The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 817: Conservation Wins and Losses with Senator Martin Heinrich

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Steven Rinella talks with New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich, Ryan Callaghan, and Randall Williams.  Topics discussed: Corner crossing and the Supreme Court ruling; stream access; the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, mining, and caribou; the Roadless Rule; where to develop and not develop renewables; relative bipartisan support for nuclear energy; reintroducing pronghorn back to an area of New Mexico; the breadth of the coalition that came together around keeping public lands in public hands; and more.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. This is the Meat-Eater podcast coming at you, shirtless, severely bug-bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt the Meat-Eater podcast. You can't predict anything. Brought to you by First Light. When I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit.

First Light builds, no compromise gear that keeps me in the field longer. No shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at firstlight.com. That's f-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. Holy smokes, joined today by Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. Dr. Randall, Williams, is here, not in his normal seat. Callahan is here, not in his normal seat. And we're here to talk a little, like, a little state of the union stuff with Senator Heinrich.

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

for some reason I was on that one twice and I think Micah was too and then Carter was on the other one how do you know that one but I mean when we flew in but there's three there to yellow oh I couldn't so what are the odds if you only went one way it's a one and three I honestly never took a probability class they like pushed us straight into calculus and so I could mess that up real quick. Okay.

There's a good chance. Classic politician not answering the question. Evading the subject. It's a simple question. It was a good chance he flew in that year, a few years ago, I had the, we had a great time and I had the pleasure of going on a cariboo hunt with Senator Heinrich. He, I had my one boy and you had your two boys and we were able to camp and do some cariboo hunting, had a great time.

Studied engineering. at the University of Missouri, Columbia, Missou, as they say. Early on, established a strong length of the outdoors tradition, hunting and fishing as a kid, grew up on his family's property in Missouri, but he's been in New Mexico for 30 years. Commutes to D.C. for official business,

but lives with his family in Albuquerque. That's right. Yeah. I've been in your office in Washington, D.C. It's loud and proud. I try to make it a little, little slice of home. Yeah. It's loud and proud.

It's like a hunting office. Yeah. What is, um, it's, it's my refuge. It's like, I want to be able to go into work and deal with a whole lot of issues, some of which I absolutely love, which, you know, conservation is kind of what gets me on the plane on Monday morning, leaving blue skies and mountains for all the, the bullshit in D.C. Uh, but having that around me and having, you know, things that remind me of home and remind me of those. hunts uh it it puts me in the right frame of mind how was that generally uh received that you have sort of you know you got skulls and antlers and a lot of new mexico actually people love it i've had so many people tell me you have the most beautiful office in the senate office buildings

that i've been into it's rarely a jarring thing for people and and for new mexicans too we you know we have this history of like Georgia O'Keefe painted all of those skulls and so I because all my stuff is generally European mounts for some reason people people have a different relationship with that from a artistic point of view I guess yeah than a typical shoulder mount and so I get a lot of a lot of you know positive feedback on it it's kind of strategically advantage though too because like when I walk into your office I'm like okay I'm going to ask Heinrichs and tough questions here and then I sit down I'm like first one being

let's talk about that antelope you know it's like disarming yeah it is disarming yeah I got a good look at alo it's like Senator I got a tough question you're probably going to want to evade the answer on this one you're going to be you're going to be slippery where exactly did you get that antelope

don't give me that slippery politician stuff if a guy was to apply for an antelope tag yeah don't give me that evasive politician stuff Tell me exactly where you got it. We're going to run through a whole ton of issues. Just get your take on them. So these will be things that what we're going to talk about. So as a senator, you're one of a hundred votes, right?

We're going to talk about things that some things are things that you've voted on. You've dealt with from a policy perspective. Some of these things admittedly are things that you've watched from a federal perspective, but they haven't really come across your debt. desk. Yeah. For instance, one I'm going to, let's start out by talking about, um, as we kind of run through the country and run through issues, we're going to talk about one, um, which we followed

a great deal over the years, which is the, the corner crossing debate. And the reason I'm bringing this up with you is, is right after the Supreme Court recently decided, uh, not to take on the corner crossing issue, um, rejected an appeal, right? coming out of the Ninth Circuit. You did a very... Tenth Circuit. Sorry, coming out of the Tenth Circuit. Is that right?

Yeah. God, I've been telling me the wrong thing on that. The Ninth Circuit, right? Ninth Circuit is California. Oh, we're not. Yeah. Man, how many times have I told that story? Wolf stuff is ninth.

Uh-oh. That came... The Supreme Court decision came... I'll let you lay the whole thing out. The Supreme Court decision came out, and I was pleased to see you did a very informative... Yeah, because I think most people around... In your beautiful office.

Around the country don't know what corner crossing in is why. it's important. And I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to the four hunters who were tied up in this legal mess for years because they did such an incredible job of going the extra mile to make sure that their fact pattern was clean, right? So we could have a clean court case. And I think that was reflected in both the decision in the Tenth Circuit and then the rejection of the appeal by the Supreme Court. At its core, I think what this is is we're getting back to what the actual law of the land is, which is that there is a federal law called the Unlawful Enclosures Act that says you can go from public to public. And that supersedes county trespass law, state trespass law. You can't keep someone, whether it's for stock growing purposes or hunting or any other legal right that they have to use that land. And that's a like late 1800s law that was largely ignored or tried to be evaded for years and years of state law. And this is a return to that law being the law of the land. I got a handful of questions on this. And remember, I'm an engineer or not a lawyer.

I just read the same legal briefs that you do. But I've spent a lot of time talking to my AG about this, you know, going through really trying to. to dig deep to understand, you know, what the decision might be based on the fact pattern here. Yeah, because your state, New Mexico, is in the district that decided that corner crossing is legal. That's exactly right. So a first question, and I'm sure Callan Randall might have comments or questions on the issue, but just to, is it possible to get into the heads of the Supreme Court justices? Someone brings the, when they decide not to hear something, is it, is it can it be a combination of things like is it that's not that interesting that we don't have time for that is that a factor or is it no it's quite clear what's true and right and

we'd be wasting time pretending that there's a wishy-washy this to this needs to be sorted out they have a very limited amount of time and they're looking for places where they think maybe a lower court got it wrong okay and you know based on the information they they have, is it worth a second look? Or did the lower court just do its job? And basically, we don't see a big red flag here. Okay. So it doesn't mean that there couldn't be another case that came from the Ninth Circuit where their decision might be somewhat different. I think what my hope would be is that if there are other circuits that take this on, that they also, that we're able to do it with a clean case that really doesn't have a lot of distractions. Because

that's you know when those guys took a ladder out there if you look at the case law you know people were using the unlawful enclosures act to drive their sheep around corners that and and there was forage impacted and they were much cleaner than that they were like we're going to make this as perfect as possible so that the case law that says you can't harass people going from public to public you can't keep people out of their resource is going to be very clearly applied okay um which comes in like when proving damages right like that's like the interesting thing about the sheep is like sheep graze along the way there's going to be damages that you could prove to that for and yet the case law said even if forage is impacted you can still take your stock as long as you're you know

minimizing it your intent is not to exploit you're going from public to public and this whole issue of air rights and the fact that the case law says you can't harass people And yet in this case, clearly these hunters were harassed. I think it just made for a very clean case, and we all benefit from that. What is, first of all, I want to make sure I got something right. If I got, if I'm wrong, I'm asking these to because you guys live here. If I'm wrong about this, we'll just cut this, we'll feel complete this whole part out. I haven't looked exactly.

Is it true that since the Supreme Court decision, Montana has expressed or clarified that it remains unlawful to corner cross. That's Montana fishing game. How? So I don't say the state has. But I say Montana fish and game has. How is a huge question because in the past they've gone the other way in the exact same form. It's a memo, hey, just so you know.

we're not going to write citations for corner crossing. So, I mean, that's a great question. But they, the way that they worded is they say it's not considered a lawful form of access. So it doesn't. I think what they're trying to say, and I think they're on very thin ice here, because a state law is superseded by a federal law. So what they're trying to say is Montana, and I haven't read the Montana law, but. I think the idea is Montana has a trespass law, and we're going to apply that, and we're not in that circuit over there that got this clarified.

Yeah. And so, you know, it does leave all this ambiguity. I don't think that's a valid point of view because you have a federal law that says, no, you can go from, as long as you go from public to public and you're not damaging someone else's property, you should be, in theory, on good stead here. And I think they made a choice to go out on a limb. Yeah. Because if it came, if someone was prosecuted and they fought it and started to appeal it, the same unlawful enclosures act would apply. That would be the foundation of the discussion all over again. Yes. And the way that Montana is, and again, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks is doing this is saying, we aren't going to just be looking for corner crossers. We're not going to be writing citations. What we're going to do is if a landowner,

wants to press the issue, we're going to come look at, look at the facts of the situation. We're going to then call the county attorney's office. And the county attorney is going to make the decision as to whether or not to issue a citation. So, I mean, they're really kicking the can to somebody else. To somebody else. The buck doesn't stop. Yeah. Yeah. And we've we've experienced that in Mexico, you know, we went through this whole stream access fight for years and years based on the language in our constitution. If you want to do it right now, go ahead. Let's talk about it. But our game and fish department were in the midst of changing it to the Department of Wildlife, but irrespective, they, they have not been willing to take the bowl by the horns and just issue guidance

so that people know what is, you know, when you're going to be in trouble and when you're not. And that's a problem when you have the the law enforcement agency that is most likely to be involved in this conflict not willing to to draw a bright line for the public that's going to invite some some challenges yeah yeah and meanwhile we've got our attorney general going out and finding places where people put concertina wire across the paco's river and sending them a letter and say hey take it down is that right yeah which is great like that that's that's the kind of certainty people need. And if you need to, like, it would also be perfectly appropriate to say this stretch of the Chama River that has private on both sides, we recognize the work that people have done to improve that

habitat. And so that's only going to be catch and release or it's only going to be fished this way or that way because we're trying to protect the quality and the, you know, the quality of that fishery. they just haven't really taken the bull by the horns at all. And so it's been left to people like the Attorney General to enforce the ruling that came down from the state Supreme Court. Okay. Since you brought that up, I wanted to talk about it. Tell us about the stream access. Long, long.

The ongoing and then how it applies, how it might be applied in other places in the West. Like what do we mean when we say stream access law? So in the state of New Mexico, historically stream access, we did not have a standard of navigability. That exists in some other places. And that means, you know, the place, a lot of states said any place where commerce was done, meaning if you floated a log down the river, for example, to a mill, those are public rights of way.

That's not precisely New Mexico. We've got a little bit of a different history because of the Spanish background. And we didn't become a, you know, we didn't join the union until the Treaty of Guadalupe Adago and then a state in the early 1900s, our constitution articulates something that other states don't have. And so we always had a standard historically that not only could you float down a river, but you could also wade up and down that river so long as you were in the stream and not on the private property on either side. Well, you know, when I'm trying to explain the navigability thing to people in terms of our rivers here,

in other states as well i always i always try to begin it like this let's just let's start with the mississippi river now say that one guy has private property on one side of the mississippi river and then directly across from him another guy has private property it's ludicrous to think that these two property owners could stop all commercial traffic up and down the mississippi everyone would be like well of course not i'm like okay so now that we've established that that's Make it a little smaller. Let's go smaller and smaller and smaller until we hit the point where it's not so obvious. Right.

And in an arid state like New Mexico or next door in Arizona, you know, you, there is the Rio Grande, the Gila, our biggest, the Pecos, our biggest rivers are at some points in the year in a condition where you can walk across them. Okay. So if you don't have waiting, you don't really have a public right of way. And that's basically what the Supreme Court ruled is that there is a right for the public to be able to access up and down those streams so long as they, you know, comply with all the other laws, don't litter, et cetera, don't, don't, you know, harm someone's property on either side or step onto a portion of the bank that is above the high water line. Okay. So what was the long, like, what has been the longstanding question in New Mexico that needed to be, that needs to be clarified? There was an effort by a previous governor and a group of landowners who I would just characterize as maybe being recently to the state to try and move the standard more like Texas and less like New Mexico. And they had a lot of success passing some laws and some rules in the Department of Game and Fish that people did not think were consistent with the history.

the Constitution. And so then there was a challenge. And that that legal challenge played out over the course of quite a number of years. And the Supreme Court ruled, no, these laws, this, and it was, you know, they tried to rewrite it based on navigability. And that wasn't our history. So the Supreme Court threw it out and said, no, you have stream access in the state of New Mexico. And how is it defined now? Does someone have to go back and prove that something was used? for commerce it does not no that's that's the navigability standard that is not the standard in new mexico all unreserved waters are uh the property of the public under the state constitution i explored this one time um low low creek you guys have been there i i one time was curious

about this whole question and it was you can look up and find it's logs references to logs going in at certain points and there's a there's a specific point on this creek comes off the bitter root divide flows down into the bitter root river um there's a point in this creek as you ascend it there's a point at which it stops

being navigable um and i think it's based on like historical yeah i was just in and this gets used on both sides for pro access and anti-access, obviously, but I was, I mean, just in Colorado on Tuesday night, and we were having this stream access conversation in Colorado. Was this the onyx? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was a great, great event in the Boulder Theater there, but, you know, it was the way Colorado's stream access is written is off of like commercial trade, navigability. And people were kind of debating this stuff. And they just weren't thinking back far enough. And I just said, well, you know, from my perspective, considering the deep, deep fur trade history in the state of Colorado, I would think very hard before I had said there was no commercial use of any water in this state.

You know who's going to find it. If you put Randall on it, he'll find it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're like, I beg to differ. Yeah. You're telling me he can't float a people belt down here. That'll be the next audio book.

They floated 300 beaver hides down at to market. Right. We had, when I was guiding up in Alaska, you needed a, you needed a Coast Guard license to drive a boat on this big glacial river that was, you know, hundreds of yards wide. And then all the little streams that were super sketchy were people sunk boats and had boat accidents and everything like that. You didn't need a license to do that because there had never been any commerce. Oh. And so it was like dependent on, it was, it's one of these cases where it's very arbitrary. and actually doesn't really work with the regulatory framework to achieve the intended outcome.

But it was just one of those funny things. It's like, as soon as you get off the safe water, you get up into the sketchy stuff. It's anarchy. Then you don't need a Coast Guard license, yeah. So that got clarified. Yeah. And now you kind of started a little bit. You mentioned something I imagine a little bit at the end of the story.

Now that it's been clarified, they're going around and having. people remedy obstructions exactly the uh you know the attorney general went out and looked at the pecos where this has been a particularly uh sort of intense conflict and you know said letter letters to folks and said if you know you have a certain amount of time please remedy this this is clearly the law of the land now and uh to his credit most of those structures have been is that right yeah so people have accepted what's what's truth i i I think legally because there's a real, you know, the next step would have been exposure to, you know, legal remedies. But, yeah, I think for the most part, and for the most part, people, you know, our goal in New Mexico is to be one, pro access and two, pro good behavior.

Like, we need to make sure that people are meeting their responsibilities if they're going to use corner crossing or stream access to. to fish or hunt or recreate or whatever it is and i i think marrying those two together and having a lot of public interaction and education is the best way to have the most access with the lease conflict yeah cal and i have discussed this recently on the corner crossing issue is um now that it's been clarified in a large chunk of the american west and it's probably it's likely to be clarified to some extent or another in the coming years and more of the the american west it's going to fall on land users it's going to fall on access seekers to do this in a way um that that minimizes conflict that minimizes stress or else it's going to

be you risk making it an issue all over again a hundred percent be responsible and that's that should be the the mantra for sportsmen all the time it's like think about how you're are going to reflect on all of us. This kind of burst people's bubble, but I try to point it out because we think we get so fixated on what we're going to get by accessing this square mile through the corner and then get over to the next square mile through the corner, which is, you know, awesome. It's an adventure and everything that we have, but the private land access is everywhere, including the corner. They're the public landowner as well. And including the public. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, but they can access all that stuff way easier than, uh, the folks that are restricted to accessing through the corner. So the, the, we got to think of long term wins here, not this short term little access win. Like, we want everybody to be on board with this as much as possible. For sure. And we also have tools for that, right? I mean, I think you and I first met at the Sabinosa, which was ironically, like the most land. handlocked BLM Wilderness area. Like, you just couldn't get there illegal. Capital W Wilderness, crazy.

Designated Wilderness, I did that in 2009 because I'd been allowed permission on horseback to go in there and see the place. But the next step was we used land and water conservation funds to open it up to the public in a way that, you know, that also was consistent with local landowners who wanted to grant that access for um you know for a fair compensation yeah well uh that's i'm sure this is in your notes somewhere too but uh the two members of the stewardship caucus right now so we had uh heinrich working on this uh opening up this wilderness area and then uh now congressman zincy was then uh secretary of the interior zinky and he was the one who got uh the BLM to

accept new acreage that allowed access to the wilderness. They took a gift of land that allowed that to be opened up to the public. Rimrock Rose Ranch. It didn't start out so great with me and Ryan, but I was like at some point, I said, rather than us arguing about this in Washington, D.C., Secretary, why don't you come out to New Mexico and we'll saddle up some horses and we'll go look at this place? And that got through a lot of the words to like what made sense on the ground and we made progress plus new mexicans like once you're there new mexican hospitality is just a real thing and the stories that that came out from the rimrock

rose owners they if this is like a good lesson to spoiled kids like what you say to your parents because the kids were like yeah we can't wait to get the ranch so we can sell it and the parents right okay do we know that I'm careful what you say yeah let's let's jump up to Alaska because man so much has happened to Alaska with Alaska

under the Trump administration there's been so much news out of Alaska and every little bit of the news like takes another nick out of my heart I was kind of hope I don't know what I hope

I was hoping that they would like look another direction I don't know what I it wasn't it was a naive hope I don't know I just there's been a lot of hits to a lot of things I care a lot about in Alaska I was so I'm curious what your take on what we're actually going to see happen how long these processes play out let's start with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge I earlier called it ANWR and you joked me that you never call it ANWR well I I don't call it ANWR that sounds like a small Middle Eastern country that would be a logical place to be exploring for oil and gas right

Um, they also call out the 1002 area, they'll, we'll go to real ex, yeah, oily, like that goes nicely on a balance sheet. Yeah, yeah, I got some 1050, some 10.02 here for my F-150. Um, and so, I, I think this one's complicated in that in the 2017 reconciliation bill, they allowed for leasing of the Arctic refuge. Um, the good news. Um, the good news. news is that went terribly. Like no legitimate companies who actually had a history of producing oil and gas, no majors, no independence with deep pockets and a long history of actually doing exploration and production in hard-to-reach places bid on that. It was all the Ada, which is sort of the Alaska economic development, kind of a Hail Mary operation. Were they, was their reluctance

based off public pressure or was there reluctance based off economics it's both okay it's a very expensive one like who wants to be the face of developing america's greatest national wildlife refuge okay like there is some social risk to doing that if you're a conoco phillips or a bp or an exon mobile or whoever like is is that the story you want to be articulating every day when we have these really productive basins in other places that are much lower hanging fruit and much cheaper to produce in. So, you know, you might be able to produce a barrel of oil for a fraction of the cost in the West Texas Permian or the New Mexico Permian. When you get that far from existing infrastructure, I've had a lot of folks from Alaska who are pretty pro oil and gas development

say, I just don't know that the resources there to justify this. And that's why you haven't seen a big player come in. You know, very different than Willow that we're looking at in the Western Arctic, where, you know, real money was dropped to be able to produce those barrels of oil. It's not clear that's there in the Arctic Refuge. And that is probably our best hope of seeing the refuge remain intact. Really? Did it just, in the end, no one's going to take the bait?

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

concerned from some of the sportsmen groups about, you know, the iders that are uniquely there and not, and only a few other places left on the planet. So that one right now, the politics of it don't look great, but the economics of it don't look good either. And that's, at the end of the day, I just, I don't know that it's going to be recoverable. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. And, you know, we could also see the politics change if there's a different majority next year in the House and Senate, which there easily could be. When you get to these issues like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it has, have this real, this, the expression to use as like a ping pong.

You know, I'm trying to take a football. Ping pong. Yeah, like if one administration comes, they undo a ruling. The next administration comes, they put the ruling back. And then it seems like your whole lifetime passes with these rulings. Yeah. Bouncing. How does something like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, what happens, like what could happen

that just clarifies it, right, to be what it is? Meaning, there's no, every new administration, they don't say, we're going to do rare earth minerals in Yellowstone National Park. It's just become that it's not discussed. Legislation. Not a budget, not something tucked into a budget that passed with 51 votes. Okay. But permanent legislation with 60 votes, which means you have to have some level of compromise and willingness for there to be a trade space to get to 60. that's not an easy thing, but that would create real certainty.

So 60 volts out of 100, saying we're taking the refuge, we're taking Anwar off the table is a 60 out of 100 vote thing. That's right. And that's in the old days. In the old days, in 1980, that happened, right? And that's why we have so many of the amazing places that we have in, in Alaska is because there were times when that was possible. but you know at the moment i sure don't see it okay uh i'm guessing you don't feel the same way about ambler road and just for for listeners when i explain what this is is um ambler road is a term used for a the word road is in it because what it is at its core is this

proposal to run a 250 mile road through the brooks range of alaska in order to make an industrial corridor for all manner of industrial development um it puts a lot of focus on the road but what it basically you the way one should think about it would be like the ambler industrial district yeah mining district yeah with the but airplanes like this is needs a road this isn't just a gravel road this is um you know 49 bridges and it's crossing thousands of streams including 11 major rivers it's in an area where there is a deep reliance on subsistence for things like she fish um and it is going to become an industrial corridor with multiple mines at the end of that corridor um it and i think one of the

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

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

happened at Red Dog Mine where they did a much shorter but similar road, those caribou ball up for weeks and don't want to cross it. And eventually they do, and then they haul ass. And so they lose weeks of putting on fat. They're in poorer condition. You know, this is already a herd that's in steep decline and is absolutely critical for subsistence in that area. And so I worry that this is the end of the Western Arctic Caribou herd being a great herd of Caribou. And you overlay that with what's happened to Alaska already, which you see.

Alaska's warm so much that you get these rain events in the winter that are really hard on doll sheep. They're really hard on caribou. They're really hard on muscocks where it like rains and then freezes. And then you have a vegetation change, which is a huge change just because it's warmer now in the summer. And so you have a huge vegetation change that caribou are grappling with. And it's no surprise that one of the great migrations on the planet is, you know, in real jeopardy. Man, the Caribou example

means a lot to me. Like, I understand the example, but my take on it has just, like, my take on it from the start has been that, um, I'm sympathetic to the economy issue. I'm sympathetic to the jobs issue.

When I talk to friends of mine that, you know, I'm an outsider. I don't live in Alaska. When I talk to buddies of mine that live in Alaska, and they bring up, jobs and job creation and financial security. I'm like, I understand, man.

I'm not belittling that stuff. I'm not rolling my eyes about it. I understand the concerns. Yeah, I understand the concern. But in thinking long-term American interests and short-term sort of like spiritual well-being and the long-term future of hunting, angling wilderness, I'm like, Its most valuable state is what it is right now. Yeah.

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

Hold them. Hold them. It's like, my wife used to work at Amazon. She got a bunch of Amazon stock. When it goes up a little bit, she just, you know, it goes up, goes down, she holds onto it. And you know what over time? Yeah. That's, you know what I'm saying? It's like, dude, it's like the most, it's the most brilliant thing on the planet. Look what this country has. Yeah. you're going to industrialize all this and we'll be like every other damn country with all the stuff gone yeah well i especially like all the stuff that's going on right now

now it's not that different than it has been over history but i'm like when are we going to start talking about water in terms of like national defense right like what do we need as a country if you're thinking about this country in perpetuity which i think we should be doing right like we're going to need places to grow food we're going to need clean water to drink, we're going to need our country to be able to sustain us. And a lot of the decisions that we're making right now are like short-term gain and irreplaceable in a long term. You take that twin metals proposed mine by the boundary waters, which is, you know, right in the, you know, that water will flow from where the mine site would be into the boundary

waters, right? And that, that product and look, my dad was at Anaconda Copper as an exploration geologist when he was growing up. My grandfather worked at Battle Mountain in Nevada. I'm not minimizing the need for mining. We have copper mines in New Mexico that produce a lot of copper and produce good jobs. You're going to mine that and then you're going to send it to China to process. So you're going to get the front end resource commodity money, but then you're going to buy it back once it's been, that's what third world countries do like that does that make sense and especially when you're

talking about an economic and cultural engine with the the cachet of the boundary waters um god wanted to comment on something a comment you made about national defense i think it's a great oh water no i know i was insane it's hyperbolic and i just do it to scare my kids i like to tell them that I'm like in your lifetime I won't be around for this but in your lifetime you'll be eating bugs and they'll fight wars over water that's like to tell them that's cool I tell them that at dinner I'll be long gone just so you know so don't come whining to me you'll be eating grasshoppers and fighting wars over water have a good night so what do you think will happen there we didn't get to

that part we talked about what what you know we talk about how we feel about it ambler road is a long way along okay and so i'm sure there will be litigation there are um you know the tanana uh tribal uh council and others that are very invested in the the um the subsistence resources there i i don't think it's the end but this thing is way along okay it's a long way and that there are some native corpse too that have to have to agree for the road to cross their land. And that's not a complete done deal yet, but there are a lot of negotiations that I think are fairly far along there as well. So price of real money.

Yeah. I am. And you know, you fact check me on this, but I think the government just took a ownership stake in the developer. Yeah. Which is bonkers. Like the definition of, you know, the government should never own the means of production. This whole idea of like cutting deals and taking ownership stakes in foreign mining companies to me is like nothing I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, we took a 10% the federal government took a 10% ownership stake in Trilogy Metals.

Really? In October of this year. I don't know that. Canadian mining for. Huh. I was unaware of that. Yeah. That in October? Yep.

Invested $36 million in this Canadian. Does that make it harder to be impartial? For us slow kids. So you know when you got a lot of money on the line? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it is interesting. Right. Like, we, there's all these natural things that are happening, uh, everywhere, but in this

case of the. Ambler district where it's got all these awesome resources, we can call them, on the back foot or fighting an uphill battle. And then this road, even though there's not like a current plan for public access along it, it's going to also provide additional pressures in the forms of take. It would be like the only mining camp in the history of the world where there weren't dudes interested and hunting and fishing if it did not. And then it's got the additional hurdle of

what really happens long term to this caribou herd when it balls up, waste a bunch of energy and then spends a bunch energy hauling ass away from the road on the back end once it finally crosses. We don't know the answer to that. And then the fishery side of things, like what is the long-term... effects on on these fisheries um and yeah like is the some long term subsistence plan

to just take the money and run like it very interesting another move i've seen not not i've seen another move the world has seen um is a is a movement of of a volley trying to think of my ping pong lingo serve in the ping pong analogy the roadless rule there's a hit on one side there's a hit on the other side the hit on one side hit on the other side i i don't think i don't think the um analogy holds as well for the roadless rule because educate me because the roadless rule was first crafted in what was it 99 right before the change in administration right so this is under clinton yeah Chris Wood, who is now the president and CEO of Trout Unlimited, was working for the chief of the Forest Service.

They did this whole big public process. I remember going to roadless rule public hearings in New Mexico at the time. And then the Bush administration... Can you tell what, can you explain what we're talking about? So this is... What the rules rule means? This is a rule. It's actually a very flexible tool, but it says these...

These roadless lands are really critical to things like wild trout and salmon populations. There were most of our endangered species is like they're a small portion of the overall national forest footprint, but they're incredibly powerful in terms of unique species and species of concern from, I mean, when I think about roadless, I mostly think about elk, but I also think about things like Rio Grande cutthroat trout habitat. hila trout habitat in new mexico and so they protected those things and said you can still go in there and do a a fuels treatment or you can go in there and um and make habitat modifications but afterwards you're you're not going to leave your footprints there you're not going to leave an open road that then becomes a source of degradation for those roadless areas okay now a few years less strict in a wilderness area less strict in the wilderness area much more flexible A lot of in Montana, there have been huge treatments in roadless areas, for example.

Then the Bush administration said, okay, we're going to change this rule. We're not going to get rid of it. We're going to change it and say that there can also be a governor-initiated process to tweak to make sure it fits their individual state. So you had conservative governors like Jim Rish in Idaho who negotiated the roadless rule for Idaho. Colorado has a state-based roadless rule that is, that is unique. And so the roadless rule held, it got modified a little bit under the Bush administration. We never modified ours in the state of New Mexico because people weren't up in arms about it. It made sense. It's like

the palencio's where we have desert big horn sheep and coos deer. And, you know, people really valued the the habitat that was protected. So it wasn't until the first Trump administration that the ping pong match really started. So now we're full on ping pong match and clearly So what happened in Trump won with the role of this rule? Gosh, you put me on the spot. I can't remember precisely. Don't worry about it. Yeah. We'll stay with the current. But they are they're moving forward to repeal this and um you know one of the ironies is they are not holding public meetings all over the country like when it was created which kind of sends the tell that you know we've already figured out what we want to do and we're just going to do that and you can send your

little note in and tell us we're wrong but we're we're plowing forward what is the what is the primary motivation to repeal the worldist rule. I mean, is it a specific, is it like a specific industry in a specific location? Is it a general annoyance? I think it's a general annoyance and dogma that's that so much of this revolves around the the phrase energy dominance, which means that energy and minerals trumps every other use. And we don't want to we don't want to get in the business of balancing uses. We're going to do minerals and energy, at least traditional energy, at any cost. And so I think that's what's driving it because it's not, this is not where the good

timber is, for example. This is not, it tends to be really steep and hard to road. The Forest Service has one of the biggest road networks on the face of the planet. They have 370,000 miles of roads. They have a $6 billion back row log because they can't maintain the roads that we want them to maintain, that are open roads for all of us to use. And so for some people, the question is, when you're in, in a hole like that, why not just stop digging? No. If you need to go in, like, this is a, this is a flexible tool.

If you need to, they've dressed it up largely in, in fire treatment. But the reality is, we're, we're down 38% or something like that in fire treatments this year because they fired everybody at the voris service they chased people out but that's that same expediency you see um that's that same political expedience you see all the time we're talking about this recently with the with the rolling back land protections within a hundred miles of the borders oh yeah where you pretend you take whatever fashionable issue there is it was housing last week and this week it's the border so when it was the most recent sell-off they started a out, they're like, what would catch, what would catch hold? Affordable housing. And you take this

thing you've always wanted to do and put a bottle, you take the same bottle of wine and you put a label on it, that the label is affordable housing. Affordable housing cabernet. Yeah. And so 25. Yeah. And so this, that issue of taking these like expedient things, oh, anyways, border security. Yeah. That's a hot one right now. People want secure borders. Let's call rolling back all these wilderness protections somehow will act like this has to do with border security. And it just goes on. And it makes you very cynical to look at it.

Yeah. This is why the public doesn't like politics. Yeah. Because they just see it as cynical and dishonest. But do you really want to mandate roads in Glacier National Park and the boundary waters and Big Bend National? Like literally mandate new roads along the border? you go look at Santa Elena Canyon and Big Bend and it's a pretty good not a lot of people natural buffer natural boundary and it's a I mean it's a huge chunk of the Bob Marshall wilderness

here in Montana Rocky Mountain Front and then for the entire rest of the state you can pretty much drive that right now and it also opens up out to a hundred miles from the border it changes the rules for national wildlife refuges, national parks, wilderness areas to say, you can just drive wherever you want to go. Now, there are wilderness bills that actually say, including

I think when we did Oregon Mountains, Desert Peaks, and maybe when Arizona did all those border wilderness areas, if you're in hot pursuit of somebody who's trying to get away, you can follow them. But you can't just drive off road for the fun of it. And those border

roadless areas create some of the best impediments to people crossing like where people like to cross is where you've got like highway two in Mexico right on one side of the border and then they can get to another road on the other side of the border and drive like hell like these national parks and wilderness areas actually are an effective uh an effective means of border control yeah well that's what's interesting when you go through the borderland Protection Act, right, is like, it's provided for, like basically all of that is provided for in, uh, I suppose like slightly more cumbersome ways. There's just actual checks and balances to it. That's exactly. You actually have to have a conversation between the Coronado National Forest

and the border, which happens every day. Yeah. I mean, when we wrote the, um, we did the Oregon Mountains, Desert Peaks National Monument. And then we came back afterwards and did, designated wilderness inside of that monument. And we had a ton of conversations with the border patrol. And I went out there and I looked at where their important facilities were. And we made sure that we took that into account and that they could see from certain high points to be able to surveil the entire border, which was actually easier in some of those cases before we had a ballard wall there so that we could get people because we could see them

coming. So it was it was all very nuanced because everybody was at the table, which is kind of when policy actually works. And then like in the roadless rule, I know you and I have talked about this in the past, right? I mean, there are some examples of like things provided for in the roadless rule that get litigated to death in terms of like urban interface timber management. But that's like a couple thousand acres and the 58 million acre scheme of the road list rule. Yeah. And that's like the flag that they're waving of like, well, we can't cut 2,000 acres in, what, 37 states.

So we're going to rescind 58 million acres worth of protections. And you know what? If you had fix our forest act, which we're trying to get across the finish one, which is a Westerman, which would largely address that. And in the Senate, I think it's like Padilla Hickenlooper, but I've been working with that group to try that to get that moved and in good shape. If you had that and then you hired back the people you chased out of the Forest Service, you could do a lot of treatment.

I mean, we are seeing a giant reduction in the number of acres treated in the southwest because there's nobody to pick up the phone at the Forest Service. We kind of got a little bit sidetracked because we were getting into the point of taking a thing, taking a current issue, and using it to apply leverage to an old grievance. And we had mentioned this rescinding the roadless rule. People will point out, well, this will help for fire mitigation. Because people are like, oh, yeah, that's right. Last year, like, Palisades, you know, Pacific Palisades or whatever, burnt down to the ground. this is important we should do this

there were a couple of roads in the palace yeah so yeah so you take these these current ideas and take old grievances and try to get them through but with the but I just feel like on the road

was saying there has to be maybe I'm wrong there has to be a specific individual collection of individuals that that have someone's ear And there's like a thing, a specific thing, that they would like to see happen.

I mean, I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but, but it's Project 2025. Like so much of this stuff is things that got that, and, you know, you say things in campaigns, they're not all well thought through. Yeah. And so a lot of this is based on really very doctrinaire. you know, positions that we're taking as part of the campaign that are now being forced down into these agencies. Got it.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it's not like some guy made a phone call. It's like sometimes. If I could remake the country, I would remake it in this deregulated industry first, extraction first model, which would include X, Y, and Z. And that's Russ vote at the OMB, the Office of Management and Budget, who like helped craft that whole plan.

and now it's implementation time. But it doesn't all work on the ground. But do you think those people are having the same conversations with their kids? Now, I'm not going to have to deal with this. But grasshoppers and water water, I don't know about eating bugs, but I'll tell you with this, you will live in a natureless world. Okay, here's one that you and I agree, might disagree on.

We've agreed on most of these things, everything so far. Here's one we might disagree on. I'm going to move to the subject of renewables. Yep. Man, in the same way, the same way that I talk about being apprehensive, not apprehensive, adversarial toward Ambler Road,

or the same way I'm adversarial toward developing the Arctic National Wildlife for Africa. Is adversarial the right word? I don't know what I'm trying to say. Don't like it. Yep. I don't like it. When someone talks about

doing to the doing things to landscapes that would feel that way to the landscape like the landscape doesn't know that you're doing this for solar panels or a wind farm or oil the acreage doesn't know the acreage doesn't care in some respects the animals don't care like what they know is you industrialized it um how like and i'm not going to lecture you on this but that's why i hear your thoughts on it. How do you feel? What do you think when you think of taking Bureau of Land Management lands say? Yep. And in effect, industrializing them for renewables. Like, how does that balance out in your head? So in New Mexico, we're kind of like Montana. We've got a lot of public land, but we've also got a lot of private land. And so we, we,

have not seen the intense industrial renewable development that I recently saw when I went and visited my like where I was born, my aunt in Fallon, Nevada. And I spent time between Reno and Fallon. And I went, holy shit. Like that's, that's a very intense use. And I think we should avoid that on public lands because there are other uses. That's not to say we shouldn't develop those renewables, but I don't think public land should be the first place. Okay. You know, we just did a three and a half gigawatt renewables development in New Mexico that I... How much is that?

Yeah, it sounds like a lot. Yeah. It's like three and a half nuclear power plants. It's the biggest clean energy project ever built in the Western Hemisphere. Hmm. It's online? It is, it is energized and we'll soon, off takers will soon be taking the power. So the electricity's up,

turbines are spinning. And where does this sit? It's hot. It sits on private land around the town of Corona, New Mexico. Okay. How many acres? A lot. And and so typically it was a gigawattsworth. Gigawatt's worth. And it was, you know, the local landowner, some, some liked it and some didn't. And so the ones who didn't want a turbine chose not to have a turban on their land. The ones who did are getting a substantial amount of, you know, it impacted 1% of their cover, but it dramatically increased their ability to keep that ranch operation viable.

That's a more balanced approach, I think, than when you see solar panels and you can't quail hunt in that spot anymore, or the, the, a lotee can't use that public land anymore. And so it becomes a more nuanced question that I think applies to, I think the lesson that you articulated is it shouldn't matter whether it's traditional energy or new energy. We should be looking out trying to make sure that the critters on the landscape are not overwhelmed by industrial development. What also, let's say the landowners that didn't participate, they don't want them on their land. it is man like it's a big play on those people to be like they don't want it on their land but now there's skyline everything they look at is nothing but those things and it probably impacts

them negatively on value because now they're in the middle of a wind farm we we have not seen data for the second thing i think the first thing is valid but you also have to like I think there's a recognition in this country right now that we need to be a country that can build big things. And so you have to have those hard conversations and figure out where the tradeoff is, where the juice is worth the squeeze and where it's not. But then that's 550 miles of, like I worked on this project for 17 plus years, my entire, my entire, my, entire time in federal public office. And it meant $20 billion of economic input into the states of New Mexico and Arizona. It met an enormous amount of power onto the grid. A lot of really good jobs. And, you know, the people building that power line, they have, a lot of them had Lyona or

IBMW on one side of their hard hat and Trump on the other. You know, it's, those are the kind of decisions you have to make, but I don't think we need to be stupid about it. There are places that should never, never be developed, too. And we kind of know where those special places are. Mm-hmm. Does you got any comments on that one? Well, yeah, I guess that, I mean, that's a tough conversation, right? Um, but so when you talk about like the give and take, what was the, this is what you're giving up part of that conversation and how'd you tackle that? Well, a lot of it was around, um, where should,

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

front-end work you go in and you talk to everybody you talk to the landowners you talk to the conservation groups you talk to the county one of the other uh lessons is if you want tolerance for a project there better be some direct benefit to the people who are impacted by that project and that's that's all like in china they just you know send a send an email and say we're doing this and this dam's really important so your house is going to have to you're going to have to move. They don't do the whole public comment period. They do not do the public comment period.

Um, we took 18 years to try and get that balance right. And then are there like replace, you know, we always talk about replacement costs, which is largely like on public land a lot, but on a private. So the, in terms, like you're talking about in terms of, uh, one of the things the developer did is there in the midst of buying, uh, habitat in both Arizona. and New Mexico. In the case of New Mexico, it's like to protect very, you know, riparian Bosca habitat that we're not getting more of right. That comes with water rights. That's really super precious stuff. The kind of thing you would see at a national wildlife refuge like

Bosca del Apache or state wildlife management areas. And then they're in the state of Arizona, I think because the local constituents were different and had, different needs, they're actually looking at agave preservation, like protecting agavees that are also incredibly important for some of the bats that have been in decline in the Sonoran country. Interesting. Yeah. So it's like replacing wildlife services would, or what is it? Sorry, when we're speaking about like a chunk of BLM, it's the environmental services, habitat services, replacing those for whatever the project is. Exactly.

Right. That's why like Conoco Philips is huge with the greater sage grouse. Right. Like they replace, they got to replace a lot of sage grouse habitat. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, what I told them was early on, I'm like, okay, if, if you're going to have, for example, if there's going to be a situation where sandhill cranes or other waterfowl are going to, if we're going to lose them to crashing into these towers, Let's make sure we have more than enough habitat to more than compensate for that. Yeah. In your view, am I right or wrong in thinking that we ought to be leaning into nuclear power from a habitat preservation standpoint, meaning it's local, it's localized. It's a lot of bang for your buck when it comes to acreage. There's a, there's a, I mean, I'm recognizing Chernobyl.

three mile island like there's some real catastrophes that have come out of this in the past but when i you know i look not being an expert by looking i'm like man i feel like we should be revisiting this is it safer can it be made safer because it allows us to hang on to wildlife habitat and make juice yep no i think so and i i think what gives the the biggest challenge for nuclear is that Historically, it's never been able to be produced cheap enough to compete with other sources of power on the grid. I see. And I didn't know, I didn't even know that that was true. Oh, yeah.

It's considered an expensive way. Oh, yeah. Very much so. Okay. But the idea, so you have these light water reactors that are the last 40 years worth of nuclear development in this country, including two that got put on the grid. during the Biden administration in Georgia. The first time in years, we actually put a lightwater reactor on the grid. Those are the sort of traditional, big, complicated, and often big overruns and cost.

What's being attempted right now is to create small modular reactors. So the idea is to have something that's more inherently safe in terms of if you lose power, having an accident, it just trends towards stability. You don't have like this Rube Goldberg thing where you have to do a whole bunch of stuff to cool this thing off. And if you can't cool it off, you're in big trouble. And then you have the situation that Japan went through a few years ago. Yeah.

I forgot that one when I named Fukushima. Yeah, that was, I should name that one and not Chernobyl. And then if they're small, um, and simple in their design, you actually get the advantage that you get in a factory, uh, bringing down cost over time. So every time the number of solar panels in the country doubled, the cost for solar panels went down 20%. So it started out at like $77 a watt, and then it landed well under a dollar a watt.

You can start to get a natural reduction in costs if you can make them small and modular. And the idea is if you can do that, and then there's this willingness to pay more for power right now because of all these data center demands, that you can have a new nuclear renaissance that is safer, that is more tailored to, you know, you can have one or you can have five depending on what your needs are. So there's a lot of work being done in that space right now by some really good companies. And I think hopefully in literally the next few years,

we're going to see the first of those come online. I'm going to grossly oversimplify something and say that there is a partisan nature to energy sources. Yep. But with nuclear, that's changed. I'm just, okay. Being facetious in my skepticism.

Oh, I thought you were being like legitimately skeptical. So I mean, like, you know, the American left generally supportive of renewables, the American right, generally supportive of fossil fuels. Just, I mean, just generally. Yep. What, like, is there a, partisan split a nuclear?

There was. Is it fashionable for one side or the other to like it? There was for a long time. And what was it? It was largely like you had, you know, after Three Mile Island, there were a lot of traditional environmental groups that worked very hard to put a stop to nuclear power.

And there's a lot of conflation, too, between nuclear power and weapons. And, you know, I talk to the Iranians about that. Yeah. I worked in a research reactor in college. I then moved out to New Mexico where we have Sandia National Labs and Los Alamos National Labs. What I've seen change over the course of the last 18 years is there are a lot more Democrats now from states like Delaware, Rhode Island, New Jersey. including some very progressive members like Corey Booker,

who have embraced nuclear. And so it's become pretty darn bipartisan. And in fact, in the last Congress, there was, I think it's called the Advance Act that we moved all the way to the president's desk to try to pivot and have the right regulatory environment for some of these new designs and to have an American nuclear renaissance.

And one step beyond that, just to make it interesting, is because I come from a technical background, I've always been fascinated with fusion because we've understood the physics forever. We just couldn't get the engineering stuff figured out. And I think we're seeing investment flow into fusion companies in a way that has never happened in the past. And so I think that that's a, you know, down the road, keep an eye. on that okay uh i'd be lying if like if you you know i could tell my kids all about the the water wars coming up if if if i got under a lot of pressure to to break down fission infusion it's pretty i tried i try to bring it back around to the water wars and fission you're breaking stuff apart and infusion you're squeezing it all together i and i could i could have said that but that would that be

And as someone said, but what does that mean? I would say, I'm not, I don't know. I don't know what that means. In fission, you also have a lot of waste products. And in fusion, typically, you don't. Oh. And so that's another advantage of, which one generates waste? A fission.

So every light water reactor is a fission reactor. And we have, I've always had this challenge of what do you do with all those spent nuclear rods. Okay. Yeah. Oh, speaking of which? Where, um, in my garage. It's usually where these things go. This is just a little side note.

Where does it stand? Do you remember, and maybe it's still an issue, the Yucca Mountain repository fight, what came of that? Where is all the stuff that was going to go in Yucca Mountain? It's sitting at a bunch of sites around the country. Okay. At light water reactors primarily, sitting in. cooling pools. So they've never, it's, we for now abandon the idea of having a central repository. Certainly in deep within the earth. In Nevada, because there was never buying from

Nevada. Yeah. Which is a tough way, you know, that's a real tough sell. And you had Republicans and Democrats who represented Nevada over the years, including a majority leader. I mean, that's not a recipe for success. No, it's like if you put it to a national vote, you know, it'd be funny to see how the vote would split with people that lived in the state and not in the state. I've seen this a bunch of times. I got an idea. Let's put it in your state. I've had California senators who are no longer with us look at New Mexico and go, oh, we're going to send all this to you.

And that's a real dynamic in Congress. Same party as me, but, you know, meanwhile, we've done our part. We actually have a deep salt repository that. that we use for transuranic waste, not for power waste, but for things that the government has done over the years. And so New Mexico, in my view, has kind of done our part. Okay, what is, what was that word to use? Tran, transuranic waste.

And it's, it's waste from the production of our nuclear deterrent that is being stored deep underground in salt. And, you know, you put the- I mean, like, like, excavated into salt. Exactly. So like literally, there's a, very deep elevator. They excavate out from there. They put the canisters from, you know, Los Alamos or Idaho National Lab or wherever into those blocks of salt, into those open caverns of

salt. And then over the time, over time, the salt actually moves back in and just encapsulates. Huh. Right next to the Ark of the Covenant. Mm-hmm. What else? It is New Mexico. A pair of truck keys I'm missing. okay here's one that's going to blow people's minds there's a lot of talk about a lot of talk in certain political circles about us having too much public land too much public land not something i tend to complain about but there is like this like oh we should we got too much public land uh you've been involved in a number of you've been involved in a number of exploits which have generated public land uh Tell us those stories. You mentioned Sabinosa. People love it.

Yeah. Like, the thing is, I mean, I'm really intrigued with Montana. I want to spend more time here, but there are a lot of folks on the land here. Like, if you go hiking or fishing, you know, my constituents want more places to hunt fish, sit around the campfire with their best friends and their family members. and make great memories. And it's a proven economic generator. So I have never found it a negative to create, for example, a new wildlife management area in New Mexico or to use land and water conservation fund dollars to, you know, we actually, the Vias Caldera National Preserve is an interesting model in that it is managed by the park service. But the way I wrote the legislation, the, the, the, um, the management of the elk hunt is, sits at New Mexico game and fish. And so it is, in my view, one of the best managed pieces of public ground in the West. That's a very interesting. That's an interesting formula to me. Yeah. Because we wanted, you know, we knew what we had the community buy in. They wanted all of these geologic, um,

resources, the volcanism, the, uh, the incredible of, you would love this, obsidian, uh, mines there that produced weapons grade, you know, points for all over the western United States and Mexico. All of those things, everybody knew the park service was the best thing to take care of those. But they also wanted it to be a continued tradition of, of fishing and elk hunting in particular. And so we figured out a way to do that. And in my view, it's been an amazing success. It is really, really healthy. And you can walk off of one of the main gravel roads there and have a bull elk bugling at one o'clock in the afternoon, 50 yards off the road. It's a different dynamic. It's like how elk used to be before they were all pressured, because they have good travel management, but they also have

this incredible backcountry elk out yeah yeah and then but but get into the the the most recent story there's a there's a tribal component to it of a ranch that we're talking about viz caldera no no no no no the one you guys just worked on um the l bar yeah okay so l bar um el bar used to be one ranch when it came up for sale a few years ago it had been split into two ranches. It's in an area that's incredibly important to the Pueblos, which are a group of a little less than two dozen tribes in New Mexico and one in Texas. And it's around Mount Taylor, which is a very important religious site for both Pueblos and the Navajo Nation. When it came up for sale, people were like, we haven't been in there in generations. And so, we're

we made a run at making it a wildlife management area. So there were a lot of national environmental groups that do this kind of work, and maybe environmental is not the right work, but the people who do, you know, who actually buy land to protect it. So this is a family, a ranching family that is they've decided it is time to sell. And instead of selling it as a trophy property to somebody from out of state, they were in discussions with trust for public land about let's make this a wildlife management area. So we had to raise, I'm trying to remember, it was a 54,000 acre property split between two

pieces, and we had to raise $34 million in 13 months. But people were excited about it. And the Pueblos went to the legislature and the governor and said, this would be really great. Wildlife management areas have tags that go to residents. So that attracted a certain segment of the population in a state where we don't we frankly as residents struggle to get tags in new mexico because our balance is is not what it is in other states and so we had this amazing coming together of forces and we're able to in 13 months create 54,000 acres of new public land but like where did that chunk of money i mean how much did the state have that they were willing to dedicate it to like where does that money come from that fast

Uh, there were some people who, who gave zero interest loans to get it to close in the amount of time. Like there were, there were a donor, like effectively a donor. Yeah. That's exactly right. Uh, I'll name check one, Johnny Morris. Really? From Bass Pro. From Bass Pro.

And a number of other people that, that stepped forward and wrote checks so that like understanding that time that mattered. Yeah, time mattered. Yeah. The real limit here was not that we weren't going to be able to raise the money, but could we do it in the time that mattered. The legislature stepped forward. You know, we had those pueblo leaders, governors going to the governor and the legislature and saying, we got to do this now.

One of the really innovative things that we did on that project was state game and fish have those dollars that come from the feds in terms of Pittman Robertson dollars, right? But they weren't sitting on a pile of it. So we said, if we, if some folks will help TPL close this deal, we can pay them back as our Pittman-Robertson dollars come in over time. So the financing mechanism was as creative, is really what made that deal come together. And now we have a, I mean, it's 54,000 acres, but it's adjacent to a very special unit of National Forest Service land. it's adjacent to a number of BLM wilderness study areas. And so the complex there is really special.

And I used to, you know, when I was guiding outdoor groups back in the late 90s, I used to sit on top of Mount Taylor and look at that landscape and be like, man, I would like to hunt elk in there. We have already reintroduced thanks to the good folks at New Mexico, Game and Fish. we've already reintroduced pronghorn back into that landscape. Oh, you kidding me, really? Within the first two years. Oh, that's wild, man.

Congratulations on that one. Who was the, on that, on putting that convoluted process together, who is the, you know, I think of people that spend their lives and mergers and acquisitions. Who is, who, like, what agency, who is doing the, like, okay, here's this money and that'll come in this pot, but then they're going to need their money back by that date, and this money's coming in, no strings attached. So in this case, trust for public land was the lead NGO. Okay.

And they're doing all the bean counting. Yep. And this is a guy that I've worked with on a whole bunch of land deals over the years. And they started out as little tiny land deals and, you know, filling and in holding here and there. And when this one came up, he was like, you need to come see this property. And when I saw it, I was sold. I mean, there were elk running everywhere, and there was a big flock of turkeys, and it had all of these different elevations.

So it had both summer and winter range habitat, a lot of vertical habit that potentially could be bighorn sheep reintroduction sites in the future. And so I just played a role of connecting people. And then we had leaders at the state legislature that did an incredible job. There's a guy there, a state representative who is the chair. of the state of the finance committee on the house Nathan small

who was a real leader on this and so trust for public land was the glue and then there were a whole bunch of other people that found ways

to bring resources to the table and the time frame that needed to be done um here's a civics question okay you're a U.S. senator So your mandate is to go represent the people in New Mexico and Washington, D.C., on federal policy.

What is it, what is the dynamic when you knock on the door of, like, New Mexico's Wildlife Department, New Mexico game fish? Do you know what are they, is there a little bit like, whoa, what are you doing here? Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. But in New Mexico, we have a long history and we are a state that is, are you familiar with the,

phrase the resource curse no you know it's like there are a lot of countries that have had commodity um economies and it makes it harder to do the new things and makes it harder to diversify it makes it harder to and so i've always believed that when you have you know you have challenge real challenges with intergenerational poverty when you don't have as many good jobs as you would like to have Like, we have a lot of challenges in New Mexico, and I have always believed I am not going to stay in my federal lane. I will work with anyone who wants to work with me, whether that's a city counselor who's just trying to bring a really good business to their community, whether that's somebody at the state house who wants to work on a wildlife management area. Like, I have run my office in a different way. We're not a think tank.

It's not just my job to vote on individual pieces of legislation. If we have a team of people who can make something better in the state, even if it's not clearly in my lane, I will help. What do you guys got? Do you want to go back to ping pong balls? Yeah, hit him with a ping pong ball. He doesn't like that analogy. It's very poetic, actually. Oh, no, he didn't, he didn't like the analogy.

in one place where I applied it, but go ahead. Waters of the United States. That's like, that's a ping pong ball. It's getting battered around heavily. And I'm not, WOTUS. WOTUS. Yeah. And, you know, for our hunting folks, like the intermittent streams,

intermittent wetlands, we still hear a lot of sound bites from people being like, you know, these wetlands, sometimes they're not even wet, you know, which is exactly how they're. That one a lot. Oh, my God almighty. What, how much do you deal with this? A little bit. We're trying in New Mexico to get primacy back in the hands of the state.

Lays and groundwork first so people know what we're talking about. So if the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, who historically has been in charge of making sure that wetlands don't get. just plowed up and developed willy-nilly is not going to do that because the waters of the U.S. rule and the court rulings have said, if you're not connected to the Mississippi River, you're not really a wetland. In New Mexico, it's everything. Like, the entire members base is closed. We have, even the Rio Grande goes dry sometimes in modern day, you know, the climate that we're in now. So we basically cannot rely on the feds to protect those resources and nothing is more like

New Mexico is a place that'll go to war over water. I mean, waters everything. Whether you're reliant on it for agriculture, relying on it for industry, everybody recognizes it is the single biggest limiting factor in an arid state. And so the state is now working on taking that back and creating. this structure to be able to protect waters in the state on their own without relying on the EPA. Interesting. And I think you'll see that in a number of places over the coming years.

But can you explain a little bit? We did a show on this years ago, but can you explain a little bit just sort of the core of the question, even outside of New Mexico, just a little background for people. And go back to that thing where I said, picture the Mississippi. So this, this like, for terms of national security, industry, energy, the U.S. has a vested interest in protecting the Mississippi River, right? And there's this sort of political question of how far upstream in the thousands of directions, if you follow all those rivers, and in all the tributaries of those rivers,

and in all the marshes that feed those tributaries, how far upstream, is it America's business? That's right. What happens there? And the ping pong being a very different Supreme Court over time and a pendulum swing from protecting a lot of wetlands. I mean, remember when Daffy Duck was like the spokesperson for wetlands? No, that was like a thing for a while.

I think it was under the Bush administration maybe. to a time now where even if a wetland is connected to another wetland, but it's all subsurface, it's not on the surface, like it's not really considered protected. And so it's been a big pendulum swing. And the question is, if you care about wetlands and you're in this new world where the feds are not going to protect wetlands at EPA, what are our other tools?

And that's, hence your move or hence New Mexico. That's right. looking at taking that over themselves. Right. And this comes back to like what can you do on your private property, right? Like that's kind of like the, the, the big question, trying to be balanced out with the fact that like our prairie potholes, right? Those are our, our migratory bird factories. Yes.

All sorts of migratory birds, not just the ones we eat and, uh, plus our pollinators. and and there are a lot of things that are just flat out exempted from from the uh clean water act i mean much of the agricultural impact in the midwest you know what tiling is yeah oh yeah like that that's largely exempted from from you know the clean water act so yeah tiling refers to and we're kind of like in the tiling capital of the world a while ago duck hunting but uh tiling refers to is this illinois or where we're we're we're We were to South Dakota. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe not the capital, but it was a real conversation. Yeah, because of the downstream effects. Yeah. Tyler refers to putting in, you're basically putting in perforated pipe and other pipe and just moving water. Faster. Moving water out to take land that would be too saturated to cultivate and drying it out so you can cultivate it. So you're able to grow more.

Opening up massive acreage of, of previously two wetland, wetlands, drying them out to plant them. And then you're also. impacting your, your flood spikes because now that water is going into the system much faster. So if you're going to have a flood peak, move down a given water course, it's going to be a much steeper peak. And so you've lubed the whole thing up. Yeah, we were looking at, I mean, there's always more than one thing happening at the same time. We were looking at like real downstream effects of this, uh, in areas like outside of Aberdeen and in Watertown, South Dakota, where it was like a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Yeah, like the farm is underwater. The grain silo is sticking up still. Yeah. Yeah. And side benefit, there's people out there in really fancy boats catching 11-inch perch. Yeah. Right. Or getting a lot of ducks.

Getting a lot of ducks. But also people fishing, catching fish off people's driveways. Wow. Or these guys explaining to us that, The really good walleye fishing is the submerged roads. The county road. The embankment that the wall I really like to lay on the embankment of the county road. In places where you can wade, you can put chess waiters on and wade the county road and just work the embankments because there's a walleye laying on the embankments.

It was surreal. It was. It was impactful. What the hell year was that? There's a bunch of them. 2020, probably. Surreal. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're basically fishing the ditch.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's a super. I mean, it's not something you should laugh about. I mean, it's like, interesting one because like, that was a huge, huge habitat, uh, hunter-led fight for so many years. Like, it coincided with, with where duck stands. dollars went, which I know you're very familiar with, um, and, and the rise of ducks

unlimited and preserving the, the duck factories, right? Yeah. And now that pendulum swung so far the other way. And I'm like, where the hell's the education that we just had 20, 30 years ago on the subject? Like, everybody should be up in arms on this one. Yeah. I need, I need to, I need to clarify a thing. I kind of jump. So when we were in an area where tiling was very much part of the conversation, I don't want to conflate, I'm kind of conflating two things. We were in an area where locals were talking a lot about the impacts of tiling.

Happened to be that it was also in flood stage. I don't want to conflate. I don't want listeners to think of conflating that the tiles caused, you know, there's something like linear relationship between those tiles and that flooding. Just the same trip. Right. It was the same trip where we're noticing these two things.

I do want to tell you because you're, you're at water rights access guy. There was also this very interesting battle brewing at the time there, which was, you have a lake and it's a public lake. Which is a state constitution deal in South Dakota too, I think. So it's very interesting. This is, yeah, when we're getting at it.

So picture there's like, just anyone, listening picture the lake closest to you that you fish on and the lake gets a lot bigger now imagine it the lake is a hundred times larger including it's over people's yards so you have all your life gone to the lake and you've just kind of gone where the lake is and fished well now you're fishing in someone's yard like there was this big fight where people were stringing buoy lines people were stringing buoy lines to mark what would have been what they understood to be their property line

became buoy lines and they're fishing on their side of the buoy and then you got on the other hand and they're like the lake my ass I'm in my yard I'm on my farm

you couldn't come on my farm before you're now fishing my farm other guys like I'm in my boat I'm on the lake and part of what was a private lake because it was completely surrounded by private land now stretches out and touches the county road and people which creates a public access point

it was so hard to figure out what's I mean it was one of those where it was one of those issues where I could very clearly see all sides but I had this incredible bias as a fisherman to be to think to myself well, that really opens up a lot of spots. Right. But I do understand how a guy could be like, why are you fishing on my farm?

Right. You're going to be like, listen, I totally get what you're saying. I could just point to this map here and tell us where that wind row was. Historically. We're going to do some jigging. Yeah, because it's going to be crop. He's spawning. Yeah, there's crop.

He's spawning on your hedgerow. Yeah. Historically, was that kind of flooding something that happened? Man, I can't say, man. So yes. Okay. Okay. Because they were, uh, I think it was NRCS or USGS was going down and pulling pollen samples, right?

From the old shorelines. That's another thing you told us about. Yes. And so some of this is like, oh, yeah, this is a hundred year floodline stuff. But then it was determined to be greatly exacerbated because of acts like tiling, rerouting water in general, things like that. Yeah, you're right. They were telling us about that. Like in sort of the who's right argument, they were sort of.

looking at what were historic lake levels. Um, yeah. Yeah. Cause like Devil's Lake, uh, has a great example of like, there's a marina that was built here in the 70s. Now it's totally underwater. And then there's another one built at this stage and it's a quarter mile from the water type of thing. Right. But it was like the water was there long enough for somebody to build around it.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. That was an interesting little. Oh, it's wild. interesting little venture yeah what uh i've asked you a bunch of questions i'm not going to invite you to ask me questions but is there what do you what do you wish we had touched on that we didn't get to i think the biggest story of the year was the the public land sell-off right okay um and that was also

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

environmental groups you had the hook and bullet community across the sporting sort of spectrum like people just came together and as soon as that was real and especially once that map got published that the Wilderness Society did that made it real for people and it was like no it's not actually about housing because these like

these parcels in the middle of western alaska yeah these like these like islands off southeast alaska um people just stepped up and the spontaneous nature of their pushback was so it was it was it was very much rooted in social media and so normally as an elected official you can choose to ignore the people calling the front desk. You can choose to ignore the email. But any member of the Senate is on their phone a good couple hours a day and they couldn't, they couldn't get away from it. I got it. People were just beside themselves and it became a tsunami. And if we could do that on a few other issues, my God, the sky's a limit as to what you could get done. Yeah. You know, and Steve kind of tongue and cheek, he's like,

he was like so there's too much public land i think if it were accurate it'd be more like so i'm told there's too much public land because it's like it's not the end user that is out there saying there's too much public land oh that that yeah that's that's like that's the that i bring up that same thing all the time around and i like to prod this question is like the the deer too me dear i'm like man all season long not a single guy has called me to tell me, not a single one of my buddies has called me to complain about all the deer. I got a question for you. I have the worst season. Just too many deer. I want to ask you, I'm worried about mule deer in particular. And you, because I, you know, I apply for permits in New Mexico and my

schedules would bear. And so if I have a week off that I'm not in D.C. in October, like, that's what I'm going to apply for. But you get to see mule deer across their. range are you worried about the direction with mule deer very much so and this is this is a drop in the bucket but it's it's um it's a drop of the bucket but it's just like a guidance thing a family guidance thing i have announced a moratorium for my family we have a we have a meal this is like everything you can't say anything doesn't piss people off uh i've announced a family moratorium on the harvest of meal deer does yeah because i'm just the same the same way I'm warning them about eating the bugs and the fighting the wars over water.

I'm trying to warn them about a future when mule deer are no more, or mielder aren't a hunt or aren't a hunted thing anymore. That's right. Yeah. That they or mule deer become like big horns, which used to be able to stand, like you read mountain man accounts and they're counting 400 big horns on a hill where there are no big horns anymore. Right. Right. And now you can apply in your state. If you live in the West, you can apply in your state for 20 years.

for 30 years and not hunt a big horn? I apply every year. I've never had a big horn. And they just, because they just live in the last little remaining pockets of perfect shit where all their enemies can't get them. Right. And it's like,

elk are great. But there's more elk and more places. And it's, something's got to pay the price. White tails. I don't want to say, you know, white tails are great. There's a lot of white tails in a lot of places. Something's got to pay the price. It's like,

And it's just again and again, mule deer get kicked in the nuts. Yeah. They're less tolerant. I'm really worried about milk. Anybody can go, like, I got mule deer in my yard. I see mieldier on the golf course. It's like, you do. But there weren't, there aren't as many that were there before it happened.

Sure, there's still a mule deer that licks your car window. Right. Like, I get it. But there were 10 there before. Yeah. And if you go to the hills outside of town where they used to be all over the place, you're not going to see. yeah yeah it's it's i'm deeply worried about mule dairy species and i would i think there is a reticence

among state gaming fish agencies to admit how bad it is because then we have to figure something out because it's like and i'm always an advocate of like localized you have to have localized regulatory structures yeah and a thing i like to to explain when demonstrating the need for local is how is it that we have elk hunting in America when elk have only been recovered on less than 20% of their native range? That doesn't make sense. Well, because in certain parts of certain states,

elk are doing fantastic. They're missing from Wisconsin, for the most part. They're missing from Michigan for the most part. They're missing from all these places they were, but in some places we have them. So you can't say there's no elk hunting because they're not everywhere they used to be. places we have numbers that are so high that they're actually impacting other natural

resources so of course we're going to hunt so there is localized but i just with one thing i worry about with meel deer is it we've drawn the boxes so very very small where we're like one side of the river we're trying to reduce harvest this is here there there's a in this state one side of the river we're trying to encourage a reduction in harvest the other side of the river we're trying to encourage a reduction in harvest the other side of the river we're killing those and when you're on that river what do you see

do you walk it's just like we've gotten I feel like we've shrunk some of them the management stuff is kind of like well that guy's got problems with his field and we're not letting them spread I don't know I'm worried Yeah, I don't sit around.

I'm not, I mean, I think that there's a brilliant future for whitetail hunting. There's a brilliant future for elk hunting. I don't think there's a brilliant future for meel deer hunting. Well, I think the game agencies have a hell of a deal on their hand, right? Like, it's, it's, we need to find the ability for people to go out and have the opportunity and promote the opportunity because that's what brings the dollars in. but we have to constantly adapt to everything, like the fragmentation of landscape, the increase in population in states like Montana that typically haven't seen a big increase in population, the adaptation of very available new technology that increases

the efficacy of hunters in the field a lot of times. Yeah. And we don't, the agencies don't adapt fast. And in there, in fact, that's just not how they're built. It's like we need to get the appropriate data together and, and it's like we're always behind, right? So it's a tough job. Yeah. It's a tough job.

Senator, I got a secret mission for you. Okay. I want, uh, when you're up in D.C. and you're rubbing shoulders with other senators, I just want you to like casually drop and just be like, oh, yeah. bunch of my constituents were calling me just talking about how bad the mule deer population is and just see what the response is. You guys ever had those types of day?

All the mule deer hunters call in, right in? Yeah, one thing we can all agree on is that the mule deer hunters. What a pain in the answer. Well, and I think too, it's like, I know there's a lot of people in Montana that are very, very concerned about the state of our mule deer hunters. you heard and would welcome reduction in opportunity or at least like a you know more of a managed approach more of a managed approach i'm sure it's on there i'm sure it's on the horizon but there's a lot of people out there who would just kick and scream at the first sort of shrinking

of the opportunity pool you know it's painful it's painful you got to communicate the communicate to our fellow hunters yeah the need for that sort of step if i could see looking across the board and you're right like we get a drop in and see a bunch of different management strategies but like you look at like the length of the center fire rifle season in Oregon where there's lots of big bulls and big mule deer but they'll have like a five day center fire rifle season and I see that is like a real possibility all across the west where it's like okay if you want to bring all the stuff out, the infrared and the, all the technology that's at your disposal, you got a 72 hour season. Most of our seasons are five, five day season.

Right? You're going to, and it's going to be this little window. But I don't. But then if you want to have less, it's going to be this. And if you want to get more primitive, it's going to be this. So people can have the opportunity without, without the effect on the reason. source. Yeah, but what you're saying, I understand what you're saying, but there's a big difference between managing, like managing for trophy meal deer hunting and managing for the future of meal deer. If someone looks and says, what is the, what is the long-term challenges that mule deer face? The long-term challenges that mule deer face isn't that they're all getting shot. No, it, I'd put it at habitat, habitat fragmentation, yeah. Yeah, habitat fragmentation. When I brought

up and I know I introduced the idea of it but I mean just like with my kids I don't would never even a dear for if a dear friend of mine was had his kids shoot mealed or doze I'm not going to say a word to them like at all I'm not going to think a negative thought but I'm just what I meant by that was just as a way of sort of giving my kids a heads up about something I'm like you know what you guys shoot all the white tail that's not true because I complain when they shoot to me white tail dolls but then I got to deal with them But you got to get all the whitetail doughs you want, but we're just, we're not shooting mielder dose.

Go shoot the whitetoes. Yeah. But, you know, as we, I'm not arguing with you here, but just as the example, it's like there's, it's like just that stacking up of effects, kind of like we were talking on, on ambler. And it's like, we're not going to regulate, unfortunately, like the fragmentation of a big family ranch that wants to break it up. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which is a bummer.

Well, you can try through folks like TPL who do a fantastic job. But yeah, it's not going to become a government position where some agency comes in and says, nope, you got to keep it for the rest of your lives. Right, right, exactly. Well, and, you know, what happened with the sage grouse? We're just seeing this many years down the road. It's the same habitat challenges. I hope I'm wrong about me, Alder. It's hard to picture that I'm wrong.

Yeah, the, or like, uniquely. American species is like that's where we need some like American first Americanism right sage grouse prairie chickens antelope mountain goats like yeah real America stuff they don't they don't have they don't have friends on other continents right like we need some some popularity contests around those things yeah uh senator martin high thanks for coming on and and talk to us man it's been a long time i'm glad i did this Like, I think last time we did this was probably 2015 or something. Was it right?

Yeah. Did we record in your office in my office? Yeah. Okay. Are you going to ask him the big question? Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah.

You mean like, wasn't he going to do with his life? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So what happens with what, you got term limits? Like, what goes on in New Mexico? What are you going to do? Uh, there are no term limits. I'm, you know, what I have said is I'm, I'm not running for governor right now.

I'm focused on getting the country through a couple of hard years. and then we'll go from there not running for governor that's right we had a dude on the air day that's running for governor of Iowa oh yeah he's great he's a hunter

I've known him for a long time he killed yeah not 0209 the 290 I'd be happy to go along yeah no he's so when you say you're not running for governor yeah well there was a big

there was a big back and forth about whether I should run for governor in about a year ago and made a decision, especially, I think, you know, I'm ranking member on energy and natural resources now. Yeah. And so I get a lot of influence on potentially what happens there. We're obviously in the minority, which is not a lot of fun. But, you know, I could see a path where we're back in the majority in a little over a year.

So we'll see what happens. Is it, is it, I'm not talking about you, but I'm just saying, like, if you look at the, in political history. Yeah. do people there's sort of a hierarchy of influence right like like you know the president if you're a president

you don't say I'm stepping aside from being the president to be the governor right it's just because you know you generally want the highest level of influence just human nature sure

are there cases where someone has left their office as a senator in order to was in order to assume a role as a governor and not see their term through? I don't know about not see their term through, but like, it's a tough place to be right now. And so I think you're seeing more House members leave to run for state offices. Got it.

Yeah. I mean, and I think I would, I'd be very surprised if you don't see a lot of retirements in the House of Representatives in particular in the coming weeks as people go home and spend the holidays with their families. will um yeah because we saw marjorie taylor greens well i was just going to ask about her but was there is it rumored that she just like michael bennett who's a you know my colleague from colorado he's he's running for governor in colorado and he's currently he's currently the u.s center but he's seeing his term through oh that's a good question i don't know what cycle he's on oh yeah man i always time to think i don't i'll never do it like i've told my wife i'll never do it but i do think it'd be interesting to go into politics man but god probably hate it you you've had that

we've had that conversation before i always think about it wouldn't that be the worst thing in the world you would hate you tried to talk being a running for president i'm like you know what you know what you know what made bad enough i don't need it worse you brought it up i wasn't going to bring it up do you want me to talk about what happened that day want me talk about what happened that day or should we just not just leave it privately between us well i just think uh i think it's great that there are people i think if you if you are going to run for president one you need to be all in like all in all in um and it tends to be able to weather the those campaigns it also helps just to be a little full of yourself and i'm in this because i want to fight for

my constituents who need it. And I want to stand up for things like public land and wildlife that don't get enough attention. Yeah, I was bringing up with you. You brought it up. I was bringing up with you launching a primary challenge. Mm-hmm. Yep. And I remember that when I brought up to you, what would happen? Yeah. I was kind of, it was my, almost like a civics question. Right. Well, I was like, why don't you do a primary challenge? And I remember that you didn't even give me an answer. Well, I mean, the, the answer is like, structurally, it is, it, that would almost be a fool's errand to run against the sitting president, even with the, you know, the weaknesses that we can now see in that city. That would have been a fool's errand. And like one, first off, I was one of the people

who called for Joe to Joe Biden to step aside. That said, I respect him deeply. He is somebody that I have a like this is a guy who would will call up my kids out of the blue and be just like hey how are you doing like randomly honestly because he met him when he swore me in as a senator that said I could see the writing on the wall and you know that's why I was one of the people who stood up and said we need to make a change here none of it was ideal he would have been an incredible one-term president and instead now we We have another president who is showing signs of aging. And I'm not into it for, I don't need the stature.

And I've watched presidents have to make very difficult life or death decisions. And I'm not sure that's my calling. So will I always, no matter what I'm doing, be focused on conservation? 100%. And I'll work with anybody who, from the other side or my side, or what have you to make some progress there because the natural world is kind of what keeps me going.

Like I go home to New Mexico or I'll go someplace with someone like yourself and see what's left at the big natural world and that recharges my batteries and then I can go back and fight. Yeah. I just like to see them hunters in the, I like to see hunters and fishermen in the politics, man. Yeah. I know.

I mean, even though you didn't kill a bowl this year, I feel like I'd still endorse you. You know? Don't get me started. You could probably be I'm guessing you'd be chasing Jason Whitetails back east to put some to put some protein in my freezer.

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

Probably not in a while. God, that'd be some bad PR. What do you do with all those secret service and stuff? yeah be like paul ryan's bow hunter that was his that was his code name paul ryan was i used to you know we were in the house we both uh would sleep in our offices and you know i'd see him every morning in the in the gym and brushed teeth next to him and we would talk bow honey oh really yeah yeah it's a good thing to talk about with people yeah all right well thanks

so much for coming on man my pleasure yeah keep up the fight oh they have Thank you. You too. Yeah, I like you, I'd like to hear you representing the perspective of people that love wild places. So thank you very much. Public land. Amen. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed human.