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

Summary

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The MeatEater Podcast

Ep. 817: Conservation Wins and Losses with Senator Martin Heinrich
Date: January 5, 2026
Host: Steven Rinella
Guest: Senator Martin Heinrich (D, New Mexico), Dr. Randall Williams, Callahan

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Steven Rinella sits down with Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico for an in-depth, wide-ranging conversation on the current wins and challenges in American conservation policy. Topics covered include landmark public land access decisions, the ongoing battle over stream and waterway access, high-stakes development threats in Alaska, the pros and cons of energy development (from oil to renewables), and emerging threats to species like mule deer.
The discussion is candid and, at times, deeply personal, combining Senator Heinrich's policy experience with the practical, boots-on-the-ground perspective of hunters, anglers, and conservationists. The tone is passionate, knowledgeable, and accessible, blending technical explanations with stories from the field and political realities from D.C.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Senator Heinrich’s Outdoor Roots

• Grew up in Missouri hunting and fishing, moved to New Mexico, passionate about public lands and wildlife.
• Maintains a "loud and proud" hunting-themed Senate office in D.C. as a connection to home and as a conversation starter with colleagues.
• [03:04] “Conservation is kind of what gets me on the plane on Monday morning, leaving blue skies and mountains for all the bullshit in D.C.” — Heinrich

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2. Major Public Land Access Cases

The Corner Crossing Controversy

• Background: Recent Supreme Court decline to hear a case challenging the legality of “corner crossing” (stepping from one public land parcel to another where private parcels meet at a corner), affirming federal (Unlawful Enclosures Act) over state law.
• [06:14] “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... That is a late 1800s law.” — Heinrich
• Challenges around clarity: Some states (e.g., Montana) claim corner crossing is still unlawful, but Heinrich argues federal law should preempt.
• [12:16] “If someone was prosecuted and they fought it and appealed, the same Unlawful Enclosures Act would apply.”

Stream Access and Navigability

• New Mexico’s distinct (Spanish-influenced) stream access traditions allow wading up and down rivers—not just floating, unlike many other Western states.
• Recent NM Supreme Court ruling reasserts public access, regardless of historical “navigability” for commerce.
• [15:04] “Our constitution articulates something that other states don’t have. We always had a standard... you could wade up and down that river so long as you were in the stream…” — Heinrich
• Ongoing tension with landowners, but consensus building via legal certainty and law enforcement.

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3. Long-Term Perspective on Access and Responsibility

• [23:21] “Be responsible. That should be the mantra for sportsmen all the time. Think about how your actions are going to reflect on all of us.” — Heinrich
• Call for sportsmen and women to embrace both their rights and the responsibility to protect shared access for future generations.

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4. Conservation Battles in Alaska

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

• Deeply partisan issue; oil leasing permitted by a 2017 budget bill but failed to attract major oil companies (public pressure and low resource economics).
• [29:42] “There is some social risk to developing America’s greatest wildlife refuge... the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” — Heinrich
• Lasting protection requires 60-vote legislation, not shifting administrative orders.

Ambler Road Proposal

• 250-mile industrial road through the Brooks Range would fragment critical subsistence ecosystems and threaten the Western Arctic caribou herd.
• [36:38] “This is going to be a road that’s elevated gravel... sometimes [caribou] will walk across the road, but if there's an elevated structure... those caribou ball up for weeks and don't want to cross it. And eventually they do, and then they haul ass.” — Heinrich
• Recognizes economic/job needs are real, but stresses the irreplaceable value of wilderness.

Federal Ownership Stake in Mining

• [41:55] Shocking revelation: The U.S. government recently took a 10% ownership in Trilogy Metals, the Ambler developer—“bonkers... the government should never own the means of production.”

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5. Roadless Rule and “Ping-Pong” Politics

• The “roadless rule” prevents new road construction/development on select US Forest Service lands.
• Subject to repeal and reinstatement with each administration, but started as a broadly bipartisan conservation tool.
• Current moves to again roll back protections are driven by “energy dominance” dogma and industry, not good forest management or legitimate fire mitigation.
• [48:58] “So much of this revolves around energy and minerals trumping every other use. And we don't want to get in the business of balancing uses.” — Heinrich

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6. Energy Development and Wildlife

Renewables

• Heinrich supports renewables, but with significant caveats. Warns against public land industrialization for wind/solar, supports siting on private land with local input and benefits.
• [61:41] “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.”

Nuclear

• Sees promise in advanced, modular nuclear as a habitat-friendly, high-output energy source, but cost remains a barrier.
• [67:32] “Biggest challenge for nuclear is that historically it’s never been able to be produced cheap enough to compete with other sources… but [small modular reactors]... can get a natural reduction in costs.”
• Supports bipartisan movement for new nuclear technologies and even speculative fusion.

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7. Waters of the United States (WOTUS)

• Ongoing Supreme Court-driven restriction of wetland protections; NM moving to regulate its own waters as federal scope shrinks.
• [87:57] “If the EPA is not going to do that...(protect wetlands), the state is now working on taking that back... to protect waters in the state on their own.”

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8. Mule Deer and Wildlife Management

• Deep concerns about mule deer declines—a topic personal to both Heinrich and Rinella.
• [104:04] “Elk are great, but there’s more elk in more places. Something's gotta pay the price. Whitetails... But again and again mule deer get kicked in the nuts. They're less tolerant.” — Rinella
• Acknowledgment that underlying issue is habitat fragmentation/loss more than hunting, calling for proactive management, even if unpopular.

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9. Public Land Creation Success Stories

Recent Major Land Additions

• El Bar Ranch: 54,000 acres added via partnerships—includes tribal support, innovative funding (loans, Pittman-Robertson dollars), and rapid action.
• [81:13] “In 13 months, [we] created 54,000 acres of new public land... It is adjacent to National Forest, BLM wilderness study areas... And we've already reintroduced pronghorn back into that landscape.” — Heinrich

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10. The Human Side of Conservation Politics

• Heinrich discusses his drive to work across government lines—federal, state, local—on conservation, refusing to just “stay in his lane.”
• [86:56] “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.”
• Expresses disappointment at the growing partisanship of conservation and the lost art of bipartisan land protections.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [03:04] “Conservation is what gets me on the plane... leaving blue skies and mountains for all the bullshit in D.C.” — Heinrich
• [06:14] “At its core... 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.” — Heinrich
• [29:42] “There is some social risk to developing America’s greatest wildlife refuge... the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.” — Heinrich
• [36:38] “Those caribou ball up for weeks and don’t want to cross [the Ambler Road]... They lose weeks of putting on fat, they’re in poorer condition...” — Heinrich
• [61:41] “It shouldn’t matter whether it’s traditional energy or new energy. We should be looking out... [so] critters on the landscape are not overwhelmed by industrial development.” — Heinrich
• [104:04] “Elk are great... But again and again, mule deer get kicked in the nuts. They're less tolerant.” — Rinella
• [86:56] “I am not going to stay in my federal lane. ... If we have a team who can make something better in the state—even if it's not in my lane—I will help.” — Heinrich
• [99:04] “The biggest story of the year was the public land sell off... I was just blown away by the breadth of that coalition. Bunny huggers to bowhunters, everybody in between.” — Heinrich

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Important Timestamps by Topic

• Senator’s hunting background & office style: 00:22–04:14
• Corner Crossing legalities and implications: 05:21–13:56
• Stream access law in the West & NM Supreme Court ruling: 14:08–18:48
• Sabinoso Wilderness & success via LWCF acquisition: 24:19–25:39
• Alaska conservation battles (ANWR & Ambler Road): 27:16–44:12
• Roadless Rule: history and repeal efforts: 44:42–56:35
• Public/private land challenges with renewables: 57:58–66:47
• Nuclear and energy policy outlook: 66:48–73:24
• WOTUS, wetland loss, and state primacy: 87:00–91:05
• Mule deer struggles & game management: 101:52–110:37
• El Bar Ranch public land acquisition: 79:07–83:49
• The politics of conservation, cross-level collaboration: 85:07, 86:56
• Broad coalition pushback on public land selloff: 99:04–101:09

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Concluding Reflections

This episode is a must-listen for anyone invested in the future of public lands and wildlife in America. It highlights the enduring tension between access and conservation, short-term exploitation and long-term stewardship, and the growing need for responsible, bipartisan advocacy rooted in both science and tradition.

Senator Heinrich’s presence as a real outdoorsman in powerful places is both an encouraging and urgent reminder: the arc of conservation is long, but it bends only with relentless engagement from ground level all the way up.

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Transcript

[A]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. This is the Meat Eater Podcast. Coming at you shirtless, severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwearless. We hunt.

[B]

The Meat Eater podcast.

[A]

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@first light.com. that's F-I R S T L I T E dot com. Holy smokes. Joined today by Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico. Dr. Randall Williams is here, not in his normal seat. Callahan is here, not in his normal seat. And we're here to talk a little bit like a little State of the Union stuff with Senator Heinrich. Senator Heinrich has held his seat since 2013. He's the avid hunter and angler. In fact, behind me, if 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 and three. Well, no, it's. If I was better at statistics. You studied engineering, you might be able to figure this out. If there's three. If there's three planes, there's three planes. And you went there and back for some reason.

[C]

I was on that one twice. And I think Micah was too. And then Carter was on the other one.

[A]

How do you know that one?

[C]

But I mean, when we flew in.

[A]

But there's three that are yellow.

[C]

Oh, I couldn't.

[A]

So what are the odds if you only went one way? It's a one in three.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay. There's a good chance.

[B]

Classic politician. Not answering the question, debating the.

[A]

Baiting the subject. There's 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 caribou 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 caribou hunting. Had a great time. Studied engineering at the University of Missouri, Columbia. Mizzou. Yep. As they say, early on, established a strong link to the outdoors tradition, hunting and fishing as a kid. Grew up on his family's property in Missouri, but he's been in New Mexico for 30 years. Commutes to D.C. for official business, but lives with his family in Albuquerque.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah. I've been in your office in Washington, D.C. it's loud and proud.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What is. It's.

[C]

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 bullshit in D.C. but having that around me and having, you know, things that remind me of home and remind me of those hunts.

[A]

It.

[C]

Puts me in the right frame of mind.

[A]

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

[C]

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 for New Mexicans, too, we have this history of, like, Georgia o' Keeffe painted all of those skulls. And so, because all my stuff is generally European mounts, for some reason, people have a different relationship with that from a artistic point of view, I guess, than a typical shoulder mount. And so I get a lot of. A lot of, you know, positive feedback on it.

[B]

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 Heinrich some tough questions here. And then I sit down. I'm like, first one being, let's talk about that antelope. You know, it's like.

[A]

It's disarming.

[B]

Yeah, it is disarming.

[A]

Yeah, I got. It's like, senator, I got a tough question. You're probably going to want to evade the answer on this one. You're gonna be. You're gonna be slippery. Where exactly did you get that antelope? Don't give me that slippery politics.

[B]

The guy was to apply for an antelope tag. Yeah.

[A]

Don't give me that evasive politician stuff. Tell me exactly where you got it. We're gonna run through a whole ton of issues just to get your take on it. 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 desk.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

For instance, one I'm going to. Let's start out by talking about as we kind of run through the country and run through issues, we're going to talk about one 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 not to take on the Corner Crossing issue, Rejected an appeal.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Coming out of the 9th Circuit, you did a very.

[C]

10Th Circuit.

[A]

Sorry. Coming out of the 10th Circuit. Is that right?

[C]

Yeah. I think you guys are being a ninth Circuit. Right. Ninth Circuit is. We're in California.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Man.

[A]

How many times have I told that story?

[D]

Wolf stuff is Ninth.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

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

[C]

Yeah. Because I think most 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 10th 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.

[A]

What I got a handful of questions on this.

[C]

And remember, I'm an engineer, 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 dig deep to understand, you know, what the decision might be based on. The fact pattern here.

[A]

Yeah. Because your state, New Mexico is in the district that decided that Corner Crossing Is legal.

[C]

That's exactly right.

[A]

So a first question, and I'm sure Callan Randall might have comments or questions on the issue, but just is it possible to get into the heads of the Supreme Court justices, someone brings 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 needs to be sorted out.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So it doesn't mean that there couldn't be another case that came from the 9th Circuit where their decision might be somewhat different. I think what my hope would be is that if there are other circuits that take this on, that they also that were able to do it with a clean case that really doesn't have a lot of distractions 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 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.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Which comes in like when proving damages. Right? Like that's like the interesting thing about the sheep nicely is like cheap graze along the way, there's going to be damages that you could prove to that forage.

[C]

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.

[A]

What, what is. First off, I want to make sure I got something right. If I got, if I'M wrong. I'm asking these two because you guys live here. If I'm wrong about this, we'll just cut this.

[C]

We'll.

[A]

Phil, 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?

[B]

That's Montana fishing game.

[C]

How so?

[B]

I don't, 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 gonna write citations for corner crossing. So that, I mean, that's a great question.

[D]

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

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

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.

[A]

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

[C]

Yes.

[B]

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 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.

[C]

Can to somebody else.

[B]

To somebody else.

[C]

The buck doesn't stop them. And we've experienced that in New Mexico. We went through this Whole stream access fight for years and years. Yeah, I want to get to that in the language.

[A]

And if you want to do it right now, go ahead, let's talk about it.

[C]

But our, our Game and Fish Department, we're in the midst of changing it to the Department of Wildlife. But irrespective, they. They have not been willing to take the bull by the horns and just issue guidance so that people know what is, you know, when you're going to be in trouble and when you're not. And that's a problem when you have the law enforcement agency that is most likely to be involved in this conflict not willing to draw a bright line for the public. That's gonna invite some challenges.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

Is that right? Yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Long.

[A]

The ongoing.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then in 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?

[C]

So, 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 Hidalgo. 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.

[A]

Well, you know, when. 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.

[C]

Up and down the Mississippi, up and down.

[A]

Everyone would be like, well, of course not. I'm like, okay, so now that we've established that that's an important smaller, let's go smaller and smaller and smaller until we hit the point where it's not so obvious.

[C]

Right, right. 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.

[A]

Okay?

[C]

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

[A]

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.

[C]

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.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

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 and the Constitution. And so then there was a challenge. And that legal challenge played out over the course of quite a number of years. And the Supreme Court ruled, no, the. The, these laws, this. 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.

[A]

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

[C]

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

[A]

I explored this one time, Lolo 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, on this creek comes off the Bitterroot Divide, flows down into the Bitteroot River. There's a point in this creek, as you ascend it, there's a point at which it stops being navigable. And I think it's based on like historical.

[B]

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

[C]

Was this the Onyx?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And great, great event in the Boulder theater there. But you know, it was the way Colorado stream access is written is off of like commercial trade navigability. And people were kind of debating this stuff and, and they just weren't thinking back far enough. And I just said, well, you know, 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.

[A]

You know, who's going to find it if you put Randall on it? He'll find it. Oh yeah, yeah. Be like, I beg to differ.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

You're telling me down here.

[A]

That'll be the next audio3.300 Beaver hides down that to market.

[B]

Right? Yeah. We had.

[D]

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

[A]

Oh.

[D]

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 and get up into the sketchy stuff.

[A]

Anarchy.

[D]

Then you don't need a Coast Guard license. Yeah.

[A]

So that got clarified.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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

[C]

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

[A]

Is that right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

So people have accepted what's truth, I.

[C]

Think legally, because there's a real. The next step would have been exposure to legal remedies. But yeah, I think for the most part, people, our goal in New Mexico is to be one, pro access and two, pro good behavior. 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 think marrying those two together and having a lot of public interaction and education is the best way to have the most access with the least conflict.

[A]

Yeah. Cal and I have discussed this recently on the corner crossing issue as.

[C]

Now.

[A]

That it's been clarified in a large chunk of the American west, and it's probably. It's likely to be clarified to some extent or another in the coming years in more of the American West. It's going to fall on land users, it's going to fall on access seekers. To do this in a way that minimizes conflict, that minimizes stress, or else it's going to become. You risk making it an issue all over again.

[C]

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

[B]

This kind of bursts 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 on over to the next square mile through the corner, which is, you know, awesome. It's adventure and everything that we have. But the private land access is everywhere, including the corner. They're the. The public landowner as well.

[C]

And including the public. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But they can access all that stuff way easier than 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.

[C]

And we also have tools for that. Right. I mean, I think you and I first met at the Sabinoso, which was ironically like the most landlocked BLM wilderness area. Like, you just couldn't get there legally. Capital wilderness designated wilderness. I did that in 2009 because I'd been allowed permission on horseback to go in there and, 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, that also was consistent with local landowners who wanted to grant that access for, you know, for a fair compensation.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's, I'm sure this is in your notes somewhere too, but the two members of the stewardship caucus right now. So we had Heinrich working on this, opening up this wilderness area. And then now Congressman Zinke was then Secretary of the Interior Zinke, and he was the one who got the BLM to accept new acreage that allowed access to the wilderness.

[C]

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

[B]

Rim Rock Rose Ranch.

[C]

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.

[B]

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 Rim Rock Rose owners, they. If this is like a good lesson to spoiled kids, like what you say to your parents, because the kids were like, yeah, we can't wait to get the ranch so we can sell it. And the parents were like, okay, duly noted.

[A]

Gotta be careful what you say. Y. Hey, let, let's, let's jump up to Alaska because, man, so much has happened to Alaska. With Alaska under the Trump administration, there's been so much news out of Alaska and every little bit of the news, like, takes another nick out of my heart. I was kind of hope. I don't, I don't know what I hope. I was hoping that they would like, look another direction. I, I don't know what I. It wasn't, it was a naive hope. I don't know, I. I just. There's been a lot of hits to a lot of things I care a lot about in Alaska. I just want to 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 Anwar and you joked me that you never call it Anwar.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah. Oily.

[D]

That goes nicely on a balance sheet.

[C]

Yeah, I got some 1050, some 1002 here for my F150. And so I think this one's complicated in that in the 2017 reconciliation bill they allowed for leasing of the Arctic refuge. The good news is that went terribly like no legitimate companies who actually had a history of producing oil and gas, no majors, no independents with deep pockets and a long history of actually doing exploration and 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.

[A]

Were they. Were they. Was their reluctance based off public pressure or was there reluctance based off economics?

[C]

It's both.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Like there is some social risk to doing that if you're a ConocoPhillips or a BP or an Exxon Mobil 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 biggest, our best hope of seeing the refuge remain intact.

[A]

Really did it just in the end, no one's going to take the bait.

[C]

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

[A]

When you get to these issues like, like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, it has, have this real, this, the expression uses like a ping pong, you know, I'm trying to teeter. Yeah. Like one administration comes, they undo a ruling. The next administration comes, they put the ruling back. And then it seems like your whole lifetime passes with these rulings.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

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. And that's not an easy thing, but that would create real certainty.

[A]

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

[C]

That's right.

[A]

And that's in the old days.

[C]

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.

[A]

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 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. It puts a lot of focus on the road. But what it basically the way one should think about it would be like the Ambler industrial district.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Mining district.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Airplane needs like this is.

[A]

Needs a road.

[C]

This isn't just a gravel road. This is, 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. And it is going to become an industrial corridor with multiple mines at the end of that corridor. And I think one of the things there's a real. There's conflict in Alaska around it. That conflict has not necessarily bled over to a willingness by either of Alaska's senators to second guess their advocacy for this. But in addition to the fisheries resource 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 gates of the Arctic National Preserve. It goes on the south shore of Inukuk Lake. I mean these are some of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life. And it's. Then there's the caribou herd, right? 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, 3 to 8ft 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 warmed so much that you get these rain events in the winter that are really hard on Dall sheep, they're really hard on caribou, they're really hard on Muskox, where it 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.

[A]

Man, the caribou example means a lot to me. Like, I, I understand the example, but my take on it has just from like, my take on it from the start has been that I'm sympathetic to the economy issue, I'm sympathetic to the jobs issue. When I talk to friends of mine that, you know, I'm an outsider, I, 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 real jobs. Yeah, I understand the concern. But in thinking longterm 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.

[C]

It's going to be there.

[A]

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

[C]

Yeah, like wherever they are, they're not making more.

[A]

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 on to it. And you know what, over time, 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.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah, well, 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.

[C]

Mm.

[B]

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

[C]

You take that Twin Metals proposed mine by the Boundary Waters, which is, you know, right in the. 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 and in Nevada. I'm not minimizing the need for mining. We have. We have copper mines in New Mexico that produce a lot of copper and produce good jobs. But you're going to. You're going to mine that and then you're going to send it to China to process. So you're gonna get the front end resource, commodity money. But then you're gonna buy it back once it's been. I mean, that's what third world countries do. Like, does that make sense? And especially when you're talking about an economic and cultural engine with the cachet of the Boundary Waters. God.

[A]

I wanted to comment on something. A comment you made about national defense.

[B]

I think it's a great.

[A]

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

[B]

Have a good day at school.

[A]

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

[B]

So don't come whining to me.

[A]

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 talked about how we feel about it.

[C]

Ambler. Ambler Road is a long way along.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And so I'm sure there will be litigation. There are, you know, the Tanana Tribal Council and others that are very invested in the, the, the subsistence resources there. I don't think it's the end, but this thing is way along. It's a long way. And there are some native corps 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, there are a lot of negotiations that I think are fairly far along there as well. So.

[A]

Yeah, probably some real money.

[C]

Yeah, I am. And you know, fact check me on this, but I, I think the government just took a ownership stake in the developer.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

We took a 10%. The federal government took a 10% ownership stake in Trilogy Metals.

[A]

Really?

[D]

In October of this year.

[A]

I didn't know that.

[C]

Canadian mining firm.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

I was unaware of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That in October. Yep.

[D]

Invested $36 million in this Canadian.

[B]

Does that make it harder to be impartial for.

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah. So yeah. I mean it is interesting, right? Like we. There's all these natural things that are. Are happening everywhere. But in this case of the Ambler District, where it's, it's got all these awesome resources, we can call them on the, on the back foot or fighting an uphill battle. And then this road, even though there's not like a current plan for public access along it, it's going to also provide additional pressures in, in the forms of take. It would be like the only mining camp in the history of the world where there weren't dudes interested in hunting and fishing if it did not. And then it's got the additional hurdle of what really happens long term to this caribou herd when it balls up, wastes a bunch of energy and then spends a bunch of energy hauling ass away from the road on the back end once. Once it finally crosses. We don't know the answer to that. And then the fishery side of things, like what is the long term effects on. On these fisheries? And yeah, like is the long Term subsistence plan to just take the money and run. Like very interesting.

[C]

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[A]

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[A]

Another move I've seen, not I've seen another move the world has seen is a movement 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.

[C]

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

[A]

Educate me.

[C]

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

[A]

So you know, this is under Clinton.

[C]

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.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

And then the Bush administration.

[A]

Can you tell what, can you explain what we're talking about? So this is what the roads rule means.

[C]

This is a rule. It's actually a very flexible tool. But it says 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, Gila trout habitat in New Mexico. And so they protected those things and said, you can still go in there and do a fuels treatment or you can go in there and make habitat modifications, but afterwards 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. Now, a few years later, less strict.

[A]

In the wilderness area, less strict in.

[C]

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 Risch in Idaho who negotiated the roadless rule for Idaho. Colorado has a state based roadless rule 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 Palencios where we have desert bighorn sheep and coos deer and people really valued 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.

[A]

So what happened in Trump won with the roles rule.

[C]

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

[A]

Don't worry about it. Yeah, we'll stay with the current.

[C]

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

[A]

What is the primary motivation to repeal the roll this rule? I mean, is it a, is it like a specific industry in a specific location? Is it a general annoyance?

[C]

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, 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 dollar backlog because they can't maintain the roads that we want them to maintain that are open roads for all of us to use. And so for some people, the question is when you're in a hole like that. Why not just stop digging if you need to go in? Like, this is a flexible tool if you need to. They've dressed it up largely 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 Forest Service. They chased people out.

[A]

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

[C]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Where you pretend you take whatever fashionable issue there is.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

Portable housing. Cabernet. Yeah. And so 25.

[A]

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, you know, it makes you very cynical to look at it.

[C]

Yeah. This is why the public doesn't like politics, 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 park, 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 and natural boundary.

[B]

And it's. 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.

[C]

And it also opens up out to 100 miles from the border. It changes the rules for national wildlife refuges, national parks, wilderness areas to say you can just drive wherever you want to go. Now there are wilderness bills that actually say, including, I think when we did Oregon, mountains, desert peaks, and maybe when Arizona did all those border wilderness areas, if you're in hot pursuit of somebody who's trying to get away, you can follow them, 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 2 in Mexico right on one side of the border. And then they can get to another road on the other side of the border and drive like hell. Like these national parks and wilderness areas actually are an effective. An effective means of border control.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, that's what's interesting when you go through the Borderland Protection Act.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Is like, it's provided for. Like, basically all of that is provided for in, I suppose, like, slightly more cumbersome ways. There's just actual checks and balances to it.

[C]

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

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

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

[B]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

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, like, rescinding the roadless rule. People will point out, well, this will help for fire mitigation because people are like, oh, yeah, that's right. Last year, like, Palisades, you know, Pacific Palisades or whatever burnt down to the ground. This is important. We should do this.

[C]

There were a couple of roads in the Palisades. Yeah.

[A]

So. Yeah. So you take these. These current ideas and take old grievances and try to get them through. But with the. But I. I just feel like on the road to 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. But I think that they would like to see happen. I mean, I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but.

[C]

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.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. 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.

[C]

And that's Russ Vogt 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.

[B]

But do you think those people are having the same conversations with their kids? Now, I'm not gonna have to deal with this.

[D]

But grasshoppers and water.

[A]

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 these things. Everything so far. Here's what we might disagree on. I. I'm going to move to the subject of renewables.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

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. Ref. Is adversarial the right word? I don't know what, you 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. Like, and I'm not going to lecture you on this, but I just want to hear your thoughts on it. How do you feel, what do you think when you think of taking Bureau of Land Management lands, say.

[C]

Yep.

[A]

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

[C]

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 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.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

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.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

You know, we just did a 3 1/2 gigawatt renewables development in New Mexico that I.

[A]

How much is that?

[B]

Yeah, it sounds like a lot.

[C]

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

[A]

It's online.

[C]

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

[A]

And where does this sit?

[C]

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

[A]

Okay. How many acres?

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

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 trade off is, where the juices were, the squeeze and where it's not. But then that's 550 miles of, of like I worked on this project for 17 plus years, 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 had, a lot of them had Liuna or IBEW on one side of their hardhat 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.

[A]

There's got any comments on that one?

[B]

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

[C]

Well, a lot of it was around where should all of these facilities go? So, you know, you don't want to, when you're doing a wind farm, if there's a sensitive species like a lesser prairie chicken, that's off the table. And if there's. When it comes to the route of the transmission line, what I 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 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 all. Like in China, they just 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.

[A]

They don't do the whole public comment period.

[C]

They do not do the public comment period. We took 18 years to try and get that balance right.

[B]

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 project like you're talking about.

[C]

In terms of one of the things the developer did is. Is they're in the midst of buying habitat in both Arizona and New Mexico. In the case of New Mexico, it's like to protect riparian bosque habitat that we're not getting more of. Right. That comes with water rights. That's really super precious stuff. The kind of thing you would see at a national wildlife refuge like Bosca del Apache or state wildlife management areas. And then 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 agaves that are also incredibly important for some of the bats that have been in decline in the Sonoran country.

[B]

Interesting. Yeah. So it's like replacing wildlife services would. Or what is it? Sorry, I'm spaced out. When we're talking about like a chunk of blm, it's the environmental services, habitat services, replacing those for whatever the project is.

[C]

Exactly. Right.

[B]

That's why conocophillips is huge with the greater sage grouse.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Like they replace. They got to replace a lot of sage grouse habitat.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And so, you know, when what I told them was early on, I'm like, okay, if. If you're going to have, for example, 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.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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, 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, but I look and 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?

[C]

Yep. No, I think so. And I think what gives 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.

[A]

I see. And I didn't know. I didn't even know that that was true.

[C]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's considered an expensive way.

[C]

Oh, yeah, very much so. But the, 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. First time in years we actually put a light water reactor on the grid. Those are the sort of traditional big, complicated, and often big overruns in cost. What's being attempted right now is to 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.

[A]

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

[C]

And then if they're small and simple in their design, you actually get the advantage that you get in a factory, bringing down cost over time. So every, every time the number of solar panels in the, in the country doubled, the cost for solar panels went down 20%. So it started out at like $77 a watt, and then it landed well under a dollar a watt.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You can start to get a natural reduction in costs if you can make them small and modular. And the idea is if you can do that. And then there's. There's this willingness to pay more for 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.

[A]

I'm going to grossly oversimplify something and say that there is a partisan nature to energy sources. Yep.

[C]

You know, but with nuclear, that's.

[D]

I'm just, okay, like, being facetious.

[A]

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.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

What, like, is there a partisan split on nuclear? There was fashionable for one side or the other to like it.

[C]

There was for a long time.

[A]

And what was.

[C]

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. To nuclear power. And there's a lot of conflation, too, between nuclear power and weapons. And weapons. Yeah.

[A]

And, you know, I talk to the Iranians about that. Yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay. 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 I got under a lot of pressure to, to break down fission fusion. It's pretty, I tried, I tried to bring it back around to the water wars and fissions.

[C]

You're breaking stuff apart and infusion, you're squeezing it all together and now you can explain.

[A]

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

[C]

In fission you also have a lot of waste products and infusion, typically you don't. Oh, and so that's another advantage.

[A]

Which one generates waste fission.

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Oh, speaking of which, where in my.

[D]

Garage usually where these things go.

[A]

This is just a little side note. Where does it stand? Do you remember? And maybe it's still an issue. The, the Yucca Mountain repository fight. What came of that? Where is all the stuff that was going to go in Yucca Mountain?

[C]

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

[A]

Okay.

[C]

At light water reactors, primarily sitting in cooling pools.

[A]

So they've never, it's, We've for now abandoned the idea of having a central repository certainly in deep within the earth in Nevada.

[C]

Because there was never buy in from Nevada.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Which is a tough way to, you.

[A]

Know, that's a real tough sell.

[C]

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.

[A]

No, it's like, 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, oh.

[C]

I've seen this a bunch of times.

[A]

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

[C]

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

[A]

Okay. What was that word used?

[C]

Transuranic waste? And it's waste from the production of our nuclear deterrent that is being stored deep underground in salt.

[A]

And, you know, you put the excavated into salt.

[C]

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.

[A]

Huh.

[B]

Right next to the Ark of the Covenant. What else it is?

[C]

New Mexico.

[A]

A pair of truck keys I'm missing. Okay, here's one that's going to blow people's minds. There's, like in 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, hey, we should. We got too much public land. You've been involved in a number of. You've been involved in a number of exploits which have generated public land. Tell us those stories you mentioned, Sabo.

[C]

People love it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

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 a campfire with their best friends and their family members and make great memories. And it's a proven economic generator, so I have never found it a negative to create, for example, a new wildlife management area in New Mexico or to use Land and Water Conservation fund dollars to, you know, we actually. The Valles Caldera National Preserve is an interesting model in that it is managed by the Park Service. But the way I wrote the legislation, the management of the elk hunt 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.

[A]

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

[C]

Cause we wanted, you know, we knew what we had the community buy in. They wanted all of these geologic resources, the volcanism, the incredible of. You would love this obsidian 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 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 hunt.

[A]

Yep, yep. And then, but, but get into the. The most recent story. There's a. There's a tribal component to it of a ranch that we're talking about.

[C]

Valles Caldera.

[A]

No, no, no, no. The one you guys just worked on, the Elbar. Yeah.

[C]

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

[A]

So this is a family, a ranching family that is. They've decided it is time to sell and they put it on the market.

[C]

Selling it as a trophy property to somebody from out of state. They were in discussions with Trust for Public Land about let's make this a wildlife management area. So we had to raise, trying to remember it was a 54,000 acre property split between two pieces, and we had to raise $34 million in 13 months. But people were excited about it. And the Pueblos went to the legislature and the governor and said this would be really great. Wildlife management areas have tags that go to residents. So that attracted a certain segment of the population in a state where we don't. Where we, frankly, as residents, 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 were able to, in 13 months, create 54,000 acres of new public land.

[A]

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?

[C]

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

[A]

Were effectively a donor.

[C]

Yeah, that's exactly right. I will name check one Johnny Morris, really?

[A]

From Bass Pro.

[C]

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

[A]

Like, understanding that time mattered. Yeah, time mattered.

[C]

That the real limit here was not that we weren't going to be able to raise the money, but could we do it in the time that mattered? The legislature stepped forward. You know, we had those pueblo leaders, governors going to the governor and the legislature and saying, we 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 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.

[A]

Are you kidding me? Really?

[C]

Within the first two years.

[A]

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

[C]

And so in this case, Trust for Public Land was the lead ngo.

[A]

Okay. And they're doing all the bean counting.

[C]

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 habitat 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 finance committee in the House, Nathan Small, who was a real leader on this. And so trust for public land was the glue. And then there were a whole bunch of other people that found ways to bring resources to the table in the timeframe that needed to be done.

[A]

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 I mean? Are they. Is there a little bit of, like, whoa, what are you doing here? You know, sometimes, yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Sometimes, yeah. Yeah.

[C]

But in New Mexico, we have a long history of. And we are a state that is. Are you familiar with the phrase the resource curse?

[A]

No.

[C]

You know, it's like, there are a lot of countries that have had commodity economies, and it makes it harder to do the new things. It makes it harder to diversify. It makes it harder to. And so I've always believed that when you have, you know, you have 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 councilor 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. 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.

[A]

Guys got. What do you guys got?

[B]

Do you want to go back to ping pong balls?

[A]

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

[D]

Very poetic, actually.

[A]

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

[B]

Waters of the United States, that's like, that's a ping pong ball that's getting battered around heavily. And I'm notice lotus. Yeah. And you know, for our, 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 I get that one.

[D]

A lot.

[B]

God almighty. What do you, how much do you deal with this?

[C]

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

[A]

Lay some groundwork first so people know.

[C]

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 US Rule and the court rulings have said if you're not connected to the Mississippi river, you're not really a, a wetland in New Mexico. That's everything. Like the entire members base are out, 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, water's everything. Whether you're reliant on it for agriculture, reliant on it for industry, everybody recognizes it is the single biggest limiting factor in an arid state. And so the state is now working on taking that back and creating a structure to be able to protect waters in the state on their own without relying on the epa.

[B]

Interesting.

[C]

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

[A]

But can you, can you explain a little bit? We, 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 art. It's like for terms of national security, industry, energy, the US Has a vested interest in protecting the Mississippi River.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And there's this sort of political question of how far upstream and 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.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

What happens there? And the ping pong being.

[C]

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?

[A]

No, I missed it.

[C]

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

[A]

Hence your move, hence New Mexico.

[C]

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

[B]

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 plus our pollinators.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like that, that's largely exempted from, from, you know, the Clean Water Act.

[A]

So yeah, tiling refers to. And we were kind of like in the tiling capital of the world a while ago. Duck hunting. But tiling refers to.

[C]

Is this Illinois or where we were in South Dakota.

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah. Because of the downstream effects.

[A]

Yeah. 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.

[C]

It so you're able to grow, opening.

[A]

Up massive acreage of, of previously two wetland wetlands, drying them out, to plant them.

[C]

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.

[A]

And so you've lubed the whole thing up. Yeah.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Right.

[A]

Or, or getting a lot of ducks.

[B]

Getting a lot of ducks.

[A]

But also people fishing. Catching fish off people's driveways.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Or these guys explaining to us that the really good walleye fishing is the submerged roads, the county road, the count, the embankment that the walleye really liked to lay on. The embankment of the county road. In places where you can wade, you can put chest waders on and wade the county road and just work the, work the embankments because there's a wall. I land on the embankments. It was surreal.

[B]

It was, it was impact.

[A]

The hell year was that there's a bunch of them.

[B]

20, 20 probably.

[A]

Surreal.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

People are like, oh yeah, it's great fish. You just wade down the road and you're basically fishing the ditch.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I mean that's something you should laugh about. I mean it's like interesting one because like that was a huge, huge habitat hunter led fight for so many years. Like coincided with, with where duck stamp dollars went, which I know you're very familiar with, and, and the rise of Ducks Unlimited and preserving the, the duck factories. Right.

[C]

Yep.

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah. I need, I need to, I need to clarify a thing. I kind of. We 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 conf. I don't want listeners to think I'm conflating that, that the tiles. Cause you know, there's some like linear relationship between those tiles and that flooding. Just the same trip, right? It was the same trip where we're noticing these two things. I do want to tell you because you're, you're a water rights access guy. There was also this very interesting battle brewing at the time there which was. Let's you have a lake and it's a public lake, which is a state.

[B]

Constitution deal in South Dakota too, I think. So it's very interesting.

[A]

This is. Yeah. The one we're getting at. So picture. There's just anyone listening. Picture the lake closest to you that.

[C]

You fish on and the lake gets a lot bigger.

[A]

Now imagine 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.

[D]

Their fence used to be like what.

[A]

They understood to be their property line became buoy lines. Wow. 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.

[B]

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. Yeah.

[A]

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.

[B]

Right.

[A]

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

[B]

Right. You want to be like, listen, I totally get what you're saying. Could you just point to this map here and tell us where that windrow was historic. Do some jigging.

[A]

Yeah. Because there going to be crappies spawning. Yeah, there's crappies spawning on your hedgerow.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Historically, was that kind of flooding something that happened in the.

[B]

So, yes.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Because they were. I think it was NRCS or USGS was going down and pulling pollen samples Right. From the old shoreline.

[A]

That's another thing.

[B]

Yes. And so some of this is like, oh, yeah, this is 100 year.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

Floodline stuff. But then it was determined to be greatly exacerbated because of acts like tiling, rerouting water in general, things like that.

[A]

It's like, 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. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Because, like, Devil's Lake 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 was 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.

[A]

Right, yeah, yeah, got it. That was an interesting little.

[B]

Oh, it's wild.

[A]

Interesting little venture.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What? I've asked you a bunch of questions. I'm not going to invite you to ask me questions, but what do you. What do you wish we had touched on that we didn't get to.

[C]

I think the biggest story of the year was the. The public land sell off.

[A]

Right, okay.

[C]

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 coalition that came together around what got dropped on all of us out of 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 breadth of that coalition. Right. Like, it was. I think at one point I joked it was like bunny huggers to bowhunters. 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.

[A]

Yeah, These, like, these, like, islands off.

[C]

Southeast Alaska, people just stepped up and the spontaneous nature of their pushback was so. 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.

[A]

I got it.

[C]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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

[A]

Oh, yeah, that's like. That's the. I bring up that same thing all the time around, and I like to prod. This question is like the. The deer to me.

[C]

Deer.

[A]

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.

[C]

The deer I got to have the worst season.

[A]

Just too many deer.

[C]

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 schedule's a 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?

[A]

Very much so. And this is a drop in the bucket, but it's. 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 gonna, like, everything. You can't say anything. Doesn't piss people off. I've announced a family moratorium on the harvest of mule deer does.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because I'm just the same way. I'm warning them about eating the bugs and the fighting the wars over water. I'm war. I'm trying to warn them about a future when mu deer are no more or muir aren't a hunt or aren't a hunted thing anymore. That's right.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Right.

[A]

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 bighorn.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

Right.

[A]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

They're less tolerant.

[C]

I'm really worried about.

[A]

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

[C]

That's.

[A]

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.

[C]

Right.

[A]

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

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

Right.

[A]

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.

[C]

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

[A]

So there is localized. But I just. With one thing I worry about with mule deer is that we've drawn the boxes so very, very small. Where we're like, one side of the river, we're trying to reduce harvest. This is here. There'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 killing does. And when you're on that river, what do you see? Deal. It's just like we've gotten. I feel like we've shrunk. Some of the.

[C]

The.

[A]

The management stuff is kind of like, well, that guy's got problems with his field and. And we're not letting them spread. I don't know. I'm worried. Yeah. I don't sit around. I'm not Wor. 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 meal deer hunting.

[B]

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 effect, the efficacy of hunters in the field. A lot of times. Yeah. And we don't, the agencies don't adapt fast and they're, in fact, that's just not how they're built. It's like we need to get the appropriate data together 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.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

I want, 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, what the response is. Like, you guys ever had those types of days? All the mule deer hunters call in. Right in.

[A]

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

[B]

A pain in the ass. Yeah.

[D]

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 herd and would welcome reduction in opportunity or at least like a, you know.

[B]

More of a managed approach.

[D]

More of a managed approach.

[A]

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

[D]

There'S a lot of people out there who just kick and scream at the first sort of shrinking of the opportunity pool. You know, it's painful.

[A]

It's painful.

[D]

You got to communicate the, communicate to your fellow hunters the need for that sort of step.

[B]

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.

[C]

Most of our seasons are five. Five days.

[B]

Right. You're gonna. And it's going to be this little window.

[A]

But I don't.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah. Habitat fragmentation. When I brought up and. And I know I introduced the idea of it but I mean just like with my kids, I don't. Would never even a dear. If a dear friend of mine was. Had his kids shooting meal deer does. I'm not gonna say a word to him like at all. I'm not gonna think a negative thought. But I'm just. What I meant by that was just as a way of sort of giving my kids a heads up about something. I'm like, you know what? You guys shoot all the white tail. That's not true. Cuz I complain when they shoot. To me, white tail does. But then I got to deal with them. But you guys can get all the white tail does you want. But we're just. We're not shooting m. Deer do go shoot the white tail do.

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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

[A]

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.

[B]

Right, right. Exactly.

[C]

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.

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah. The are, like, uniquely American species. Is like, that's where we need some, like, American first Americanism. Right. Sage grouse, prairie chickens, antelope, mountain goats.

[A]

Like, yeah. Real America stuff.

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah. Senator Martin Heinrich. Thanks for coming on and. And talking to us, man.

[C]

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.

[A]

Was it? Right. Yeah. Did we record in your office?

[C]

In my office, yeah. Okay.

[B]

Are you gonna ask him the big question?

[A]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah. You mean, like, what's he gonna do with his life?

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

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

[C]

There are no term limits. You know, what I have said is 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.

[A]

Not running for governor.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

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

[C]

Oh, yeah, he's great.

[A]

He's a hunter.

[C]

I've known him for a long time.

[A]

He killed.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Not O209. The 200.

[C]

I'd be happy to go along.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

No, he's.

[A]

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

[C]

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

[A]

Yep.

[C]

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

[A]

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

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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. I'm stepping aside from being the president to Be the governor. Right. It's just because, you know, you generally want highest level of influence. Just human nature.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Are there cases where someone has left their office as a senator in order to. In order to assume a role as a governor and not see their term through?

[C]

I don't know about not see their term through. But like it's a tough place to be right now. And so I think you're. You're seeing more House members leave to. To run for state offices. 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 and particular in the. In the coming weeks as people go home and spend the holidays with their families.

[A]

Will. Yeah.

[B]

Because we saw Marjorie Taylor Greene.

[A]

Well, I was going to ask about her, but was there a r. Is.

[C]

It rumored that she just like Michael Bennett, who's, you know, my colleague from Colorado. He's. He's running for governor in Colorado and he's currently. He's currently the US Senator.

[A]

But he's seeing his term through.

[C]

That's a good question. I don't know what cycle he's on.

[A]

Huh.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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

[C]

You. You've had that. We've had that conversation before.

[A]

I always think about it. Wouldn't that be the worst thing in the world?

[D]

You would hate it.

[C]

You tried to talk me into running for president. You know what I thought the disease bad enough. I don't need it.

[A]

You brought it up. I wasn't going to bring it up. Do you want me to talk about what happened? I thought you were asking. Let me talk about what happened that day. Or should we just not just leave it privately between us?

[C]

Well, I just think. I think it's great that there are people. I think if you are going to run for president, one, you need to be all in. Like all in, all in. And it tends to be able to weather 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.

[A]

Yeah. I was bringing up with you. You brought it up. I was bringing up with you launching a primary challenge. And I remember that when I brought up to you what would happen? Yeah, I was kind of, it was almost like a civics question, right. I was like, why don't you do a primary challenge? And, and I remember that you didn't even give me an answer.

[C]

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

[A]

That would have been a fool's errand.

[C]

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 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 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 of the big natural world. And that recharges my batteries and then I can go back and fight.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[C]

You know, don't get me started.

[A]

You could probably, I'm guessing you could.

[C]

Chasing whitetails back east to put some, to put some protein in my freezer.

[A]

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.

[C]

Probably not in a while.

[B]

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

[A]

Yeah, be like Paul Ryan's bow hunter.

[D]

That was his. That was his code name.

[A]

Paul.

[C]

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

[A]

Oh really? Yeah, yeah, it's a good thing to talk about with people. All right, well, thanks so much for coming on, man.

[C]

My pleasure. Yeah, Keep up the fight.

[B]

Thank you. You too.

[A]

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

[C]

Thank you.

[B]

Public land.

[C]

Amen.

[A]

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