States for six months to a year, and.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Those we don't know that, right, it is it's hypothetical.
We don't know what those reserves are. The speculation is
that if it was really worth getting it already would
have been got at this point. And just the exploration
(49:26):
practice is pretty brutal on the landscape as far as
the impacts of the great term here thumper trucks going
across the tundra and doing the seismic readings to determine
what's in the ground. And so I mentioned the infrastructure
(49:50):
needed to support people doing the work, and then the
reality is like this stuff where it's at has got
to be subsidized by the US government in order to
make it profitable for the companies that want to do
(50:12):
the extraction. So it's it's like robbing Peter to pay Paul,
and nobody has been able to explain this to me
in a way that it actually makes sense fiscal or otherwise.
If you can man Guest number one at the top
of the show, I would love, love, love to learn
(50:34):
more and hear it. But that's the whole point of
doing these moratoriums. In my mind. The Boundary Waters moratorium,
which is something we need to talk about too, is like,
it's a twenty year moratorium. Show me use that twenty
(50:56):
years to show me a better plan that's not going
to have tremendous downstream effects that would negate any sort
of fiscal positive. You could pull out of this project
and we'll talk about it. Then.
Speaker 2 (51:13):
You know, well, because with all these things kel especially
up in the Arctic, it's it's a short term resource
extraction opportunity in this case hypothetically, but.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
A nearly forever impact on the landscape.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
So it's it's not one of those things that you
can like, well, yeah, we'll do it for a little
bit and we'll.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
Turn it back to how it was.
Speaker 2 (51:34):
That's just not possible, and so you're you're getting a
short term benefit at the price of an extremely long
term cost on those other fronts. That's that's a really
questionable swap as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Absolutely, man, Absolutely, the reasoning for the the time line
right like doesn't exist. I don't know what the what
the what the rush is for.
Speaker 3 (52:08):
Yeah. Well, and it's funny.
Speaker 2 (52:10):
It almost seems like every every everything we've read so
far and talked to folks have, you know, said, they've
echoed what you just mentioned, which is that the economics
of drilling in this particular place right now are just
not there, Like, it doesn't make sense from a financial perspective,
but politicians continue to pursue it regardless. And it almost
(52:30):
seems like it's become more of like a trophy, like
a political football thrown around, and folks just want to
open it up and make it happen to to say
they did it, or to spite the opposition, to inspite
the you know, the greenies or the environmentalists or whatever
you want to call anyone that supports this area. So
it feels almost spiteful in that way. Given all of that,
(52:52):
and like you said, like if they were to do it,
there's there's rumors and talk of well they're you know,
if this gets past, the government will simply subsidize and
or you know, influence even foreign companies to invest and
do this kind of stuff just because they want to
get it done, even though it's not profitable. So yea,
(53:14):
for so many reasons. It seems like a bad idea
to me, even more so now that we've actually experienced
what it's like now.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Absolutely and you know, it's those economic facts right of
that landscape is tremendously valuable. It's only going to go
up in value as is. There's already gosh, I can't
(53:45):
remember how many businesses. There's already already a lot of
businesses up on that landscape operating for different industries and capacities,
including what we'd call recreation, right like flying people in
to check birds off the bird list, hunt all sorts
of species, uh, climb ski uh, pack raft raft fish.
(54:11):
And those dollars that are collected and then redistributed by
the local businesses are recent are recirculated on average between
three and five times. And whereas the extractive industries when
they go in there, the bulk of that wealth is
(54:35):
is literally shipped off with the oil like it's those
are extractive dollars that do not circulate over and over
in those communities. And when you you try to balance
out the wreckage that landscape is going to cause and
the timeline in which the profitability will be in effect,
(54:59):
I guess you'd say, it just paints like a really
bleak picture of like what the hell of our goals are?
Speaker 2 (55:12):
Yeah, well, here's the thing kill I've you know, I
know you've dove into this a lot yourself, but I've
read like extensively into the history of our public land system,
how we got these places, all of the conservation history
that led us to this point, and every you know,
every decade, every single year since we first established the
(55:33):
early parts of our public land system, every year since,
there have been debates and arguments over the same set
of issues. The same idea is, like we want to
take out resources or we want to conserve these places,
and the same general things have been argued over and
over and over and over. When you look back at
every one of the battles within this fight that conservationists
(55:54):
have won, every one of these places we have been
able to protect in some kind of way or conserve
in some kind Every single one of them. You look
back on it now, and folks look back on it,
they say, repeatedly, oh my gosh, how did we ever
consider losing Mount Deinnali in that area. Oh my gosh,
we are so lucky that we still have the area
around the tongus.
Speaker 3 (56:15):
They were trying to raise it to the ground. They
were trying to, you know, just cut every single thing that.
Speaker 2 (56:19):
Oh my gosh, how lucky are we that we have
the Bob Marshall Wilderness or Glacier National Park. Can you
imagine life without Yellowstone or all these different places. Back
at the time, there were so many business interests that said,
this is crazy to set this side apart, this stuff apart,
This is a land grab, this is nuts. You guys
are crazy. We need to take the resources. We need
to extract the oil, we need to cut the timmer,
(56:42):
we need to do whatever it is. And they painted
the conservationists or preservationists as nut jobs. But then fifty
years down the road, you look back and everyone says,
thank goodness, we protected this spot. It's so valuable, it's
so special, it's so worthwhile. And I think that's going
to be the case now. These last few places that
(57:02):
we have, like this, We're never going to get them
back if we sacrifice them now and fifty years from now,
when my kids are, you know, raising families of their own,
they're going to look back on this and they're either
going to say to themselves, man, I'm really proud of
my you know, my dad and his friends and his
(57:22):
you know, cohort of people in that generation who stood
up and protected these places that now in twenty seventy
we still have around and people can appreciate and value
is so so special and rare. Or they're going to
look back on this to say, geez, they they took
their foot off the pedal. They didn't live up to
Roosevelt and Pinchot and Grennelle and Leopold.
Speaker 3 (57:46):
I don't want that to be the case.
Speaker 1 (57:48):
No, no, And I don't understand why there's like this
attempted fire sale on our natural resources right now, when
it's evident, like the world over, so much of our
(58:10):
models of extraction, land use, and land management are so
highly regarded, and right now it's like we're trying to
tear them down. When you bring up the tongus, right,
it's like we got to talk about the roadless rule,
(58:31):
which you should probably take the lead on this one.
But for folks who don't know, the roadless rule pertains
to like I think it's fifty eight or fifty nine
million acres of ground in the US, and that rule
(58:52):
has been an impediment to certain extractive industry, is mining
and logging being really like the top two. I will
point out that I had a buddy that used to
work at Mitas Gold. They're out of Yellow Pine, Idaho,
(59:14):
and we used to roll up there for the Yellow
Pine Harmonica Festival. If you've never been, it's pretty darn sweet.
Used to have a honor bar so you could grab
beers out of the fridge and stuff some cash. Anyway,
they would they were in a roadless area that mine,
but they would when the price of gold was high enough,
(59:36):
they would just mine with helicopters so that they would
roll cruise in with helicopter, drop everybody off, do the work,
and then take the or out and the personnel at
the end of the day via a helicopter. So rollless
rule didn't stop everything, but it did force industries to
(01:00:00):
to extract in other ways and sometimes much more costly.
But Mark, do you want to want to tackle the
roadless rule.
Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Yeah, So starting in the nineteen thirties, kil folks like
Elder Leopold and Bob Marshall started looking at our National
Forest Service lands and saying, wow, they are getting carved
up to pieces right now, the last few places that
we have. Even in the nineteen thirties, they were beginning
to realize this, these last few places that do not
(01:00:32):
have roads provide this unique value that probably should be
protected now because everything else is getting very quickly kind
of developed in one way or another. So starting then,
they began a process within the National Forest Service of
inventoring the last remaining roadless areas, and they started designating them.
(01:00:53):
There was like L two and L one lands within
the Forest Service were kind of like de facto wilderness.
Those areas were kept track of and getting some special
protections until the sixties when the Wilderness Act came into play,
and that is when some places within the Forest Service
and other public lands were designated as like Capital W wilderness,
(01:01:14):
which meante no motorized vehicles, no development, et cetera. But
then there still were other lands, specifically within the Forest
Service that were inventoried as roadless but not yet protected
with Capital w wilderness protections, but they still were unroaded,
which you know, roads bring with them a lot of
different detriments when it comes to like wildlife or experience
(01:01:38):
or ecosystem impact, stuff like that. The Forest Service has
nearly four hundred thousand miles of roads that it has
created so far, which I believe makes it one of
the largest road managers in the world, I think is
what I remember hearing so tremendous amount of road construction
they've done to this point. In two thousand and one,
(01:02:02):
a rule was created called the Roadless Rule, which had
been advocated for a whole bunch of decades leading up
to that, basically saying, all right, these last chunks of
forest lands that we have national force that do not
have roads yet, let's keep those last places unroaded because
we already have four hundred thousand miles of other roads
crisscrossing and carving all this other stuff. Let's leave these
(01:02:24):
last few places in a slightly more protected place, so
that yes, there are you know, hundreds of millions of
acres of lands that are accessible by road, that are developed,
that are utilized for resource extraction or easy access recreation, hunting, fishing,
all those kinds of things. But this sixty million acre
chunk we will have in this state will let this
(01:02:47):
area remain in this unroaded state so that you do
have that kind of experience and those places still, you know,
available for wildlife that do not respond well to roads,
typically like you know, grizzly bears, elk, all these things
would prefer to be in unroaded areas. So since two
thousand and one we've had that, and it is you know,
I mean, these are the places that many of us love.
(01:03:08):
These are the places that many of us hike into
for elk hunting or backcountry fishing trips.
Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Or yeah, specifically four on the map.
Speaker 2 (01:03:16):
Yeah, I mean, these are these spots like if you
are a diehard elk hunter or a mule deer hunter
or anything like that, I mean, these are usually.
Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
The best of the best.
Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
And as of yesterday now, the administration has announced that
they are going to roll back remove the roadless rule
and open up this nearly sixty million acres to new
road development and all the other things that come with that.
It's a huge it's a huge deal. I don't think
a lot of people understand that. But this is this
(01:03:46):
is not that this is almost like saying we're going
to roll back the Wilderness Act because the roadless Rule
has created to some degree a close approximation to wilderness
for sixty million acres and removing that is a massive
thing that I'm not sure the average everyday person is
aware of because it just doesn't get talked.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
About a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
But I sure hope folks learn about it now because
this is a big one.
Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
It is a big one. It is a big one,
And do you know where we're at on that. I
know there's gonna be like and already are a lot
of lawsuits on this announcement, but I'm not clear on
whether or not, like we have a chance to comment yet,
(01:04:35):
other than you know, asking our senators and representatives to
push back on this again.
Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
So so I'm not one of this, but my assumption
would be that right the announcement came out yesterday, I
believe they're gonna have to put some text around this,
which then will have to be eventually released to the
public register. And once it's released to the public register,
I think it has to be open to comment. So
at some point there will be a public comment period
(01:05:05):
on this proposed rule change. We'll have an opportunity to
weigh in. Not to what degree they take our comments
into you know, account, you know, that's questionable, but at
least there will be a chance to weigh in on this.
And then, yes, I think there's gonna be a lot
of litigation. I think there'll be some orgs suing on
this one. But because it is an administrative action, like
(01:05:27):
an executive administrative action, this isn't anything that you know,
Congress can help us stop or anything like that. This
is this is a the administration wants to do this thing.
They're going to start changing the rule. They're going to
propose that, they're going to put it out there, and
then unless you know, the court system can stop it,
it'll happen.
Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
Yep. Yeah, well, uh, Secretary Bergham and Secretary Rawlins I,
I I'd like to see their plan, Like have they
thought about this one? Are they familiar with what it is?
Do they know the why? Like, tell me the why?
(01:06:09):
You know, obviously we use a lot of timber in
our lives too. I'm gonna need the math on what
exists in these areas, the juice and the squeeze argument,
just to just put it in context. Right.
Speaker 2 (01:06:26):
Oh yeah, well, you know, we've been down this road before.
If you if you look at what happened in the
eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds when there was no
there were no guardrails on you know, taking wildlife and
selling it or you know, developing mines or oil fields
(01:06:46):
or you know, logging timber or doing anything. When when
there were not regulations, when there weren't some kind of
guardrails in place, some kind of moderation in place, what happened.
It's the tragedy of the commons, is what folks referred
to it as we just we use this stuff till
it's gone. Everyone races to get their peace, and it
ends up decimated. That's why we lost passenger pigeons, That's
(01:07:10):
why we almost lost buffalo. That's why so many of
our wildlife populations came just to the very brink because
a quote unquote wild West as we kind of know
of it now, like an unregulated you know, race to take, take,
take that doesn't work in the long term. And now
what folks.
Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Seemed also to do in the nineteen sixties and nineteen
seventies when much of this four hundred thousand miles of
road was built. It was the government that built those
roads for the timber companies, right, in order to make
it profitable enough for the timber companies to go in
and harvest that timber. True, right, And here in the
(01:07:52):
era of Doge and something that we talk about on
fire management is we it's like, well, the free market's
going to take care of that. So is that is
the free market going to protect us from the fact
that you can't build, maintain a road into these areas
and extract the timber and make it pencil out. Because
(01:08:16):
we know for damn sure living here in Montana that
this idea of people taking unmarketable fuels out of the
forest in the name of wildfire management is something that
you pay for, not get paid to do, right, Like
there's no market here in the West for the products
(01:08:39):
that you get for timber that's under four inches in
diameter and brush. So yeah, I don't again, I need
need somebody to explain it to me. Mark, you got
you got time for one more one more thought? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Yeah, you want my thought or you have a question
for me?
Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
No, I want I want your thought here, Like, let's
let's uh end on positive. What do you suggest folks
do well.
Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
I think the one big positive from this whole thing
is something we talk towards the beginning, which is, despite
all of this news, despite a handful of knuckleheads who
want to tear this thing down that we have, it
does seem that we still have a voice, especially when
we work across parties, when we work across demographics, when
(01:09:37):
we work across you know, recreation type of choice, when
the hunters and the hikers, and the Democrats and the
Republicans and the environmentalists and the conservationists and the Montanans
and the Massachusetts folks, when we can, you know, realize
that we really care about ninety percent of the same things,
and we work together towards protecting or advocating for the
(01:10:00):
those things.
Speaker 3 (01:10:01):
We do have.
Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Some say, still we can, we can still be heard.
We can put the fire to the feet of some
of these folks who continue to push some of these
you know, short term gain ideas that will hurt.
Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
Us in the long term.
Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
I think that it proves that our phone calls, our emails,
our messages, our visits to the capital or to the
state capital, or our signs that we hold up in
front of the capitol building whatever it is, it all
can help, it all can make a difference, and we
just got to keep on, keep it on. This isn't
going to be like, oh we want it today. This
(01:10:37):
is going to be I think something we're going to
have to continue pounding on for a while. But it
is not fruitless, it is not hopeless. We can make
a difference and we are and we can keep on
doing so if we keep it up.
Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Well said man, well said, we got to wrap it up.
I'll just throw in if you're waiting to pay play
party politics. By weighing in on an election cycle, you're
basically saying that you're willing to give up everything until
that election cycle starts. So if you're not participating right now,
(01:11:14):
you're just a bum in my eyes, and you're not invested.
That's the reality where we're at. Like your conservation stamp
is a great thing, paying for your licenses and tags
is a great thing, But right now it's not enough.
You got to use your voice too, show up, play
your part, make phone calls, make those staffers and those
(01:11:37):
senators and representatives' offices know your voice and like you
so they become an advocate for you. It's not that hard.
They're real people such as you are, and start playing
in this game. You owe it to yourself and everybody
around you if you really really do give a shit.
So also hit the old BHA Action Alert Center. We've got,
(01:12:02):
as of this recording, over one hundred thousand people that
have clicked that button and either called or emailed their
representative or senator. And being able to point to those
numbers is tremendously valuable when you're up there lobbying on
(01:12:22):
the hill. So I appreciate you as per usual. Right
in to ask c A. L. That's Askcal at the
Meat Eater dot com. Let me know what's going on
in your neck of the woods. If you got something
good to say on this one for old Mark Kenyon,
you can hit him up directly, or you can hit
(01:12:42):
me up and we'll have him back on this this
show to address those questions. Thanks again, We'll talk to
you next week. Thanks Mark,
Host
Mark Kenyon
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