The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 689: A National Forest Supervisor Speaks Out

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

Steven Rinella talks with Scott Fitzwilliams, Ryan Callaghan, Brody Henderson, and Janis Putelis.  Topics discussed: Will it become illegal to launch a vessel off a public roadway for water access in North Carolina?; a proposal to haze mountain lions with hounds in California after the the mauling death of Taylen Brooks by a mountain lion; anti-deficiency; the economic activity generated by a forest; having to fire folks whose salaries you're not even paying; the redundancy in governments; what happens to public lands when there's no one left to manage it?; public lands as a great experiment in democracy;    Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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F I R S T L I T E.com. Joined today by Scott Fitzwilliams. Um, Scott is here, uh, for a very important, sorry, a very important, not important, a very important discussion about, a very important, not important, a very important discussion about our public lands, our U.S. National Forest System. Scott got on our radar, I guess it was, well here, I'll tell you the exact date. Scott got on our radar in late February 2025 when in our community, in our circle, there was circulated a headline, White River Forest Supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams resigns amid slashing of

agency workforce. Then the follow-up sentence, Fitzwilliams guided the 2.3 million acre forest for 15 years, helping manage soaring visitation and an annual $1.6 billion impact in Colorado. The most trafficked forest in the country, spanning 2.3 million acres. The White River National Forest has 11 major ski areas, 8 wilderness areas, 4 reservoirs, regularly hosts more than 17 million

visitors a year. The forest supports more than 22,000 jobs with forest dependent workers in its communities, including Aspen, Breckenridge, Carbondale, Eagle, Glenwood Springs, Meeker, Rifle, and Vale, earning 960 million years, according to the Forest Service Economic Analysis of its top 111 properties. The term I'm not hip on, but properties. The forest's annual impact of 1.6 billion dollars of financial activity in its communities ranks as the highest in the agency. And the gentleman we have here joining us today was prompted to leave that post at the age of 60 based on some of the things that are going on right now with attacks on federal land management agencies so we're gonna talk about that

story but first welcome Scott, good to be here. First Cal, I wanted to say something oh well you know it's customary on this, this here podcast and we talk about other things and rarely do we even introduce our guest or acknowledge their existence during that time. So we're ahead of schedule on that. But on the other things topic. Yeah, the newsy part. The newsy part. Now people write in like, hey, when you do the newsie thing up front, you know, and I'll be like, that's a great name for this, the newsie part. Yeah. No, not afraid to run with that. This, this, this, Matt, what you're talking about matters a lot to me because this is like a, in many states, this is a thing that a lot of hunters and anglers rely on.

And I'll, I'll leave off a version of it, not leave off, but I'll mention too, a version of it is, um, in some States, all water trappers. Yeah. Like it's how they conduct their, it's how they conduct their business. Yeah. Is, is there, I mean, there's a version of this that is, that is like class warfare almost, right? So, I mean, this is like one of the most accessible ways to get out and recreate

for, for the vast majority of us. North Carolina Senate bill two 20. I think it got heard yesterday, but, um, there's always, you always have a dog in the fight. So North Carolina Senate bill two 20 section four specifically. Senate bill two 20 section four specifically. If it were to pass, it would become illegal to launch a vessel. And this is primarily kayaks, canoes, um, small vessels off of the public road right of ways, meaning that, um, certainly in, in a lot of States, your,

your public roads have an easement. It's like shoulder to shoulder where you can park and if public ground abuts that shoulder, it's legal access to that public ground or in this case public water. So you would be charged with I think a class 4 misdemeanor in the state of North Carolina if this were to go through. As Steve pointed out, if you are a trapper, this is very important, but if you're even a large water angler, this would eliminate a lot of access to water and it would, in a lot of places become prohibitive to go fishing unless you have access to a larger boat.

So let's be frank, it's a war on high schoolers and college kids. How else they supposed to get in the water? Yeah. Oh yeah. So all those bridge accesses. In this area, you go like cruising out north of town, west of town, north, northwest of town, every bridge. Absolutely.

In the summer, you can't go to any bridge without some college kid climbing in the water. And I mean, I know it's a different state, but this is like a fight that gets fought. This is a fight that gets fought like access, stream access. It's like, it's, it's, uh, the same plot. Now, what am I trying to say here? I'm trying to make an analogy. The same issue. It just gets fought in like little different micro ways. So this isn't just stream access, this could be a lake, a pond, like anything. Yeah, yeah, but I mean like it's, it's, I don't know the particulars here, but it's usually coming like this. It's, it's, people have, there's some dude and he owns riverfront property, or he owns lakefront property, and there's nothing

that burns his ass more than looking out the window and here comes some dirt bag floating by. Yep. Catching fish. And he's like, how in the world could it be? How could it possibly be that I own this? In some cases, I own both sides and I got to wake up to some dirt bag fishing.

Yep. I mean, dirt bag fishing. Yep. I mean, like how? And then they get on the phone and whatever. Every other day, there's like a video that shows up of some landowners screaming at someone for being in the water that they're legally able to be in. Yes. You know, every day. Yeah. So it's always that it's like this is like a public. They're putting it as a public safety issue.

It's not. This is someone talking about, they're talking about something that's not what they're talking about. Does the person that proposed this bill own some waterfront land? Someone has his ear. Yeah.

Whoever introduced this bill may be friendly with some of those folks. You can picture the phone call. He's like, they're all in the, I can't figure it out. What I bought this place. I thought, but there's all these kids floating by. They're parked up and down the road. Hell someone's going to get hit.

Yep. So this is fact. Yes. Someone's going to get hit. That's the problem. You know, this is such an established form of access in use in, in North Carolina. Um, there's guidebooks and maps of, uh, where it is,

you know, good places to launch, safe places to park it, et cetera. So, um, this is not like a brand new thing. All of a sudden people started cetera. So, um, this is not like a brand new thing. All of a sudden people started showing up to, to, you know, that dirt baggy spot that I have to drive past in order to get to my pay to play boat launch for my big boat. Um, and that, yeah, so that's exactly what it is.

So people need to be aware of this North Carolina Senate bill 220, uh, specifically section four would, uh, turn you in to, um, um turn you in to a misdemeanor. Does this thing contrast with an existing access law in North Carolina, like a high water mark public domain kind of thing? Yeah. So, you know, oddly enough, it wouldn't touch the, the water access, uh, in the state of North Carolina, their water access law, but it would just say, as long as you try to do it from here to here, it's illegal now and you're, you're going to get a misdemeanor.

Um, one of the folks who wrote in on this sums it up pretty well. Says, North Carolina has had a long history of excellent water access and has a constitutional right to use traditional methods to hunt, fish and trap game. This bill seems to be in violation of that. So. Amen. Yep. That's one of the good ones. It's a war on college kids. It is for fishing.

You know, I was, I, I, I, like, I try not to do this, but now and then I'll catch myself just like looking through like stuff on social media, you know, which I like never leaves me where I want to be mentally. No. But this guy's got a video. So funny. It's like, there's this dude fish and he's like, you tell you he's in a kayak or something and he's got, he's got one of those like fishing GoPro. So it's not aiming. It's aiming this dude fishing. He's like, you tell him he's in a kayak or something. And he's got one of those like fishing GoPros.

So it's not aiming, it's aiming at him fishing, but it's not aiming at what's going on around him. But you can see that he's like at a bridge. And he says, he goes, hey buddy. You tell, he's like addressing someone. Hey buddy, I'm not trying to come after you on this, but just like, let me give you a little life advice. If someone's fishing a hole, you don't want to come in and start fishing it. And off in

the distance you're like a little kid. Oh, well, you know what? I wasn't going to do this, but now since we're on legislation legislation no wonder they're warring against those college kids Oh, yeah rude bastards. Um No, this is a little kid's voice One more piece of legislation Peace years ago, I came here with the hell Europe was California years ago, I can't remember what the hell Europe was. California made in my view an enormous mistake when they banned mountain lion hunting. They banned lion hunting with dogs, they banned mountain lion hunting. Now in California, thanks to this wisdom. 1990.

Yeah, they now, one of the funniest things about the lion ban in California, I might be fudging my numbers a little bit, but they're basically this. It was like, hunters used to kill about 350 mountain lions a year in California. Take a wild stab at about how many mountain lions get killed every year now by animal damage control specialists. More around around 350. Yeah, it was like they were like, okay, dudes buy licenses and they hunt lions, let's get rid of that.

And then we'll start paying people to kill those lions and put them in the dumpster. And it's created where there's a problem now where And it like I don't want to necessarily call it. I want to choose my words carefully it has been observed in California that that Man hate to say this cuz I don't want to like feed into I don't want to you know I don't want to do that thing where you're trying to get people to agree with you And so you create like a false narrative It has been observed by some people who are like pretty good on mountain lions

and pretty good on human wildlife interactions. It has been observed that in the decades since then, there has been less pressure on lions to avoid the kind of human lion interface. Um, really good biologists, really good lion experts, um, dudes that we know. Uh, Bart George, no Bruce Bart. Oh yeah. Bruce's hunt these.

What Bruce is in Idaho or Washington state. Bruce is in Washington state. Yeah. Okay. Whole career in chasing mountain lions. And he has observed that over the years, in these states where they've put like heavy restrictions or banned lion hunting, you see an increase in human lion conflicts

because they just don't, the lions just don't have a perception of like trouble. They don't associate humans with trouble. We've had on a research of Bart George is even working on a project where they'll go out and they'll get a collar on a mountain lion that's causing trouble, like killing pets, killing livestock, whatever. They'll get a collar on it and they'll see, can we train this lion to avoid people by, because it's wearing a collar, we know right where it is. So we're going to go and play the

sound of human voices. When he was doing this project, he would use this podcast, he would play this podcast to the lions and monitor how close can I get to the lion before the lion will move? And at times he would get 15 feet, 30 feet from the lion, playing human voices before the lion moves. Then they put dogs on it and treat the lion and mess with it. That's not the word he uses, but they mess with it. They harass it.

Yeah, we did a whole episode on it. It's called Living with Lions. Living with Lions. They worry it. That's what they say in Europe. They would worry the lion with dogs. And then you let some time go by and then you come and play human voices to the lion.

And is the lion like, oh shit, these guys. Here it comes again. These people are trouble. And he wants to leave. Well, Bart had found some positive reinforcement that some level of human pressure, some level of inconvenience around humans and the use of dogs pushes lions away and makes them kind of like

less inclined to come near human voices. We had on some guys on the show, we had Wyatt Brooks on the show, and Wyatt Brooks was hunting, shed hunting, hunting shed antlers, with his brother Talon, and his brother Talon was killed by a mountain lion in El Dorado County, California. And those guys came on the show, or sorry, Talyn, who's passed away obviously did not, but Wyatt came on the show to talk about Talyn's death. In response to this, Senator Marie Marie Alvarado Gill has introduced a bill SBA 18 which she views would enhance public safety and reduce loss of livestock by establishing a five-year

pilot program in El Dorado County during which permitted houndsmen with trained hounds may haze problem mountain lions away from areas where they pose a threat to public safety livestock or pets I like that's great I applaud it um I don't mean to trivialize it I just I guess it's a step in the right direction I would be so much happier and I don't I know it would take like an act of God meaning an act of Congress To undo the mountain lion hunting ban But I think that that's what needs to happen in California the thing is that that I find with That might happen with this is

the anti hunting folks the animal rights activists would probably look at this as A negative like it's bad to go haze those lions and they should be looking at it hunting folks, the animal rights activists would probably look at this as a negative, like it's bad to go haste those lions and they should be looking at it. You know, like don't go bother those lions. Don't harass them with dogs. And they should be all for it because it's probably going to save some lions lives. Right? Yeah. My view on it and reluctance to dig into it too much, not reluctance to dig into it, but like choosing my words carefully, is I like, I don't think of mountain lines

like as a negative. Right. But if I saw a mountain line in my yard, I'd be like, cool. When we have bears coming in, I like encourage my neighbors to not tattletale on them. Because I'm like, if you tattletale on that bear, it's Yep. They're not gonna spend a bunch of money and have some guy spend two days moving that bear 200 miles away so it can walk back here. I believe I told your wife one time I'm like Katie you didn't pull the trigger but you loaded the gun.

I know I'm always like can't don't tattletale on bears. Because if one person tattletales, they kind of like, ah, we'll keep an eye on it. When 10 people tattletale, that bear's dead. When I lived in Eagle, Colorado, we're part of, near the White River National Forest, occasionally we would get reverse 911 calls saying there's a mountain lion in your neighborhood. No way.

And that usually in like late winter. And so like, you know, that lion's on the hit list, right? Yeah. So in my choose, my words carefully thing is, um, I look at it like, I, like, like I look at it as regulated mountain lion hunting under quota systems and bag limits and seasons is in no way detrimental to having a healthy population of lions.

I think it was wrong. It was ill-advised to ban lion hunting. And I look at this as a positive because it's like a step in the right direction, hopefully, but I just can't act like I'm glad about it because I'm super scared of lions. Yeah. And Steve's trying not to like use the fear argument. There's, I don't know if there's, there's been a study that like definitively proves hunting reduces wildlife conflict, but at the same time. It's like, well, areas that don't have black bears don't have black bear

conflict and areas that don't have lions don't have land conflict. I was doing some research for a project Steve and I are working on, and it was regarding the black bear situation in New Jersey when, what was his name? Petals? Bill Murphy. Oh, Murphy. Murphy outlawed essentially, like first it was, he outlawed it on state and then he let the management plan expire.

So bear hunting became completely illegal in New Jersey for a couple of years. And then he had what I believe they call to be a mea culpa. Yeah. He got, he listened to people who were real pissed off. Is that what you mean? No, he said I was wrong. Yeah. Um, but anyway, they did a study during that timeframe of human bear conflicts. And, and you said there's no like study that's been done on increased conflict but it was something like 237% increase in bears killing pets bears breaking in

the cars bear you know all I think so it was like they outlawed hunting and that stuff shot through the roof so you, you know, there is, you will. Sure. Anybody could set up their own little experiment, have a garden and then have a bunch of rabbits eat in the garden and then do a couple of high profile killings of some of those rabbits. And you will see the other rabbits are like,

jeez, I'm going to go in the middle of the night now. Not doing that in the morning anymore. You know, it's just, it's all right. Scott, tell me about your career, man. How'd you wind up like, how'd you wind up there? How'd you wind up as the White River forest supervisor? What was your path? Oh, it was a long path. You know, I grew up in Wisconsin and, and ended up in Colorado for graduate school and tripped into an internship with a place called the Forest Service I knew nothing about. I knew the difference was you couldn't hunt in parks and you could hunt on the forest. That's what I knew the difference.

So I started my career and bounced all over the country. I think I worked in seven states. I was in Cody, Wyoming, Jackson, Wyoming, Dickinson, North Dakota. I was on the National Grasslands out there and then I went to Sitka, Alaska for five years. Really? Yeah. For the Forest Service? Yeah. And that was on Tongass? Yeah. Working on Tongass? On the Tongass, yeah. I was Jim Bechel's boss. Really? What, you know, you guys had him. Oh, sure man.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, then I went to Oregon, um, for a few years and Eugene, and then ended up in, back in Glenwood Springs on the White River. So I started as an intern in Colorado and ended up finishing my career in Colorado. What kind of work were you doing like throughout those? Um, you know, I started really, my, my, originally I started kind of in the public affairs and legislative affairs world for a few years.

And then, uh, then I became a line officer, district ranger, and then I was a recreation, wilderness, um, minerals, land staff on the Tongass. That's what I worked on that. That's why Jim worked for me. And then, um, he's a geologist. Yeah. And so, um, and then I was, I've been a line officer, you know, either a district ranger,

deputy forest supervisor, forest supervisor. So it's been great. I mean, some work in so many incredible places is, you know, I'm so grateful for this career. It's been unbelievable. Can you explain for folks, what is the scope of a forest supervisor? And then if you could talk a little bit about how that could get more and more complex as you enter into a forest like the White River Forest. Yeah. So the way the agency's set up, they give line office or delegated authority for a chunk of land. And in the case of a forest, a forest depends where it is, you know? On

the Tongass it's 17 million acres, on the White River it's two and a half, and in the east there's smaller forests. And basically you have all responsibilities for that piece of ground. I always told people, it's toilets, the targets, and everything in between. You're responsible for everything. And so, you know, you're responsible for the money, you know, the budget, the targets, the accomplishments, the people. But these jobs now, you know, and these line officer jobs, they've really evolved into, you know, part of a community.

You've got to be the, you know, you're the name, you know, the face of the agency in that community. And so, you know, as we collaborate and we work together, it's, you know, it can get complex. Because you're the one that signs the decision for that timber sale or that new trail or, you know, closing that trail and, and your name's on it. And so, um, or you may have had like a mine up in the Tongo, Tongo oil and gas or

industry, Green's Creek mine and the Kensington mine up in Juneau. Yeah. Those are huge mines. You know, and I think, like we all know, I mean, everyone loves this public land and wants to see it manage a certain way. And so it gets a little harder and harder as people just, you know, kind of. Not a certain way, my way. My way. I want it done for hunting and fishing specifically. Yeah, but you know Gifford Pitcho who started the Forest Service, he and Teddy Roosevelt back in 1905, and I still believe in this and I hope as the restructuring that is taking place this doesn't

go away. They purposely set it up where it was very decentralized. We want the decision making where the communities are. We want the decision making where the, you know, where it affects people. And that has been, that's why I love the job is, I rarely in all the years got told, you need to do this on this project from a boss or from above. And that's the way Pinchot and

Roosevelt wanted it. They wanted it decentralized on the ground. Disregarding what's happened in the last couple months, was that consistent from like that ability to be decentralized? Was that consistent from like one administration to the next? Yeah, I mean ebbs and flows and different emphasis. That's always been the case, but we've kind of always navigated through that. And save a few, there's always been a few things where it's been top-down. I don't know how many revisions of the Tongass Forest plant. Oh yeah. Oftentimes that became extremely politicized and Washington kind of ran that toward some

undersecretary. Yeah, in that case, it fell into like a administration's, one administration would put a major plan into effect and another administration called into question. And you just probably got a role with that, right? Absolutely. And you know, our laws, National that, right? Absolutely. And our laws, National Forest Management Act, and on the BLM side, FLIPMA, they're set up to put 10, 15, 20-year plans together, a forest plan that's supposed to take some of that,

level some of that. It's like, OK, here's how we're going to do it for the next 15 years. And it's worked well. And I still have hopes it's going to work well but certainly under you know what current restructuring I'm not sure. I just hope we maintain that decentralized management and decision making because I think Pinchot and Roosevelt had it right in 1905 and I think it still applies today. It's just harder because of more people.

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To top it all off, every DSD turkey decoy is made right here in the good ol' US of A. Made in America. Check out the full lineup at DaveSmithDecoys.com and take your turkey hunts to the next level. As a forest supervisor, you got to wake up every day. Someone has to be pissed at you pretty much. Yeah. Can you lay out a little bit and you can keep it. You can keep it true to Colorado. We can leave Tongass in the rear view mirror for a minute, but can you, can you explain a little bit like the push and pull? Yeah. I mean, it's gotta be like, you can keep it true to Colorado. We can leave Tongus in the rear view mirror for a minute, but can you, can you explain a little bit like the push and pull? Yeah. I mean, it's gotta be like, you got, just to give you a sense of what I'm picturing, you can correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, it's gotta be like a lot of fire conversation, cattle conversation, logging conversation,

access kind of preservation conversations, huge conversations around wildlife, dealing with state game agency. Like who is trying to get a hold of you throughout the year, right, to tell you how you ought to be doing things? All of the above, Steve. It ebbs and flows a little bit. Vegetation management, timber harvest, fuels projects are all, can always be a pinch point for people, you know, people and certainly in Montana, it's, you

know, Montana in this region is one of the most litigated regions as far as fuels projects and timber sales and stuff. You know, it's, it's, it's the contrast of leave it alone, preservation first conservation use, you know, that's whatever it is. It doesn't matter if it's cattle, if it doesn't matter if it's, uh, um, you know, logging, mining, um, people just have visions of what their national forest should look like and don't want to change. It's getting harder because so many people are moving from places that they think it's a national park. I mean, what are you doing cutting trees? We've been doing it since 1905.

I mean, it's part of our mission. It's in legislation, um, uh, requiring us to, to do that. And, and the toughest ones these days, and especially in places like Vail and Aspen and Summit County and, and is, um, individual landowners with the easement or a lands issue or need something, they're tough because they're generally rich and You mean you're talking like second homeowners that butt up against? Exactly. Yeah, there's a lot of that. That's been really challenging over the years, but it's all challenging, but it's all fun. But like, help people understand what you're talking about. I have a sense of what you're talking about,

but say people that aren't real, that don't follow the politics of public land. Yeah, as more and more people move into the forested lands, a lot of it they have to get an easement from the Forest Service to put a driveway in or to put a power line in or they have a crappy survey and they ended up building part of their house, which happens all the time on National Forest System lands and then we say, hey, you got to move your house. Or there's this thing called Small Trackzac that can purchase the land if it was proven it was done accidentally, you know, bad survey or something. So as more and more people coming

into these areas are building these homes in the forest and up in the hills, you know, they require all these easements and right of ways and permits and things like that. Got it. It's one or two people that consume a tremendous amount of time and they just don't understand. Because they're lawyered up. Totally lawyered up.

Wow. And they, you know, and they know people. Well, I'm going to call so and so. So that, that bugs me because it's not a, you know, collective society-wide discussion of how we should manage a landscape or a forest. It's just one dude with a house.

And yet my staff is spending, you know, three days a week working on that, you know, project. So. Got it. How was it dealing with the big ski industry corporations? Cause like you're in a position where a lot of national forest managers aren't, you know, dealing with so much of that. Yeah.

It's, um, they're big companies and, and, and, but most of the ski areas have been permitted. I think it would have been harder when they were permitting new ski areas. Um, you know, now it was more about, can they do this expansion? Can they replace this lift or build this new restaurant? It's still tough. I mean, those numbers you talked about at the beginning, the 22,000 employees and $1.6 billion contribution to GDP,

most of it's from that industry. I mean, they employ a lot of people and pour a lot of money, but it's challenging because you look around the West and where we have these resort communities, it's completely changed. I mean, nobody could afford to live there. You know, it's crowded, it's expensive, it's, you know, 70% of the homes, for example, in Summit County, where Breckenridge and, and a base and then Keystone are 70% of the homes are second home owners. 70. 70.

Right. Well, so no one can afford to live there. And, and so then you struggle with like all these mountain towns dealing with, with affordable housing and, and those ski areas too, like they'll tell you that they can't exist without a summer program as well so it's not just yeah in the winter when there's a ton of snow and the animals aren't visible yeah we permitted the first um at on veil mountain the first summer uses the congress passed legislation to allow them to do things like zip lines and you know alpine

coasters and things like that and we were the first forest to do that. The part about our forest is the white rivers, all the big resorts are there. And so we're always first and experimenting with whatever it might be, but you know, they're a good partner and they, uh, they're, they're, you know, I like working with innovative, creative industries and they're one, you know, they're always looking at the next best thing.

But you know, I think we have to step back and realize, okay, the impacts are real. It's only 4,000 acres of permitted land that they have, you know, their permits on that they actually- All total? Well, let, no. On the White River, it's only 40,000. So, so of two- Oh, I'm sorry, okay. But say one resort, say a resort like Snowmass.

I think it's about 4,000 acres on the permit. 40,000 acres of land is under permit and skiers on the White River. Not out of 2.3 and a half million, that's not a huge amount. But the impact is way past that, because it just brings people and lots of them. And so I think that's something in the future

we're gonna have to really start to recognize is these resort towns and these kind of high end tourism places, we're going to have to manage that in some way that, or at least realize that the effects are way beyond the resort or whatever. Yeah. Well, just the, you know, all these towns, you know, like that is the industry. It's support the ski areas over anything else. And when I used to go to meetings in the ski town that I lived in, it was just

amazing, like the, the piddly stuff that the community would get involved in, like horse shit on mountain bike trails that were actually just game trails that, uh, people started riding mountain bikes on. Um, and the, like amount of noise pollution, the mountain would put off during non ski season times of year, right? That, I mean, if you got up at elevation where they were doing the work, you could hear almost conversations a lot of the times from miles away. Right.

Um, the trash associated, insane too, you know, um to ski the trash associated. Where do you stand? That's the same too, you know That's you know, you go hike the ski lift lines You know during non ski season and the amount of shit underneath the chair lifts Just great and you know, they do like cleanups and stuff, but I mean, they're so much stuff. How much does it cost for a ski area to permit, say, 4,000 acres? Like, is it an annual thing? Yeah, it's a really complicated formula that I can't explain, but it's based on the revenue you derive from activities on National Forest. So if the lift is on National Forest, restaurants at National Forest, obviously a permit, you know, the pass. So it's, you know,

on our forest, which was by far the most, it was 70, 65% of the entire nation's fees collection. We collected about $28 million from the 11 resorts. Wow. Yeah. Is it fair to call it like a profit share? Does it not work as a profit share? It's like a revenue share. No, it's just like a permit. I mean, just like a grazing permit. They pay. No, but you said that they pay relative to revenue. Yeah. No, it's just relative to- So if they're business tanks, if they're visitation tanks- They'll pay us less money. Yeah, exactly. There's a minimum, obviously, but their businesses aren't tanking.

Of late, anyway. So nationwide, we collect about $35 million off of ski areas in the country. Here's the little catch, is not one penny of that comes back to the forest that it was derived on. It is the only thing we permit that no money comes back to the local forest. And there's been an act in Congress called the shred act that has, yeah, I forget how, what did that ski area, but anyway. That was whatever it stood for was an afterthought. Absolutely.

They had to come up with a good afterthought. They wanted to be shred, they figured out that rest later. But it would return a good portion of the money back to where it came from, which I've been advocating for because there's a lot of work, not just associated with the resorts, but all the people that come with it. Well, how the hell did that get pulled out of, how did that get pulled out of the general system? Like, if you do like timber harvest, cattle leases, you get some of the revenue,

but how did skiing sit in a different landscape? Back in the 90s, when it used to be outfitter and guide fees used to go to the US Treasury. Pete Slauson Okay. Pete Slauson Campground fees went to the US Treasury. It all went to… Pete Slauson So, there was examples. Pete Slauson Then there was what was called the Fee Demo

Program where we got to keep all those fees. Now, we get to keep all the outfitter fees and all the campground fees and all, everything. And then they looked at skiers, they specifically looked at the White River Forest and said, we're not giving that one forest $28 million. So that's basically how it got it. There's just too much jingle. Too much jingle in one place. And so now there's a way they can spread it out. But now because of the budget, there's a term in Congress, legislative Congress, in the budget bills called scoring. And it's like golf. And I know how much you like golf too, Steve. You don't want to score. The Office of Management Budget gives a piece of legislation a score, and it's a financial score. And the more you score, the less chances it has. So in that case...

I'm sorry, I'm not following yeah It's it's it's a it's a budget score and they would look at it and say okay. That's 45 million dollars That's normally going to the usual US Treasury. Yeah The 10-year score is 450 million dollars Yeah, you don't want to score 450 million dollars because they say you got to find that money somewhere else because we're not going to lose that $450 million over 10 years to the Treasury. So the problem is it scores. OMB gives it a score of $450 million for a 10-year.

So it hasn't been passed. Bipartisan bill that has significant support on both sides of the aisle. But it's what it is right now. It's a bummer because it's the only fee we collect. Pete Slauson When you run a forest, how do they present to you or do they present to you some version of a P&L? Like, what are the expectations of a forest? Yeah, each forest is allocated a budget. Now, they've changed a few things and centralized more and more the budget, but for most my career, and you'd wrestle for, you know, make your point and say, you get this much money.

Okay. And you're going to get this much in recreation, this much in timber, this much in grazing. And with that money, we expect you to achieve these targets. I'm going to give you, you know, the regional office will give me X amount in timber. We want you to produce 25,000 cubic feed of timber or million board feet or whatever it is. Same with grazing. If you get this much grazing, you got to, you know, administer this many grazing permits and recreation is a little more obtuse, but miles of trail. We used to get trail maintenance dollars and you get certain amount of trails, we expect you to clear this many

miles of trails. So, and then, I mean, throughout my career, I mean, it was a, you didn't spend, overspend that. If you did, you better have another buddy that could cover you, another forest that, because budgets are spun up at the regional level. So, the accountability was there. We weren't, you know, it's called the Anti-Deficiency Act if an agency spends more than it's appropriated. And I've never seen it happen because it's a big no-no. Got it. Is there ever an expectation articulated to a forest supervisor about how much economic

activity your forest should facilitate? Like is that part of your mandate or is that just something that happens out of, it happens by chance? No, it's not, they don't say we want this much economic activity but they say we want you to be able to produce this much board feed of timber or we need you, you're getting feed of timber or we need you you're getting this minerals money we need you to get that mine approved or get the EIS done and same thing with recreation yeah I mean that's a it's always been a driver in the national forest system is is the economics and not not to the you

know that doesn't mean we don't get to balance it but it's important for sure yeah like fiscal responsibility oh yeah yeah that doesn't mean there's not areas to improve I mean yeah what is an area to improve I want to get to the areas of improve but I'd love to get like how how is like the permitting for a mine work is that on the same because I always get wrapped up with the mining axe yeah and I'm like yeah mines don't make us any money yeah but based off of how you explained the permitting for a ski area now I'm, well, obviously the mine has to have

some sort of a revenue share there as well, or percentage of revenue. Well, we're still operating under the 1872 mining law, and it's been amended and there's been tweaks to it, but where there's not a revenue sharing of hard rock minerals. Oil and gas, leasing, you know, look at what we call leasable minerals,

it's 25%. You know, everything that comes off of a federal mineral, 25% comes back to the government. Not mineral, oil and gas. Yeah, a federal mineral estate, I'm sorry. What about coal? Is that undermining or is that under oil and gas? Coals undermining so it's under the 1872. It's considered locatable. So coal gold silver

Okay, precious metal. So they have to pay a land use fee, you know for occupying that piece of national force But they don't pay You know if they give they don't pay for the loot the stuff not not like they do well in gas and not like you do with timber nope no but if you read like if I were to pop up the 1872 mining act right now which I got him up I got in my pocket yeah well I mean this is I can't believe you because it is referenced all over. And depending on what historical source like you read about, when it was enacted, it was like,

oh, this is really how it's gonna be. It was kind of a joke when we wrote it, as was like the diamond clause too. So depending on what source, it was like- You mean it was written by the, it was written by the extractor? Yes. And it was, but it was also written in a like, well, this will never go

anywhere, ha ha ha type of way. Um, but it's $5 an acre, a surface acre. Yeah. That they pay a fee. Is that still the, is that still the thing? It's yeah. I don't have a lot of my, I haven't dealt with mine. Yeah.

It's cheap. It's, it's ridiculous. It's it's ridiculous but the law hasn't been changed and so Yeah, locatables are hard, you know, because those are just I like dealing with oil and gas leasing It's nice organized process is clear Locatables are really complicated and I'm not I'm not a, um, big minerals guy. Can you, can you help me, uh, understand like, how is oil not a locatable? Like what the hell is locatable mean?

The terminology I mean, um, covered under the 1872 mining law. And so those are, those are what we normally think of mining, gold, silver, lead, zinc, where you dig something out of the ground. When oil and gas came into play, we, we, we evolved a little bit and said, wait, we'll lease these lands. So there'll be leasable

minerals. And so we just use the term locatable and leasable because two different completely processes manage those and regulatory structure. And for the forest, for the taxpayer, for the American taxpayer, they're doing, the American taxpayer is doing better on a timber harvest harvest they're doing better on a ski lease they're doing better on oil and gas then they're doing on mineral extraction if you're looking just at what direct payments go to the Treasury or to the agency yeah for sure. You brought up there's things that could be done better but I feel like we're a little

bit bearing the lead so I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, um, let's jump ahead here. I'm trying to sort all this out in my head. If I were to go back and say, here's our guest, Scott Fitzwilliams, we're going to talk about government waste on national forests and we're going to learn how national forests work and how we're pissing away all this money. That's how you'd have kicked it off? Yep. Oh, I was going to come in like, uh, that's interesting. I was going to come in like, um, Scott resigned over certain actions that are taking place.

Coming down from Washington, D.C., decisions that are being forced, things that are being stripped away from a level of local control and local expertise. And then he said, hey, listen, man, there's plenty of ways to clean up, but this is ditching the baby with the bath water. I don't know.

That's nice, but let's play the Spencer Newhart game. Which one's gonna get more clicks? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha you know, people listen to the show and stuff, you know, context of what's been going on. And it's been pretty wild since the inauguration. I mean, you know, first thing that's happened is we all got this email that said fork in the road. Yep. And we all deleted it because we go to training that says when you get spam email, delete it. Because it came from a source we'd never seen before. It was bizarre.

Hey, you can retire right now and get paid till October. And so, but it turned out to be real. So that was what they called the Deferred Resignation Program, which I took. Oh, you did? Okay. Yeah, because I was going to retire in the next year and a half. Yeah. But they offered to pay me till October.

I'm good. I'm, I'm eligible to retire, so it wouldn't affect my retirement. Yeah. So, um, and then, then it was, uh, the next thing that happened was, uh, what we called, um, the Valentine's Day Massacre, where we just got a letter and said, you need to fire all these people. And that was rough. We had 16 on our forest, but I know the forest here, the Galaton, the Custer Galaton, it

was in the 40s. And it was, we had to call them up, give them this letter that said, your fire based on your performance, which was a complete lie, a complete utter lie. Their performance was fine. Some of it just had their performance rating. So that wasn't fun. And it was, and on our forests, 15 to 16 were field level people. They worked what we, what our employee called a permanent part time.

They're a permanent government employee, but they only work half the year. The field season, they started about now, finish after hunting season, and then they go work in the ski resorts or whatever. Yeah. What salary? They're like GS5. So the cost to the half of the year they're paying for us is 18,000 bucks. So annual salary of about $42,000, 18,000, 19,000, but they get healthcare and things like that. And most of those were paid

with fee money. So it wasn't taxpayer money, it was the fees we collected at Maroon Bells and campgrounds and outfitting guides and stuff. And they cleaned toilets, cleared trails, do fire patrol. That didn't make any sense. That was out of fee money. Yeah, fee money. And I had to fire six people who were paid for by the counties. We have pretty well off counties, you know,

Peking County and Eagle County and Summit County, and for years and years they've been actually giving us, the feds, money because they wanted more people on the ground during the busy season because we just didn't have enough money to have patrols and people clearing trails and cleaning up human waste and all that stuff. So we had to fire people who were paid for by counties. That didn't save any money. That's what was... How common is that in other, is there other forests that have similar systems where they're... Yeah, lots of forests have, the other big fee we get is we get grants in most, I don't know how much in Montana, but certainly Wyoming, you get grants for what we call the sticker fund, where you,

your ATV stickers and your snowmobile stickers. The state gives us money to hire people to, you know, have ATV crews. And so we had to let people go that were paid for by the state. Yeah, because your off-road vehicle stamp, your OHV stamp that you can like in Montana, you can buy it online with your hunting license. That is that specifically earmarked for trails and possibly campground. Yeah, and trailheads and I'm more familiar in Colorado, but it's a great source of money. I mean, and we had whole crews that were paid for by the state, some of which, because they were in this probationary period, we had to fire. It didn't make sense. That's when I

started to think this is not a restructuring. Why did it need to come as it was a performance issue? That's just like a legal... Yeah, I'm sure they... They're anticipating litigation. Right, which they ended up losing. And some of these people were judges ordered in some states and some districts had are now back, um, to work. I'm not sure what is efficient about.

We paid them the whole time that they were fired because the judge ordered back pay. And so there's nothing efficient about that. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. efficient about that. while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart pounding thrillers on audible. Did you feel obligated? Oh, I don't know if you can answer this, but did you feel obligated like you had to have the official like you're fired based on performance conversation, did you feel obligated to have another official, like you're fired based on performance conversation. Did you feel

obligated to have another conversation with them and be like, look, my hand, like I can't. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure I would have gotten in trouble for it, but I just told them this is not true and you know it's not true. So that was just hard. And that's when it really started to hit me like the next thing they offered was a voluntary early retirement program. So, tons of people are taking retirement. So, you're losing, you know, we've hired all our new employees and now people like me and many of my colleagues are failing.

So, we're losing the, you know, institutional knowledge And then they just offered fork in the road too, because they didn't get as many as they wanted. And then we expect reduction, firings. You didn't take any of that, you're gone, coming in the next couple months. And so I just, I've never ran away from a challenge, the fact that I love to fight all kinds of fights, but maybe I'm just too old and I was like, I can't be part of the dismantling of this organization. And then that's how I see it right now.

It's, you know, we're just, there just doesn't seem to be a plan. Like, okay, let's sit down together and figure out, or give us a number, say, Forest Service, we need, you need to cut 20% and let us figure out, okay, let's what we don't need. It was just this random, bizarre, you know, go fire these people. Okay. Yeah. That didn't make sense to me. And I didn't want to be part of that because I can't support it. I can't. But would you say your forest was like without waste, without inefficiencies and frauds and things like that? I tell you in 35 years working for the government I've seen inefficiency, saw some waste. I

didn't see fraud and abuse. I can't recall like an actual fraudulent activity. I've seen contractors try to defraud the government, you know, where they – we paid a contractor to do something and then they didn't do it or fudged it or walked out on it or defraud it in some way. But I haven't seen like people defraud it. Does it go on? I think in the context of natural resources, the fixes I would have was hoping for was one, and I don't know if, I bet you my colleagues in

the Park Service and BLM would similar, we've gotten, we got really top heavy as far as too many people in Washington and regional office at the expense of what we're supposed to be doing. That's on the ground, doing the groundwork. That's what the public wants. They want trails clear and they want fuels reduced and they want the cows taken care of, they want garbage picked up. I would have made that adjustment.

The other thing I think we've really got to come to grips with, and you guys talk a lot about this stuff, is the redundancy in regulations like Endangered Species Act or the Archaeological Projection Act, Section 106. So when we do a project, we have really good biologists who work on that piece of ground and then maybe there's a grizzly bear bear or wolf or whatever the endangered listed species is and they design mitigation you know we're gonna do this fuels project or cut the trees but the biologist comes in but the way the process works on Endangered Species Act then we send that biological evaluation to a biologist in an office

in Montana would be in Helena, who has never seen that piece of ground ever. And then they make an evaluation of what we should be doing. So you have two agencies making redundancy. I think we've got to really step back on that. The people on the ground know, we have biologists that know how to protect these species. Maybe there can be just a concurrence, but with the Fish and Wildlife Service, you know, when we have archaeological protection, we have to go through what's called Section 106 Consultation. So we have an archaeologist, they find a site or some resource, then they have to write up a big fat report,

send it to the state SHPO office, State Historic Preservation Office, and they either agree or don't agree with us. And if we don't agree, then there's a group of national archaeologists who can, seems like a lot of archaeologists looking at the same piece of ground, and only one of them is looking at the ground. The other people don't see this. They're in an office somewhere. And I've always thought that. And when I worked in Wyoming, we had such great bare biologists and working with the state. And then we'd send our biological evaluations to Cheyenne where they'd never been on that piece of ground. I think we've got to look at things like that. And just the redundancy in government, I think,

is something that I think needs to change. Governments were set up to be a little inefficient and slow. And I think that's by design to protect the public, to protect the taxpayer's money. But I think there's a lot we can do. And I just don't think getting rid of the person that makes $18,000 a year that clears trails is going to fix any of that. Yeah.

When I've looked at the cuts that have come to the federal land management agencies, just, and I'm singling them out because it's of interest to me and cause I know some stuff about it. I've wondered, um, allowed why there wasn't an, why there wasn't an approach like this, like a layout that you would get your cabinet in place. You'd get your administrators in place and you would come to them and say, you have 90 days, you have 120 days.

Seems always works like that, right? 90. That's like the magic numbers. You have 90 days, you have 120 days. It's like doing 12 reps and your exercise is the number of people. Why not seven to come to me and, and present to me,

how are you going to cut your budget by 30% and then you have the professionals in these spaces, propose, make a proposal. In your mind, like, why was that not the approach to use? Like, if you had to get in the head of it, like, why not use that approach? Which seems like, like, and how, like, and how in business that would be a thing that would happen? Um, I don't know. I think, um, there was just a more urgency than I've ever seen. I trying to think of how many administrations I've been through. So the first change I was through was when Clinton got in office.

So someone add up all those presidents since I've been working, but, uh, the, the urgency in this one just seemed to be, we got to do it now. And that's why, you know, we just sent out and fired people and things like that, as opposed to, you need to give me a 25% cut. I don't know. I don't care how you do it. Or you could say, you know, I still

want to emphasize these things, but you got to cut 25%. I don't know. That would seem to make more sense. And then why let people like myself or others, like there was no rhyme or reason to who we let take this early resignation program, deferred resignation program. Some people we shouldn't have offered it to them. They're going to replace me, so what good did it do to pay me to do nothing for six months? I Don't understand that. I don't know they could have just said no, you're not eligible for this. I Don't know. I

you know, there's a It's it's big change, you know, Cal, I told you this, that I don't know how beneficial it is in today's world, but the Forest Service is about the only agency, I don't know, maybe in all government, but certainly in all the agencies we all talk about, Fish and Wildlife Service, Park Service, BLM, that our head, our chief, has always been a career person. We've never had a political appointee until now. It's the first one. Tom Schultz is the new chief from Idaho. I heard he's a good guy. But that's the first time in our history we've ever had a non, you know, career employee become chief. So it changes on the way,

which is fine. I don't know what's the difference anymore in today's world. But anyway, I don't know what the future holds. I'm worried about a couple of things. And the one is, do we dismantle the agency to the point where we become ineffective, where they actually can prove you guys can't do shit. We're headed that way. I mean, based on what I'm seeing, by the time I left, we had lost 27 people between firings

and people just saying, I'm going somewhere else. 27 people in 30 days, 50 people in in a calendar year. Who's going to be left to do the work and then when people get pissed and say see the Forest Service can't do it. Maybe we ought to let the states handle that. Can I interject it seems like that's always been a, you've probably seen this Cal, Brody too, work some of the outfitters that we've worked with over the years. Some have good relationships with the Forest Service and I've often heard outfitters referred to you as the Forest Disservice Right. Yeah, and then now on the Instagram when when you can see sort of some people sort of the ones that are on

Board with what's going on now. They're like listen I've been cutting this trail out myself way before any Forest Service trail crew comes in here and does this. We haven't relied on them anyways, because we've been in here doing it because this is our business, right? Yeah. Right? That's like a common thing. That's always been a theme, right? Absolutely. And it's also been true. I mean, when I was guiding in Wyoming, I, of course, there's never cut out the trail. There are system trails. Now, we don't cut out trails

that are not system trails. They're just the outfitter's trails. They're not supposed to be cutting them out or whatever. I one time asked about that. I was trying to see what it requires to make your own trail with a chainsaw and I was dissuaded. Yeah, bad idea. What was going to hide my trail? One of the first meetings I went to here in Bozeman when I first moved to town. Uh, I listened to a fellow who happens to be in the conservation world, just berate the forest service for not maintaining the illegally built mountain bike trails. Yeah. not maintaining the illegally built mountain bike trails. Yeah.

Mountain bikers over the last decade are the worst bastards who build a trail anywhere and that they have this theory. It's like, well, we have 3000 miles. Yeah. But I've been on those mountain bikers. Oh yeah. Absolute across hard working suckers, man. They have been trails.

I mean, oh yeah, I'm telling you, I've been up drainages Hard working suckers, man. They build trails. Oh yeah. I've been up drainages where like, yeah, like I was here a month ago and there was no sign and now there's it's not like it's a trail, there's jumps and ramps and banks and yeah, sometimes in wilderness areas where they're not even supposed to be. That's my list of people I don't like. But it's a good example of some of the conflicts today's world, like literally I've had these monomers say to me, well, we've already, you know,

people have already done all those trails. Well, that's an unsustainable model. Cause sooner or later you will use them all and we'll just keep building more and more and more. Yeah, that's good. I like that you engage with the monologic of it. Right. Well, if you're using it, makes it that it's not good anymore.

So then you need to make a new one. That would end with all things being a mountain bike trail. So you should just sell your bike now. Cause you're headed to the same place. Yeah. Anyway, Yanni back to your question. I think there's some truth to it. And, and, um,

I got, I can't sit idly byly by this has been the thing I've been thinking about for a long time well you go ahead then I'll go tell them the truth in it um what would for service lands are kind of a co-op oh right like you there's always going to be a user even in a user pay system right like if you're an outfitter, you're operating under a permit that you pay for, you're not going to sit there and wait for the forest service to clear those trails. You got to do it. Get things prepped. You're going to do it. And a lot of those outfitters are using the trails that not a lot of people use. So you take your, what little money

you have or the staff you have and okay, I gotta send mine to the folks, you know, the places around Eagle and Aspen because there's 8,000 people a day on those trails and only seven outfitters a week on the other ones. So I could see their frustration, especially when they have low downs and stuff. And I think we were, we got, I'd said a little bit, we kind of lost our way a little bit, too much overhead and not really focusing on what we really needed. And man, if I was in charge of reforming, I would have flipped everything upside down and said, we are going to fund the ground first and then fund what's left.

You know, we're going to fund the overhead blast. But like I've been places like where we used to turkey hunt, you know, with your buddy in Nebraska, where like that national forest is like, it's like a symbol, right? There's like this anti federal government sentiment and that land is like, they look at it and they just, they get mad because they can't do whatever they want on it.

Right. Sure. So there's an aspect of that involved too. And so I don't think that's the case with the white river. No, no, no. But there are places like that. There's places, you know, Idaho and parts of Montana

and Utah, but yeah, where public land like stands in the way of your ambitions or whatever it might be. And it stands for the federal government, which we don't like. I was also, I get seen as an apologist sometimes, but you know, it's like mother nature does not follow your, your multi-use plan either. So if you have budget for a thousand miles of trail clearing and you're in, you know, that burned over Pecker pole zone. And you have a windy summer, you can legitimately

clear a thousand miles of the same trail. Yeah. And never get to the other trails because it's just like, and I like, we have a lot of trails, um, historically, you know, where we'd leave the first couple of hundred yards, uh, down and nasty and stuff, and then we'd clear the rest of it. Right.

And we'd have our own kind of personal trail for the moment. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I wanted to make. Yeah. And one you'd never know was there, but man, you had to go through hell and also like, whack, you're on the trail. You could go in there and do like a full 72 hours of busting your ass, cutting, cutting, cutting trail and even make a

nice little stack of firewood for yourself when you come in there later. And the next weekend you go in there and you're like, oh, trail's gone. Yeah, trail's gone. As if nobody had ever been in here. Yeah. Yeah. I want to speak to a thing that you alluded to and do you remember how early we were talking about mountain lions? And I'm like, my end goal is to restore mountain lion hunting in places where it's been lost in the service of myself as a hunter and other hunters. To get to that end goal, I wind up feeling guilty

if I were to play the card that mountain lions are these terrible, dangerous creatures. Like the ends, in that case, like the end wouldn't justify the means, right? My end goal is that I want lion hunting, but I can't get there through a disingenuous path of sowing fear of mountain lines. Right. Which is a tempting way to go. It's effective too.

The minute you tell anybody this mountain lines are going to kill your kids. We don't hunt them. It's right up there with predator control. It's a way to get where you want to get. Yep. Now, um, I'm a public lands user. I'm a public lands defender, but there's a just out of moral honesty. I think that it's a little conspiratorial. Maybe you disagree. I think it's conspiratorial to suggest

that lawmakers are saying the pathway to being able to sell off all the public lands is to emasculate land management agencies to the point where they do a terrible job at which point we'll be able to go to the public and say, look what a mess, let's sell it all. Right. Because it's like a little it feels out there to me. Well, it also would require a lot of connections and a lot of people involved

with the same conspiracy. So when I say I'm worried about the dismantling, I'm worried about the dismantling, like what if we, the basic maintenance of them, the basic stewardship of the land, being able to respond to the public. I think that's what, I don't think we're, I don't think people are smart enough to pull that off. I really don't, in any part of government, even Congress, to like, okay, we've got the, because that would take time. Yeah, it's like a 50-year plan. Right. However, based on what I'm seeing and talking to people at the highest levels who are working with these people in Washington, um, there is a general disregard for maintaining the management and

stewardship of public lands. It's like, they're fine. So the results are producing, let's produce more timber and mining and stuff and take care of the cows. But the rest of that stuff, we don't have to worry about. The end result of the cuts and the inefficiencies that would result from that could also ultimately result in, let's just get rid of it. Yeah, I think that's a long stretch. You hear that a lot. Oh yeah, we do hear it a lot. And you hear the mountain lions are gonna kill all your kids.

Kids, exactly. Boy, don't you guys think people on both sides of the aisle would lose their mind if we really started to sell off public lands? Or even transfer them to the state? That has been... In 2015, it sure looked like that. But your... People lost their minds in 2015. Yeah. I don't know if there's been a fundamental shift because there's been a... I think it's a little harder right now to,

it's a little harder right now to pick and choose policy. And there's more pressure to get aligned on a wholesale across the board fashion, right within ideology. And it's harder to, it's harder to go like, yeah, oh, that's great, but this thing, no way. Right. Right. It's kind of like you need to, there's a temptation to to endorse an entire initiative for fear of cracking the coalition. Right. But where I say that, that and I was starting I was feeling that But in looking at it's been interesting to look at conversations around tariffs right now when you get into people's money

You find there's a lot of people going like no no no didn't like this don't like this not what I signed up for Mm-hmm. I didn't sign up for losing Millions of dollars overnight. So there you see people that are aligned with an ideology saying like, Hey man, I'm into all this, but this part not into. So you're seeing that around the tariff discussion where allies are starting to pick apart what they don't like. So we'll see. Cal and I messaged about this over the weekend where Senator Heinrich, who's a Democrat from New Mexico, Avid Hunter, he put forward a piece of legislation saying,

hey, let's leave selling public lands, selling federal public lands out of the budget reconciliation process. It didn't pass. What I thought was really interesting is our state, we have two Republican senators, Senator Daines and Senator Sheehy, supported it. Yeah, I saw that. Zinke too, right? Yeah, Zinke's house. Well, he's in his house, but he was-

But he verbally supported it. Yeah. So in this state, okay, in Montana, you can't win. You could lose elections over public land. You have to, you cannot win. You have to, you have to be pro public land in this state. Um, and they were outliers in their party, right? Yeah.

This, this thing that Hunter did didn't, didn't pass. 51 was 51 to 49. It's close. That adds up to 100, right? Yeah, one Democrat did not vote. And yeah, she and Danes were the only Republicans to vote for. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. In that case, when you say like people, Democrats, Republicans, whatever would lose their minds, I don't know, like I'm not like a DC insider. I don't know all the conversations that went in, but I think that it was clear that like like Montanans would lose their minds. Yeah, but I don't Montana's a small state but even so I've been digging into like land use small small population. Sorry

Nevada You know Nevada successfully lobbied for Larger land sales on the BLM side for affordable housing. So far they've sold 18,000 acres in the name of affordable housing. 18,000 acres of BLM ground since 1996 I think. How affordable is the housing? Nobody knows. I laugh when I think about the affordable housing aspect. It's easy, but there isn't any. Yeah. Unfortunately, I mean, there's people on both sides of the aisle who are like, oh yeah, we do need affordable housing.

If this is the way we can do it, we can do it. But the math provided by Bloomberg Law yesterday was 30 acres out of that 18,000 have actually gone towards affordable housing and 30 acres out of 18,000. Right. Tiny houses. Like what are you talking about? Well, and that's the thing. Oh, probably deed restricted houses and things like that.

And you know, a huge pushback, right? Is you have landowners who strategically purchased on the edge of BLM being like, well, that stuff's always gonna be open. So my property value is based off of access to Bureau of Land Management and the fact that like my view is never gonna be blocked by another house or housing development.

Right, so our state government, who a lot of people argue on behalf of is like, well, the states can do it better. Well, right now the states aren't doing anything. With state trust lands? Well they're not, they're not mandating any sort of restrictions on second or third homes. Deed restricted housing. They're not doing the work, but they're asking for more land. Interesting. And this is an extremely unpopular opinion, especially for... Yeah, who goes up to Helena and talks to these folks. They don't want to hear it, they just want

more land. Right. So I think there's a giant disconnect between the federal government and the people on the ground because the feds are like, oh yeah, easy button, sell 400,000 acres of BLM ground, which is under FLIPMA right now. Right. It's already gone through the NEPA process and FLIPMA they've been earmarked for a long time, 400,000 acres of BLM ground. and Flippma, they've been earmarked for a long time, 400,000 acres of BLM ground. But there's also a lot of conversations around an additional 500,000 acres of US Forest Service ground, which hasn't been done before. And that's going to take some serious effort.

Again, you have all these people who are like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Public land sales on behalf of this to address affordable housing, but nobody's actually doing the work to address affordable housing. They're just saying if we give this over, people are going to be like, oh, see, the government's doing something about this, but it's not, there's no follow through. No, and living in places that you guys are familiar with where there's very little for affordable housing, it's the biggest issue. I've spent more time in the last six years of my career dealing with housing and affordable housing.

We actually have a program. We got the legislation passed and we're the first one in the country, the White River, I gotta stop saying we, they. And it was in the 2016 Farm Bill, President Trump actually signed it, where we have what's called administrative sites, where we used to have a district office or a bone yard or something. We have them all over the place, Or we have, you know, crappy housing on them now that this legislation allows us to lease this property to, you got to give a right of first refusal to a community, a county, a local government. And in exchange

for the lease, they will build us employee housing and then they get to build other houses, all affordable housing. So we have a project in in Dillon, Colorado where we have 11 acres, beautiful overlooking the thing we used to have like six crappy falling apart floor service houses on, it's now been bulldozed. We're working with the Summit County government where they're gonna lease it and they're gonna build build $121 million worth of affordable housing, deed restricted, you know, application, actual affordable housing. And instead of paying the government for the leasing the land, they're paying us in kind by building us a new fire shop and giving us housing. That's a cool program. But that's not on the side of a mountain somewhere, right? Like it's like, I'm assuming kind of in town.

Yeah, it's next to, it's already developed a nice site. You're not going to build some big affordable housing complex on the side of a mountain. So all over the country, we have those administrative sites that are underutilized. I think, you know, I started my career, my first permanent job was in Jackson Hole where 98% of the county is federal land. And I don't know how the federal government can't play a role. I think we should, you know, but man, every acre is sacred there. Well, I tell you, when I, on this issue, one of the areas where I felt like, um, that I had a knowledge gap would be, I would want to, what I'm asked is I want to have the authority

to say, I want to be the final say, and I'll visit every patch of ground and I'll say would this lead my litmus will be this would this lead to a loss of wildlife habitat yeah if it's yes then it's no if it's no then it's yes the case you're bringing up where it's like it's already a developed landscape it's in a town's already a developed landscape. It's in a town, it's a developed landscape. It has buildings. It's not like on the side of wildlife habitat right now. That makes sense. That's different to me than other,

that's different to me in other cases. And when you look at the acreage, I feel like when you look at the acreage, I feel like when you look at the acreage, it will have to stray. Like it'll have to stray from already developed sites. Yeah. Like, do you feel that you're gonna get there? I hope not.

I mean, I think it has- No, I mean, do you think there's enough already developed sites to like fuel this ambition? No, not to fill the gap of what we, you know, to meet affordable housing needs, no. But there are still some spots that again, if you were king, you get to look at and decide it. Where it's just, I don't know,

survey from a hundred years ago where it's like, it's kind of, it's not developed, there's nothing on it, but there's a little spot right by Eastvale or Yeah, it's not like valuable wildlife habitat. It's kind of range technically, but it's also surrounded by a hotel and so like it's 40 acres. We should build housing on that, but it's not designated an administrative site. So, but I'm with you 100%. I don't think we can, you start to crawl up the mountain and, and the other thing it should be for some public good not, let's just sell it off so a rich person can buy it and build a second home.

Like this whole issue of affordable housing, deed-restricted housing, I can get on board some of that. Pete Slauson Do you feel that there's a way that you would take this affordable housing issue that's forward right now? And let's say we have a way that there's a's a checks and bat, or there's a system to measure, like is this achieving the goal? If the public is behind affordable housing, is this creating affordable housing?

And that seems like to me like a thing that you could either, that you could, that you could put numbers around and understand if this is true in execution or not. Like define affordable housing, and then some will monitor to make sure that this is being effective in creating affordable housing. Is there a way to get there with land swaps, where if we're talking, if we define like,

these are like marginal pieces, isolated pieces, marginal pieces of wildlife habitat that are close to urban centers or suburban centers. We're gonna open these up. Is there a way to pull this off where there's not a net loss in public acreage? And we get better stuff instead? I think we could get a gain in actual acreage. And I think, you know, that's kind of been the trend, because the place closer to the resort, if you will, or closer town is going to be worth more than some stream side up the hill, some inholding up the hill. So I think that's a great way to do it. The problem is, if I don't know, I don't know if the

states could do it, I guess the counties would have to zone that to say this has to be affordable housing. We're not helping the situation if we're just making more second homes. That's what's wrecking all these communities. It's, and I don't. Well, look at park city, Jackson hole, big sky, Bozeman, like the neighborhood I live in just, just filled up magically with the, the, the, the heavy snow gone. magically with the, the, the, the heavy snow gone, including my next door neighbor who's sidewalk I've been maintaining in their absence. Um, right? Yeah. There's a shitload of housing there that nobody is living in until the weather gets nice. Um, or the VRBO or whatever. If you look at the newspaper here in town, it's been every week

There's been a oh that affordable housing thing. Nobody liked that In in the Gallatin Valley. We need it. Just build it somewhere else. Well, yeah, exactly and Catch M Idaho. There's a great project for Housing for for Forest Service. It's the same leasing program, man. Yep. Same leasing program. The town doesn't like it. It's going to put too many people who go to the bars was one of the quotes in one spot.

The bar owners are like, sweet. What built this town makes this town great. Let's not have them here. Yeah. The other affordable housing project that they did squeak through and zoning to to get one more level on an existing property downtown, right? That all turned into VRBOs. There's no, no affordable housing there.

And so you cannot Tell me Like it'd be like you parents should chime in on this Good your kids like uh I can't live in my room anymore. They're like well. Why is that well? I got too much shit everywhere Sounds familiar. I need another room Mmm, do you go to which I say why don't you clean up your room? Right. And that's the situation that we're in over and over and over again.

Uh, I mean, examples everywhere. It's like, well, we don't want to block people's sight lines by letting somebody build a four story building in town. So we would like to build up on that hillside or in that migration area or in winter range, because we can't affect anybody who's lived here for 30 years. Park city, Utah, right? That is a fully itinerant workforce and all of those houses. Like you go through, like I haven't been

there in years but it's all like old mining house single-story little tiny homes that are overwhelmingly like VRBO vacation rental properties you know right it's like we can't ignore that problem and expect this new acreage to magically fix it. We should, that's, the going to the public land should be towards the end of the resort, more of a last resort. But if you're going to do that while you don't control short-term rentals, you don't control the number of second homeowners, again it's not going to be sustainable because we're gonna be in the same place because there'll be more people that are gonna take buy this land and use it for second homeowners.

Gotta address the affordable housing. It looks like Bozeman's building a lot of apartments. Are those deed restricted any of them? I'm not sure. I was just the the last couple that have been in the paper have been in the downtown core. Like there's a conversion of a senior citizen center that would Allow a lot more people to live downtown people are up in arms over that Yeah, that I don't understand getting up in arms over that It's just like where the hell that's a great place to put people right we just don't

Listen, we're all here because we love the out out of doors But we'd rather construct more stuff on the out of doors if it affects my parking downtown. We're getting terribly local now. Yeah. You did, you brought up land swaps. Did you administrate much of that? Cause that's a big thing that we talk about,

especially now with the corner crossing, back up in the news where it sure seems like you could like just quickly make a bunch of these quick moves and Consolidate the private people's spots and then you know not have the private in holdings on the force of the BLM and Everybody would be better off How come that's not easier to pull off? everybody would be better off. How come that's not easier to pull off? You said quickly and I was thinking there's a 64... Quickly like 20 years. We have a 64 step process for land exchanges. The land deals are hard. You got to praise everyone and you know you got to... so that just you know title work

that just takes time and when you're using you know checkerboarded land or trying to consolidate, I think you're right on. I think we need to do more of it. It's getting a little harder. People aren't getting punkier about it. It used to be like, oh, you give this little part up in town to someone, and then you get all this acreage or close to town and everyone loves it. But now just like we've been talking about the whole, every, every piece seems to matter. You can't give that piece up. Right. Well try finding like an apples to apples comparison too. And then the comparables and the values are changing so fast and so it's getting harder.

But I think where Congress can help us do legislatively mandated ones where you don't have to, it's like they tell you, okay, now go figure out the acreage, but you're doing this through legislation as opposed to when it's a discretionary action by a forest supervisor, we have to go through the public benefit determination, which of course gets into values and all that stuff. But I think it's absolutely what we need to do more of. And that we could get help legislatively, but they're tough. I mean, you guys have heard of the one over in the crazies and with the Yellowstone Club and stuff, and it's pretty good exchange, but there's some folks that don't like it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're giving up elk habitat for mountain goat habitat, right? Is one way to look at it Can't draw can't draw a mountain goat tag, but you can sure Hunt over-the-counter elk in the crazies Durfee Hills would be another great one that was proposed for land exchange. I mean, that's that's a whole Ecosystem would be kind of a strong word, but it, it's a whole region with its own Elkhart all public, totally landlocked. Uh, you can fly in there.

Um, and it's like, but the exchange for that is like antelope country. Oh, really? Right. So like trying to find, again, like find that apples to apples comparable. And, and, and then you have historical use You know, there's still plenty of folks who have hunted that place and and traditionally hunted that place For decades and there just is not a comparable swap type of thing, you know

It's getting proposed with you know, when I get that job if I get be the yay name, man. Yeah Part of what I'm gonna look at and I suggest the Forest Service adopt this is I suppose, you know, when I get that job of I get BVA name, man. Yep. Part of what I'm going to look at, and I suggest the forest service adopt this is, um, how much, what biomass does that piece of land host or support an important word. And in any swap, any swap would be, are you gaining biomass that you're supporting or hosting? Well, the White River National Forest supports the largest elk herd in the world.

So it'd be a big ass biomass. And that's how you help do it. And we support the largest biomass of elk hunters in the world, I think. Yeah, speaking of which, like what's gonna, uh, like what's going to happen this fall when, like, if you could crystal ball it based on all the cuts that have been made, like when people are trying to get into their elk spot, like, is it like, are they going to be able to get there?

Is there going to be safety issues when they do get there? Like, it's going to be a COVID poop pandemic. Yeah. This is where I need to push all those fear buttons. And well, that's the thing is this is another one, man. I hate to keep doing this. This is another one that people are throwing out there that I'm not buying. What I'm not buying that like, um, that there's like an existent that it's an existential crisis that the trails won't be cleared. I don't, I don't view it as existential. I think for, let's say,

like, you know, I have a bunch of friends that are in this position where it's like young families, their best way of getting out is through, like, established campgrounds with a camper. I feel campgrounds is a real problem. We had a budget meeting. So we already knew we were going into this field season, we will have zero seasonal workforce, the people we just hire temporary for the summer. So we knew that. So that's zero is zero. Normally, we'd have 50 or 60 or something like that. So that's you know, we're gonna be less people clearing trail and things like that We fired, you know these What would be like crew leaders the the people that are permanents, but they only work half the year and and so

That'll be problematic. Will it be like our people could go? Oh my god, what happened? I don't think so our That'll be problematic. Will it be like our people could go, Oh my God, what happened? I don't think so. Our road maintenance, the road maintenance budget on the White River when when I left, because we had a budget meeting because they signed the continuing resolution. So we know what our budget is going to be the rest of the year, pretty much. Our road maintenance budget, we had 20, we have 2800 miles of road was zero so That's how much and normally we give that money in to the in the agreements to counties because they have better equipment You know more people now we have a small we have a greater and a three-person crew So we'll we'll we'll clean the culverts that blow out or whatever beavers fill up if you got someone to do it Yeah, we have three people we've lost two but um. So you folks and the white you recreationists and the

forest over there if you see this three-person crew I'm sure they'd really like to know the areas that also need work. That's right. The road system feels so existential is maybe too big of a word right but but the road system that work feels to me like a real issue. Right, but it's also something like one year you may not notice it, two years, three years, just like a road, you know, just the way maintenance of infrastructure works. The recreation budget on the busiest recreation forest in the country, so discretionary. So we've got our people we paid for, but then like the clean toilets, the toilet contracts and you know, toilet paper and whatever stuff was

$140,000 bucks for two and a half million acres and 18 million people comes to about 0.9 cents per visitor if you're wondering. You're kidding me. Yeah, so Will it be... Is that intact? The budget? The toilet paper budget? No, it's not. Literally, we don't have enough money. We were looking at, and I don't normally get involved with this, we're like in the

detail, but they were looking at normally these sites are pumped three times a year, we're going to do them once well those It's not gonna be great. So will people see things? Yes. Will it be like ah You know, it's not gonna be the end of the world I think depending on fire seasons and flood seasons and things like that. I think there'll be some change. I'm worried a lot So when there's a fire of any significance, there's what's called an agency administrator. It's one of us line officers. So if there's a fire on the White River or, you know, on the gallatin here, the local line officer is the

agency administrator. And we have overall responsibility. Even if a thousand firefighters come in, we're still overseeing them. We go through a ton of training and stuff. They do the work, but we set objectives, things like that. Here's what I want you to do with this fire, because fire crew will come and just spend money and put it out. But here's what resources. I want these houses protected as a priority. A lot of us that are retiring

are the most experienced people doing that. You know, in our region, in Colorado, we lost two of the three most experienced. That won't matter if there's not a bad fire season, but if it is, that's the stuff that's going to add up. And so that's the stuff I'm worried about in the future. I don't see a land sale real quick, but this stuff matters. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed.

You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat, there's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. Can I hit you with a thing I'm worried about? Yeah. Maybe you can tell me if this is a reasonable fear. If you should sleep at night.

I'm worried about this. I could picture a forest supervisor in a left leaning state. So let's say a forest supervisor in Washington, a forest supervisor in California says, fine, I'm closing my forest because I don't have the staff. Right. And they use it to score political points. Is that possible? Before I left, we got explicit direction that shall not happen. Okay. I was hoping that was because I could picture someone saying,

Right. I'm taking my marbles and going home. We call it the, you know, the Washington Monument strategy, you know. I'm not familiar. Park Service is masterful at this, cut the Park Service budget, close the monument. Oh, yeah, no, I got, yeah. Yeah, and close the Washington Monument, and the parks service budget, close the monument. And close the Washington monument. And everybody screams and says what happened? And so we've never done that.

We've never taken that out. I think there's going to be some things that are going to require it. At least when I left a month ago, if you could show your budget couldn't support a campground being open, it had to go all the way to the secretary's office to get approval. So that's going to be hard to get. A campground? So they're like reviewing a campground site? We have this beautiful four visitor site here we'd like to get back up and running.

If a four supervisor proposes to close any public facility, it's got to be run off the chain. So I don't think you have to worry too much about it. So they're like, they're anticipating and taking steps against that. Because it would happen. It's called the Washington Mall strategy. The Washington Monument strategy. The Washington Monument strategy. Right, close the monument.

Fine, I'll close. Yeah. Yeah, I have a... The park service gets away with it. They've gotten away with it since 1994. I mean, you guys were all too young for that. But when the Republicans in 94 took control of the House for the first time in 40 years, right? They went after everything.

The contract with America and Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House, and they were cutting and stuff. And they went after the Park Service pretty harshly. And they cut their budget pretty good, and the Park Service said, fine. And Mike Finley was the superintendent at Yellowstone here, and he was like this with President Clinton. He was really close to him, and Ted Turner, and he eventually went on to run the Turner Foundation.

But they just said, fine, we'll close the gates, we'll close whole faithful. And I mean, you know, little newspaper you get when you go into the park, after those budget cuts, like, it was like, Bambi's gonna die because of congressional budget cuts. I ain't really saying that. Really? Oh, yeah. They just played it. And within a year and a half, there was the give the Park

Service as much money as you want, supported by congressmen on both sides, and they got all the money they wanted. So, but the Park Service has gates and they can do that much better. Do that better. Go ahead. And back then, things weren't quite as volatile as they are politically, but it was awesome to watch. It was like, damn, how'd you guys do that? Because they cut our budgets and we didn't get any of it back. That would be my worry, is that with lack of employees, there's probably some amount of enforcement employees that will not be on the ground anymore.

And if you, and it kind of links up to the same thing with the maintenance, if that's not getting done, well, I think we saw it once in Eagle County, and this is just what I was told, so I don't know, and I'm not gonna bring up the spot so I don't wanna burn it, but because the road couldn't be maintained and the ruts got too big, it was too dangerous, they just closed the road.

And so I don't know if that was the actual reason, but instead of like being able to drive way up in there, you had to hike from the bottom and it was a heck of a much longer hunt at that point. But if there's no one to enforce that gate and people just start going around it and then we end up with like what you see down in Alaska when you're flying into your moose spot and the ATV trails just go farther and farther every year and the big swamp buggy trails go farther and farther every year. Zero enforcement action. Yeah. It could become like, you know, wild west lawless stuff, like people

doing whatever they want, right? Yeah. Okay. So is that a real worry I should have? Yeah. I'm hesitant because I don't want to like, hey, this is for you to go out there and do bad stuff. It's happening right now though, right?

I mean, it's a huge concern because what I've seen and the data shows the biggest deterrent is just boots on the ground. It doesn't have to be a cop with a gun. Just that they see a white truck or back in the day, a green truck, people behave more. I mean, it's just the way it is. And without those people out there, I absolutely think we're going to have that kind of, there's no one to go to take care of it. And then people get frustrated at us. Why aren't you doing anything about that? That's the public service cycle I hate to see broken and and and and what I'm at least at this stage and whatever you know reform is being done to our public land agencies this is

is there a law enforcement aspect to the national forest service like I know we used to see like blm officers like forest service rangers man there's there's law enforcement officers um There's forest service rangers, man. There's law enforcement officers. Again, it's just part of the culture of our agency. We're not the enforcement people. And so, you know, our forest, the busiest in the country, and the most visitors, and then interstate running right through the middle of it, there's now one. When we're fully staffed, we have three.

Right. Pistol pack and Rangers. Yeah. Fully, you know, vested or whatever they call the, yeah, they can actually arrest you. They can, they can arrest you. They are the state has, they can enforce some state law, you know, state violations and, and yeah, we have, because you can also have a lot of people who have the authority to write citations. Yeah, those are called Forest Protection Officers, FPLs, where you go to a 40-hour class, you can learn how to... So that's good. A bunch of people we've fired were the Forest Protection Officers, so that's too bad. So we got to get more people trained and, and so cumulatively, I'm worried about that. You know, but it's not part of the budget discussion, especially after this last, um,

uh, I don't know, order that, that Schultz sent out. I did like his, uh, letter to the forest service, by the way. That was good. Yeah. Um, but I Imagine it would be a logical discussion to be like, okay We have point nine cents per visitor to spend on toilet paper. Mm-hmm And we can only pump all these toilets once so what if we close

Three of them and keep five open. Yeah, right more that that is what 5-0 but yeah right that that is what my predecessors are gonna have to all of them that's what's going on across the country is the massive prioritization again we're 36 trillion dollars in debt as an age as a nation we are every aspect of government should be doing this 36 trillion dollars if your kids are not my kid and your kids your your kids, they're going to deal with this. Dude. And the thing is we're not dealing with it like that.

Right. So prior Biden administration, you'll love this. Why? Cause it said Biden. You know, the infrastructure reduction or sorry, inflation reduction act. You know, the infrastructure reduction or sorry, inflation reduction act. Um, you know, I, I heard a lot of people inside the forest service. I am, I'm really nervous about this influx of cash because it didn't end up getting, getting spent on the boots on the ground stuff, the people, the stuff

boots on the ground stuff, the people, the stuff the people can see and rely on. And it got spent in positions that are pretty far removed from the end user. No, that's absolutely true. And did those positions get cut during these? Yeah, they did. And a huge amount of that money is unspent yet. First of all, you throw any that kind of money, I mean, you throw a billion dollars at the Department of Defense or multi-billion dollars in the case of IRA and bipartisan infrastructure bill, that was a huge multi-billion dollar pump to the fore service. We're not set up to kind of spend that kind of money. Department of Defense give me a billion dollars, that's one plane. Got it done. We're not set up for that. So that was just poor planning and now a lot of that money

has not gotten to the fuels work. A lot of the GAOA money, Great American Outdoors money, which you know, your senator was big and Senator Daines was getting passed. Again, influx of money and we're not getting it out there to the ground fast enough. That's the restructuring I'd like to see. Why? Let's evaluate what's wrong. Well, we don't have people in the right places. It takes engineers. When you're redoing a campground, you got to have engineers. Well well this forest doesn't have one so it sits there and it sits there and it sits there so there's there's plenty to fix and plenty to to to evaluate i uh i just i i worry too as we keep going back and forth this has been the biggest swing trump biden trump now like these eight years have been like why we are going so This has been the biggest swing, Trump, Biden, Trump now.

Like these eight years have been like, why? We are going so far. I don't even remember transitions between Bush and Obama. Yeah, they talked more about this, but they were seamless. Now we're getting these big swings. And I think that's like the world we live in, you know, is just more things, you know, in the Biden administration, we had to, we had to label everything we did as climate change stuff.

Yeah. Oh, really? I didn't know that clearing that trail was okay. Well, we've talked about that a bunch. You had to take for a while, you had to find a way to do what you felt was necessary, but you had to re-articulate the reason behind it. And it led to just some crazy, like very elastic thinking that kind of became almost a self-parity, I thought. Yeah. And the emphasis on monuments and wilderness areas and stuff, I'm all for that, but it's being done, it's being pushed by the ends of the spectrums. And now, you know, in this administration, it's going to be oil and gas, livestock, and timber. And there's just something just came out from in the Forest Service where they want a 25%

increase in timber production. And the Secretary has declared pretty much every piece of national forest land in the country as an emergency. It's called Secretary's Emergency Declaration. And what that can do is now that's designated, the NEPA process, the process changes considerably. There's only two alternatives. Either you do it, it's action or no action. So that cuts your analysis, well, what about this alternative? What about this? Ah, it's either you do it or you don't. There's no objections,

you know, that internal process where someone could say, I object to this and we evaluate it and we can implement it immediately. And so you either litigate to stop it immediately or it's gonna go through. And it's around fuels, forest health. I don't know if that's such a bad thing. It's just such a big swing, you know? Yeah, well, I offered my services on land swaps. Right.

I also offer my services. I will come in and unilaterally be red light, green light on timber projects. And trust me, there are a lot of timber projects that I will give a green light to. I think you would too. So I'm going to be busy. Because, you know, it's a free market deal. Like I'm not lighting my hair on fire over the timber mandate. Because, I mean, I don't, in a lot of Montana, I don't see anything changing. There's a lot of chunks of forest that people walk into and they're like, oh my God, this should be cleaned up.

Well, you're going to have to pay out of pocket to have somebody go clean that up. Expensive work, a couple thousand bucks an acre. How much? Oh, a couple grand for fuels work that just just where there's nothing merchantable at the end. Where it's not merchantable, right? And we don't have. That's a lot of money. Right, for us, plus like Missoula

is such a great example, right? Like when Steve was going to school there, I was growing up, right? We really had three lumber mills right there. We have zero now, right? There's still a lot of forest around Missoula and a lot that I think people would really argue needs to be, something's got to be done here. I don't know this for a fact, cause I'm not an expert in the industry, but

there were no tariffs on Canadian timber. No, I thought there was. I mean, they had a letter of the emergency order. Uh-huh. They, at the end, they pulled out a timber was lumber was not tariff because we don't have the capacity. We can't produce enough lumber here in America to keep the builders going. So the builders must have got to someone and said hey don't do this because you're gonna jack the prices through the roof. There was recently a

big there was they wrapped it up but there was a big clear cut in There's a big clear cut in our area where we hang out in southeast, Alaska Oh, I thought you're gonna talk about my spot there in Wisconsin. No Yeah, he's private clear cut knocked down like 12 trees there was a big clear cut in southeast Alaska and It was tribal land but there was a bunch of land swaps to put the package together. So it wound up being that... I worked on that land exchange. State moved to federal and federal moved to tribal and tribal moved to state, whatever the hell. And in the end they put together a cut and we got to watch this cut over the summer and over many summers and I'll tell you man that would Okay, those trees

Go into the ocean cutting logs with the bark on mm-hmm and Then they go on to a barge and they do not touch American soil. Nope. That shit is over Seed yeah used to be used to be even get like I Mean if some bark falls off in the ocean, that's as much processing as that wood is getting in the U.S. dude. And it's gone. And then you hear about losing our capacity on lumber and stuff. It's like, dude, it's going over in the round. Yeah. Yeah. It used to be outlawed. And I don't even know where to begin. Like

you can look and be like, well, that seems crazy, but I don't even know where to begin like you can look and be like well that seems Crazy, but I don't even know where to begin to start like I don't even know how to begin addressing a problem like that well it used Tongus lumber used to not be you they've Approved special provisions to send it in the round overseas it used to have to be manufactured at least on three sides You know in in America, but the industry's in such dire straits up there. I mean, the reality is the old Gulf industry cannot survive, period. I mean, well, this same outfit, the same tribal court that did this clear cut, they announced a 99-year

moratorium on old growth. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. I don't know if they'll stick to it. There was internal strife. They announced a 99-year moratorium and they closed that cut early. So go ahead. Then I want to ask the last question.

I just want you to clarify a point. I just wonder, I've thought a lot about, I don't know if it'll be fixed, but you know, how much advocacy and environmental groups and stuff own some of the extremes? And I think people have got to really look in the mirror and start saying, what are we really fighting against? Is it fighting against something we're really concerned about or is it this is a really good way to keep our money flowing? Because this model has worked really good. Demonize, say this guy is falling, find an enemy and then say send us money. We'll save them, you know, whatever. And I think

about that a lot and I think about if I can work on that in my retirement to try to, you know, bring more collaboration to these discussions about you know about forest management but I want I want to ask you a retired guy question yeah in all these conversations that are happening right now I just want to clarify a personal like a personal guiding strategy here in these conversations that we're having I I've tried to, in issues about federal land management agencies, I've tried to be like a to remain like somewhat cooperative because I've been very clear over the years about like the things that matter to me, right? Things that matter to me is like hunting and

fishing issues and wildlife habitat. And I joke about if I was the emperor of the country, what I would do and it would be all wildlife all the time, right? And I would have found the emperor of the country, but I'm not, no one's asking me to be. Right. So I've tried to look at this issue and say, okay,

there are economic troubles in the country. We overspend, right? There's problems in the country at a macro level. So instead of saying that business as usual is the only acceptable path, I've tried to like find a way in my mind to be a little more constructive and say, okay, what are the objectives? What are we trying to achieve? What are the objective realities here? And how could it be done in a way that doesn't, that is less negative for Americans in my community who use natural resources and raise their families

and spend their time in nature. With that rambling sort of precursor, what I'm gonna say, I'm just like setting this question up. If someone had come to you, based on what you know about the Forest Service, if someone had come to you and said, we need to find efficiencies, like we have to find efficiencies, Like we have to find efficiencies.

We have to spend less money. We have to save money. And we don't want to impact the American taxpayer who's utilizing these lands. We want to have minimized impact on that taxpayer, like our customer, so to speak. And they said to you, here's the 10% cut package. Okay, bring me a 10% cut package.

Bring me a 20% cut package. Bring me a 30% cut package. At what percent would you start to be like impossible? to be like impossible. Wow. My colleagues are still working probably kill me when they hear this. 40% 30 to 30 to 40. And here's what here's why is that you like specifically for White River or no Forest Service wide? Yeah. There are things that we need to come to grips with. Did an analysis before, it's a cool thing about computers and SharePoint sites and stuff. Did an analysis that, so Forest Service has a Washington office and has nine regional

offices in Denver, Missoula, Albuquerque, Salt Lake, blah, blah, blah. And then there's the field, then there's the forest, and then the forest has districts. 35% of our employees, all our employees, non-fire, you gotta set the fireside. None of because I none of this discussion I didn't do with fire 35% of our employees had Work at a Washington office or regional office. Mm-hmm. That seems high Because people in Washington regional offices Make a lot more than people on the ground It's well over 50% of our salary costs as an agency

are not where we deliver this. It's not the mission delivery. Yeah. That alone, there's no company that can survive on those numbers. I mean, service companies are different. But if you're producing something or if you have a service to deliver, I mean I know skier is really well. I know for a fact that if they put over 50% of their, you know,

Vale Resorts or corporate offices in Broomfield, it's on the mountain because that's where the money's made. That's where the mission is delivered. So there's a problem. I think I've said it a couple of times, we got upside down and is where our mission was. We just delivered the mission and all the things you want to protect from your constituents, our communities, our clean water and all that stuff. That all happens on the ground for cheap. Now fuels projects and stuff get expensive when you,

the other thing I think you have to look at is big things. You know, we have, and again, my colleagues would kill me, we have a huge research department in the forest service created because when the, back then, there was not a single university in the country that researched any natural resource or forestry issues. So we created, we have a state and private division, a whole thousands of people because there were no

state foresters. Now every for state in the country has a whole state forestry division, but yet those were legacy then over years and years. So 30%, 40%, between 30, it's just, I just believe in the people on the ground. And I'm biased because that's work I did. Do we need policy people? Do we need, you know, you know, CIO? But that's the cheap part of the job. So I you know I don't know what's gonna

happen you guys don't know what's gonna happen this kind of crazy times in our country but I always tell people public lands are not in the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution are they and yet I believe it is one of the great experiments in democracy. No other country in the world says here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take whatever 7% or whatever the percentage of our country's land base. We're gonna put it in public trust, managed for everyone, owned by everyone and what an experiment in democracy and so far 125 years, it's we're doing all right. But I remind people, it's not in the Constitution.

There's no guarantee that it can stay. And so the end game is stay involved. Pay attention. I guess I'm not ready to light my hair on fire and say, the public lands are going away, they're going to sell them all. I'm going to pay attention now, obviously, but I think your listeners should pay attention. I think there are things in the system now

that require, especially for hunters and anglers and people who enjoy it the way we do, pay attention. This is a time to pay attention. Get involved with that NEPA process a little more, make sure your voices are heard because there is no guarantee in the Constitution that this crazy experiment will continue. Thanks for coming out, man.

Pleasure to be here. What are your hobbies? What are you going to do now? Turkey hunting starts Saturday. So you know, I love to hunt and fish and and Get outside you're gonna stay where you're at in Colorado for a while Yeah, I mean you're sitting here right now because you're on a fishing tour. Yeah And visit some friends tour But yeah, my brothers and I you you know, I'm from Wisconsin and listening to you talk about how you grew up with your brothers, identical.

I mean, we were just across the pond from you on the Wisconsin side. And we're building, we're almost done. We're building the cabin in the UP. Oh. Yeah, up in West of Waters, me. That's where we went as kids. You know there was with six kids in a cop salary. There was no Disneyland vacations. So we're just there just about done. I write the checks. I write checks to pay for things because they do.

They do the work. Yeah. Because they're there. I mean they're back there. And so we're doing that and I don't know, I'm not ready to not be involved. I've gotten some calls about some work and we'll see. I'm going to take two months to see what's out there. And then I love this stuff too much. I like to mix it up too much. Pete Slauson Man, well, just the fact that you're, the fact that you're passionate about the forest, you're passionate about public lands, you put in a lot of years, you have opinions. I can't vet whether all of your opinions, I mean, you know enough, you

know more than I know, so I can't say that all your opinions are right or wrong or whatever. But just the fact that you care, I would sure hope that, um, people that need to start the people that do need to make decisions about where money goes and what money is there. I, if I knew that they were reaching out to guys like you to get an opinion that they could give an honest way now that you're not there anymore, I would be like, well, that sounds like a good idea to me so hopefully some conversations will happen for you you

know where someone can say like well now I could tell you what I actually think and here's what I think right and no one's gonna fire me for it good feeling you know you know we always have a hard time having agency people on the show because they're so paranoid but it's nice to have the, like you're here

in a post paranoid sense. Yeah, I would have come on and said most of this while I was working, that's what I got my reputation for. Although I would have gotten in trouble, but not fired. But I don't think what I had to say was all that controversy. You're not saying it, you're not. I'm not hacking on anyone.

I just think, you know, there's changes coming and some of them were good, some of them gotta pick your watch for. Yeah, I wanna talk to the guys that are like, that recognize a reality and recognize how can we do this in the best way possible and not in a ways that are kind of like ham-handed knee-jerk reactions.

So thanks, man. You bet, glad to be here. Appreciate it, thanks for coming out. Thanks, Scott. I'm telling you man, there's nothing quite like it. Gives me chubby just thinking about it. You hit the call way off in the distance, a time fires back. You work them in watching his body language shift from cautious to committed. Then that moment, the one every turkey hunter dreams about all winter is that

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