Ep. 638: If You Hunt or Fish on Public Land, You Better Listen Up

This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely, bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening to podcast, you can't predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you by First Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands, or scouting for ELK. First Light has performance apparel to support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at first light dot com. F I R S T L I T E dot com. Oh for months,

If you were if someone were to ask you, uh, come on, what political office guy Fieri holds of what town?

What would you say?

Boy, it'd be awesome if it was like health inspector.

No, no, what town?

What what town?

The contentious language was elected official, elected official.

We all know he's it's it's it's it's just I wasn't even there is the mayor, he's the mayor of Flavor Town. But if he says elected official, he has to admit that it was wrong. How many points did you win by?

One point one?

So?

Yeah, it was the game, I said, I if we if we were to ask, uh, what animal is the king of the jungle?

The elected king of the jungle? I mean, it's that's what. It's a bad analogy, man, It's not the same. What if turn the machine on Phil machines? Okay, ladies and gentlemen, Now, non of this happens where we start a show and there's already a conversation occurring.

In the race.

In the old days, we would just start. No one even knew when it started. Phil wasn't even born yet. Now we started, don't we feel?

Yeah, that's right. I think it. It introduces a lot of fun energy.

When I just hom it, you're contradicting what I'm saying.

What does I think people like when you say, like turn the machine on. People have sort of an anticipation. They're anticipating they're in the middle of something, but I want to hear what's going on.

Moments ago, in this very studio, I wasn't there for it. There was a trivia tournament. In the trivia tournament, the host says, I don't want Randall to say it because he's like the other side of the fight. Can you do the question, Phil, just for listeners, so me inner trivia. We've got a great show coming up for you today, ladies and gentlemen, and me inater tribute. It was just happening here a minute ago. This question was read.

Yes, the official wording was rock star chef Guy Fieri is an elected government official of what municipality?

Okay, Randall says, flavor tone o. Everybody else has a ship fit because of the word choice elected.

When I think of Guy Fieri.

It's not fiery for starters, it's Fietti, Like there's a guy named Eddie, you owe him a fee Fieedti. Really, yes, that's what he says.

This is the Sicilian coming out and Steve right now.

Well, well, when I think of Guy, when I think of Guy The first thing that comes to mind is his his trademarked nickname, the mayor of Flavortown.

That's his nickname.

Yeah, if you, if you, if.

You pull up his bio on Instagram, it's the first thing that it says.

So I think a better question would Brooks. Yeah, okay, Brad Books came up from from Idaho to talk about this. He's something of a guy FIEDI expert.

A lot of people say that about me, Steve. A better question would have been, like, what is his trademark nickname that.

Denotes yes, governmental position?

But I think that would have.

Been too obvious.

This is fun. This is a fun question.

It's not what if.

You said one place is a state of mind where fun and food meat in perfect harmony.

And he's the and he's the and what position does he hold in this? Like would you say that? If if you said, like, okay, like Jimmy Buffett is the elected official of what municipality, I'd be thinking, ship did he get into politics? I would be thinking, oh, Margaritaville.

I mean if he's known as the mayor of Margaritaville.

But he's not an elected position, like Okay, the guy Fieri is downtown.

It's tongue in.

Not in Montana.

He is in Pigeonforge, Tennessee, and a bunch of other locations. Is there some sort of election that's going on?

And was it rigged?

I think Spencer. I think Spence Cumban.

He made a clumsy attempt to not use the word mayor in the question.

Here's where the problem comes up to me, and we'll get on the show eventually, right, Just punt it crindles, Just punt. The episode will stay on this for two hours. The problem for means up being that he used such formal language, and if I had been in the room, I would have gotten it wrong because I would have been thinking, what the hell town is he from? And maybe he was elected?

So that's what I said to That's what I said in the moment. I said, because Spencer used important sounding words, You guys thought it was a real thing.

I thought he was like an honorary doctorate, like some town had given him, like an honorary mayoral position. You know, That's what I thought.

And that's what'd you write down? Atlantic City? Why that?

I just, can I be honest, pulled out of my ass. I was just like the East Coast guy.

He reached into his button. Atlantic City was in there.

Well.

I initially thought Flavortown because that's the only word I associated with Guy Fiertti, and then I took ten seconds to think about it. I thought, oh, yeah, he's the mayor of Flavortown.

I would have had you know that there's a sports expression, but leaving it all on the field. Yeah, I'd left all on this mic. If I would have been in that room.

I think everybody in the room at in the moment recognized that that would have been the case. And it's it's good that you weren't there, because there was quite a stink in your absence. I'd be worried for Spencer's well being had you been in the room and reach.

Yannis almost quit.

Yeah, he almost walked out, almost walked out.

Well, I would have done that with him, like a little protest. I'd have done that with him.

When I set super early alarms for Turkey season, I name him and off and it's like Turkey Town, USA, Gobblerville, right, and so now I'm gonna be like, now, who would be the elected official of Gobblerville.

I always you know when you're doing a protest and you walk out, Do you say, hell, no, we will go.

I think so.

I can picture a protest where you're not gonna leave, but a protest where you leave what you chant, I don't.

It depends on what you're leaving, Like if you're leaving an airplane that's gonna take you somewhere, or a bus. You know, if you march off of a vehicle that's about to move you. I think that we won't go. Still holds Ye, that's true, because it's leaving.

Yeah, Brooklyn, House Business, bend Man, we're getting I'm starting the actual show now, Philip, you didn't like any of that, you can start the machine now.

It's all standing.

Okay, Brooklyn's here the second time you've been on the show. Introduce yourself Brooklyn like Brooklyn or brook better, doesn't matter, It doesn't matter. Where's your new job at though you got a part time job. You're working down.

At meet your flagship store.

Do you like working down there? Oh? Yeah you do? Do you feeld a lot of dumb questions when you're down there? How do you rate the clientele?

What's the hot gossip down there?

I'm not really sure, to be honest, a lot of people think it's a restaurant, Is that right? Yeah, Like they'll walk in.

They'll be like, I have a five o'clock reservation.

Well, they'll like walk in and they just kind of like stand at the front and just like stare and then they'll just walk.

Out next time, go are you ready to be seated? And then just walk them back to the TV.

And you don't try to sell them when that happens. You don't try to sell them something real quick, no.

Because you just kind of like it happens in like a span of ten seconds, if that, so.

You can tell like that person didn't know what they were coming. When you're down there, do you engage with the customers?

Oh? Yeah, yeah.

Someone was across the street and overheard a passerby saying, I bet that place is good steaks.

Pence they do. So how many hours are you working down there?

Just a couple of days a week. I'm not sure, hour wise.

Okay, And then you're still running your school cleaning business, and that you've been on the show before about your school cleaning business. Yeah, here you have my daughter's buck from this year, impeccably clean. Can I take a look In fact, Brooklyn was set to come on the show a week ago and didn't do it because she is too much perhaps too much of a perfectionist, and didn't want to come down because it wasn't ready yet. It's not over boiled. I can tell you that.

No obvious residues sticking to it.

No smell.

Oh he had a funky tooth.

I saw that.

It's not like all crumbly from getting over boiled, beautifully bleached. You didn't bleach way the hell up the antler.

No, no, I hate doing that.

Yeah, you didn't make it that. This is all crumbly and nasty. It looks perfect.

Thank you.

Are you getting much business for your school cleaning business?

Yeah? I am really busy, really busy.

This is the busy time of year.

Yeah. My garage is way over stuffed.

You got a lot of work.

Yeah.

Is it bad that you hear because you don't want more work? Are you always looking for more work?

Oh? I'm always looking for more.

Okay, So tell people how they come and find you to bring you a skull. You should talk about your pricing a little bit too, just so people know or don't you want to get into.

That for just as deer just standard your one ELK one sixty five, that's just basic analypus, same as Deer one twenty five. Okay, okay, I'm on Instagram at four oh six Bone Works or I think the if you go to the meter store, I have a a few flyer down there.

That's fly in the window. I was dropping off some amimal there today and saw the flyer. That's a good idea. Yeah, yeah, and then people can send it to you.

Yeah, you just message me and I'll tell you where to drop it off.

Yep. Uh, we're gonna pass us around and we're going to do a thing. You can. You know Nate that we work with that pointed out to me that ten four isn't a thing. Oh no, no, yeah. Have you been all your whole life heard people say over and out? Oh yeah, you can't say over and out. Wait, why not, because you're contradicting yourself. Over means it's your turn to talk. Out means we're done. So he's sort of like, it's sort of like saying, what do you think, Bob, I'm out.

You can talk to yourself.

Now.

Yeah, he's out of the military. Okay, he said, if you can make this correction and broadcast it to the world. Ham radio operators and Bradley Fighting vehicle people will forever thank you. You do not say over and out. You just say over, over or out?

What about him protest if you? Yeah?

Yeah, because he called me saying over Now he's like over like you're saying, like, I say, what's your phone number? What's the name of your company? Brook?

Over?

No, you say, yeah, say something. I can't see you.

He's around the radio A four six bone works over.

Out click, yep, hey, Brook, Can I say I think you're I think you should charge more for your work.

This is like, it's not your turn to comment.

Oh okay.

Ate came to me and said he also came to me today to say this. You know, I like to do one to ten. Rate things. On one to ten, he says, it's a lot better to go negative five to five because a one sort of leaves this like, right, how is the restaurant one picture that it's a negative five?

Mm hmm. Yeah, that's good.

So he's like, don't do one to ten, negative five to five hmmm. So we're going to pass this around. You're gonna assess the work negative.

Yeah, Brad, I'd also hold that comment. I have a few skulls that I plan on.

Respect after a respectable period of time for for Randall to submit his specimens. He thinks that the price increase might be in order.

Yeah, I've got a question for you, Brooke about So I was texting with you a little bit when I was like trying to boil this coyote skull and anyway, I definitely over boiled it and the teeth fell out, and so I've got a second one to do. I tried doing it like a couple of times. Yeah, it just I don't know. There's so I've got a second

I just called those curls or a nasel.

Cab, Like what would you what would you do for like a kyo? Would you like poke those out because they're so delicate or no.

So I was actually after my last podcast, the guy had emailed me and he did like a bobcat or something, and he told me to for those smaller skulls to use a water pick because it's like a mini pressure washer, one of those. And so that's what I do on bear To for Spencer. Actually, I just finished a muskrat, so it's muskrats, the smallest I've done, but it works.

From bear to charging him for a muskrat.

I can't remember because I have never done It was like forty Gabe good.

Okay, so we're going to go around the room for a score. I give you a four out of Yeah, I give you a four.

Mostly was nine.

Yeah, and then part of that will just say that like I've done, I haven't done enough taxidermy to know what a what a five would look like, but I think that's really good and really clean. The teeth aren't loose, uh, the nasal cavity looks really in good shape. Like it's really good. But you gotta have something to work for, so can't be perfect.

Yeah, cold just turn eighteen. Yeah, so if you have a five, you got nothing else, meaning a ten? Yeah, what the hell would you wake up for tomorrow?

True?

Now you know what it's like to be one of my kids.

I'm just going to totally disagree. I think it's a five. I think we should tell everybody it's a five. And I agree with Brad, you should be charging more.

Okay, I listen, I'm into her for twent one hundred and twenty four. I guess it's not gonna change. You're not gonna proact, You're not gonna retroactively.

I'm saying I paid like one hundred and fifty bucks or one hundred and sixty bucks for an ELK in twenty nineteen, and inflation's been rampant. That's all we've heard about in entire right now.

This is this is toppling administrations.

It's toppling. So you should be raising your prices by thirty forty and you turned that around in a week. There should be an date.

The normal thing is they're like, uh, you know, my dad used to have a joke. You know, I don't know what help went, Like, you call the guy that's fixing your shoes and it's been like three years. Oh, I'm just finishing them up right now. Yeah, you know, but the turnaround time is amazing.

Yeah.

I try to keep it.

I mean like I'm a hunter myself, and so I know, like, you want your stuff back, you want your head back. That and I don't like all of the heads stinking in my garage, so I'm gonna try and get them done as fast as you can so they don't.

Stink up my griage.

This is your parents' gridge too, right, How do they think about this little business? They give it a negative.

Probably they don't mind it. They kind of think it's funny.

I don't know.

I recently started getting into more tanning, and so I have a lot of highs and I had freezer. All my highes stuffed in the freezer, so I resigned to buy my own freezer because I didn't like it in the freezer.

This year, overheads going up to me.

So within the couple years they will Yeah, everyone.

Tells me to and expedited pricing turn around a week.

One thought about that charging for the prompt.

No, that's smart day.

If you said to me, let's say you stick stuck with current pricing, and you'd said to me, like, it's one hundred and twenty five bucks expedited as one thirty five, you're just like making up. It could have been more I'd been like, ye, I'll.

Do that mm hmmah.

And you don't even have to tell them that you would have done it just as fast no matter what.

True.

Then the guy that doesn't pay for it, he's gonna think, my god, imagine if I had paid for it, how fast it would have been?

Yeah, Randall, Yeah, yeah, I mean I'm a mixed opinion here. Initially my initial reaction was a four because I have a hard time giving a perfect score. You know, I think I think of these things similar to Brad. You got to always have room for improvement. But I don't know what I would do, uh, what I would want differently if that were my deer skull.

I think it looks fantastic.

He'd be like I would. I would have liked the antlers to get bigger. Yeah, what do you charge for that? How much does that cost? Yeah?

No, I mean it looks great.

It doesn't stink, it's clean, it's bright.

Mm hmmm.

We should all be so lucky to have a deer that looks like that.

Damn straight.

She gets a five from me. I know she's super detail oriented about it. Here about it from her mom all the time.

She likes picking Oh, yeah, what's the business called again? Forks, I'd called straight fives.

Out of and then parentheses.

You can add four and zero and six and be like eleven.

That's the top. I'd rather send it to a place that gets all tense. But well, hold on, it started a negative five.

I got a charge for you, okay, And I think this would revolutionize the world of European mounts. Is if you yeah, for a couple bucks extra, I will apply something. You'll have to figure this part out to the nose area that your dog will not chew on it.

Many many.

The sour apple spray you get like the sour apple spray.

Many a good animal has been had its face chewed off before it can be real pretty.

And I've told you I'm sorry many times about my puppy last year.

Ryan.

That's a good point. This pulls you into chemistry.

You can try vinegar.

You said you got to figured out.

I always called it the unintentional skullplate conversion, like it rolls off the bookshelf, you know, or a dog gets ahold of it.

Skullplate Now, dude, yeah, I had one. I had a nice white tail hanging in a area where like in a breezeway and now and then you get just this insane wind if someone opened if the garage doors open on one end and someone opens the door on the other end, and that thing has more times uh boom falling down. And now it's basically like it's like it's gotten a lot smaller.

Yeah, And there's.

Pieces of boat. I come home, you know, and on my desk are a little chunks of bob.

And there's no point in an antelope euro amount if.

The nose is chewed off.

Yeah, like, it's just.

Not yeah, there's nothing.

This is what happened to yours.

I mean, this has had to have happened to your animals.

You had it sounds like you guys have some I had that was last Are you still bitter about this?

No, I'm sound still.

You sound like you have said about it.

So what happened, just to clear the air is Ryan shot a very nice buck.

I took it home.

I had a new puppy, and she got into both our deer. But she chewed more of Brian's nose than mine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The crazy thing is she opened the door where the skulls were, got into the secured area where they were because you know, obviously you wouldn't put them someplace where a puppy could get to them.

Yeah, of course, so a very special dog. You know, I've always said she's smart. I remember this happening. Now, this is all coming back to me. I remember this happening. I remember hearing about this before.

I feel like it's a very common thing.

Anyway, it would be a great way for you to be like, yeah, your mouth's done.

For a couple extra bucks.

For forty bucks, you'll dip it in like whatever the hell dogs happen.

That's what happened to Uh, that's what happened to Chile's first antelope. Yeah, his roommate's dog.

You know what you might put on there. They make this thing for little kids. I didn't know about this. You know, if a kid winds up chewing his fingernails too much, Yeah, they make this ship you put on his fingernails and they about vomit. Really, Yeah, it's bad, So you take you tell him I need forty bucks to dog proof it. Put that shit all over it unless something tastes it. They don't know, and that dog

The only thing is my dog's like throwing up. Just based on the frequency with which they do it, I'm not sure that would be a huge deterrent.

Try that, well, do I've never heard of that.

I have a dog. I'll put it on my own dog and I'll report back to you. Okay, but she just had surgery, so I'm gonna wait till she feels better. She's very depressed. She's gotten wrong with that humiliating cone on. It's all the things she normally does she can't do. She thinks she's in trouble constantly because like she can't do any of the fun stuff she does. She's totally depressed. She's probably gonna kill herself later. I'll hit her with that stuff right now, right now, it'd be like it'd

You through Instagram for our six Bone works or just word of mouth. Really, people have my phone number and just I don't want to put my phone number out there.

No, no, no, don't, but put it out there like this, go like put it out there, like here's how to find me? By god?

What is it through Instagram?

Okay? And they do what just message me? Okay? So message Brook at Instagram, find her on Instagram at.

Four O six bone works.

Yeah, support young business, American entrepreneurship. How do you say that word? Entrepreneurship, preneurship American elbow, grease real entrepreneurs straight fives, yep and uh and and keep keep hope your business keys blooming.

Yeah, for sure.

There was the thing we're gonna talk about by kind of want to get to the main subject. Brody. The other day we're doing the live show and we were doing our thing about where you indefensible law, Like if you could just make a law that's totally indefensible, but

Brad, founder CEO of a company called their Galli. We're back at youn Gear and Equipment company for this I for this gig.

I also worked stint in public Lands too, so mm hm and dat. He been on the show probably four or five times.

Yeah, not as many as uh folks like heavile finger. Uh No, I don't know. He gives me a hard time.

It's like you're right your neck and neck with hell we might be, but he writes in a lot.

But president, Yeah, yeah, David Wilms, I'm based in Wyoming. I work for the National Wildlife Federation. Now I'm our associate vice president of public Lands and also oversee our hunting angling advocacy work as well, And prior to that, worked for Governor of Wyoming, worked for the Attorney General's Office, did work with our State Game and Fish Department. Have been an attorney for I won't say how long long enough now long time? Yeah, a long time since you

And of course doctor Randall's here and also joined by Ryan Callahan, and we're here to discuss the subject of great importance that has been brewing in the background. Like I've been hearing about it and hearing about it, and you're hearing about it. We keep saying we want to do something about it. I kind of thought it would go away by now. You're probably dying what we're talking about. Who wants to dine in, dying to know what we're talking about? Who wants to who wants to take take

I'll do the quick overview.

What is happening?

Okay, So, uh, this would all fall under sage brush rebellion. We could call it. This bubbles up about every ten years, it seems like, but it's a movement from certain players. In this occasion, the state of Utah kicked it off with this idea that really falls back to like the federal government can't own land. The argument's kind of they're all variations of that, and the motivation is the fact that the states want more land because they're of great

Eighteen and a half million acres.

Yes, yep.

And they are suing the federal government saying that.

That land.

It's illegal for the BLM to control that land, and the State of Utah wants that land to basically do with as they please. And there's some versions of what that is. But they do use in their lawsuit the word divest, which means sell, So there's yeah, basically, they're going to hold the acres that are of the greatest economic importance and divest the rest, which would be sell off the rest of those public acres, and then kind of the ball of axe grows from there as far

So the lawsuit the Idaho's or that Utah has fought. The State of Utah is filing a lawsuit saying BLM land is somehow they don't have the authority to own it, therefore it shoulblong to the states. They're focused particularly on BLM. Is this true? For now?

That's true?

That's why do they feel that BLM land is fundamentally different than any other land management agency?

That's a great question. You know me to take the first.

You're the lawyer here, I'll take it. Oh, why why are we talking about Bureau of Land Management land?

That's a great question. It's because that's what they've told us to talk about. Oh okay, right, So here's the

How often is that successful? Well, I can tell you to have them not defer it down court.

So I can tell you I I've been involved in a couple I was. The last one I was involved in was actually a case the State of Montana sy the State of Wyoming, and it was Original Action number one thirty seven in the history of the country, the one hundred and thirty seventh original jurisdiction case in the history of the country. That was about ten years ago. There have been a handful since then. It doesn't happen often.

Got like who won the presidency.

That's a pretty high bar.

Might be like a thing like we're just gonna have to take this out.

That's exactly right. So that's the ask, right, and in it they ask for the Supreme Court to accept yourisdiction to hear this case and the argument is these eighteen and a half million acres of BLM lands, of these unappropriated lands, that it is unconstitutional. They're making a constitutional argument. They're saying it's unconstitutional for the United States to hold

Get as wonky as you want, because I was just gonna ask why can't Maryland sue and take the White House?

There you go, You're asking the right question, right. So under Article ten, which is what states often your reference are ten of the Constitution is all of the powers that are not expressly articulated in the Constitution are reserved to the state. And what Utah says is the express authority to own land for the federal government's own land is only found in one place in the enclave clause.

Lands military bases in DC.

Yeah, effectively, right. And so then to then argue that they're limiting their lawsuit to eighteen and a half million acres of just BLM is something that I'm it's like mental gymnastics for me, because as the lawyer in me says, I'm looking at facts in law, right, and I'm saying, if it if their argument is true, and it is, and it is unconstitutional to own any lands besides military installations in Washington, d C. Then why in the world would they only be entitled to the eighteen and a

Yeah, why wouldn't whyomi make a play for Yellowstone National Park? What a windfall? Right, I mean, maybe that'd be like one chunk of public land that if they took the state would actually make money off it.

Probably, Yeah, I mean you'd think so, at least tourism alone, dollars alone. Right. But so, so that's the thing I like to start off with I'm I'm a pretty, you know, I'm a pretty measured too much?

So yeah, maybe maybe so, but that's why you get to keep coming back.

So it did go with a five.

I did go with the five that was, but it was a measured five. It's like, it's like, there's room for improvement. You could charge more sure services, but your work is so good it's a five. Yeah, But I

Yeah, like Gettysburg. Wouldn't Gettysburg be not listed?

It's yeah, I think so it's a I mean it was it's a national monument, national monument or nationalment.

Do they give you constitutional authority to own a monument? Probably not?

No, No, I mean according to that lawsuit. Accordin to the lawsuit, I mean I would argue, yes, well.

Know what I'm saying. If you if someone was literally like, I'm not a constitutional scholar, so I don't know if that's surprised. But if you look at this, this thing they're pointing to that says what kind of land they could own, I'm just trying to capture the extent of like sort of the bombshell you're dropping to beat it. Not just BLM, but you could say the same thing about national parks. You say anything about national monuments, you can say anything about whatever.

National forest, national forests, US Fish and Wildlife Service lands, Bureau of Reclamation lands.

So is there in this suit? And there's a lot we got to get into here, like other states joining all that, but in this suit, is there any articulation about why we're talking about BLM, Like what is it about the Bureau of Land Management that to them seems that to them seems like riper for exploitation than if they were going after Zion National Park.

I mean, I think it's the unincorporated lane. Like how the BLM came to be is it was kind of like all the undesignated land that was left over, So there's like a low hanging fruit type of deal. But also Utah on BLM ground has a real history back and forth of like a lot of bears ears, Grand Staircase Escalante, that is BLM land that then went into a monument status and then went back to non monument status.

Yeah, I mean, the national forest system as we know it was set aside as forest reserves, right, like we've always had. The federal government has always acquired new land through purchase or military conquest basically, right. But most of the public land system as we know it, those chunks of public land were set aside for a certain purpose. And BLM is essentially what was left over that wasn't, you know, either reserved or disposed of. So it's sort

Yeah, I mean, if you were going to take the argument, why are we here, what is there? Right, it's exactly that. It's we had a system where as states were originally admitted into the Union, they were required to disavow any claims to lands that were within their borders that were unappropriated lands. And at the time we're talking in the seventeen hundreds here, we're talking at the time unappropriated meaning

Like the railroads were compensated with land instead of money. Yeah, Like you get the land your tracks on, and then checkerboard everything within twenty miles you get half of it or whatever to help.

Yeah, So we had this system that ran for you know, until nineteen seventy six really and starting in really I was going to say eighteen ninety one. It's really starting in more like eighteen seventy six, which I think is when Yellowstone was first created. Right, That was sort of the first time that the government said, Okay, not this. Yeah, we're going to try and sell a bunch of stuff, but not this. And then eighteen ninety one comes the Force Reserve Act and Congress again says there's a lot

Well, you can here bless your heart for avoiding the acronyms.

I try to avoid the acronyms right doing great jobs.

So nineteen seventy six happens, and all the land that has not been put into national parks or monuments or wilderness areas or you know, list the whole list of the things national wildlife refuges. The federal government says they're looking at it, and they're seeing there's a lot of value to these lands too. Like nobody was home homesteading. It looked like for the longest time it was viewed as of trash land. But they're starting to realize there's

This it was pretty scary, it turns out.

Yeah, And so they passed this law that says, once and for all, it's the policy of the federal government to keep this land in the federal estate. And it effectively ends the homesteading. Like that's when the homestead Act really formally ended. It was nineteen seventy six, not that long ago, and you can look at that law and it matches pretty perfectly to when the Sagebrush rebellion starts to kick off, because this argument is no, no, you were always supposed to get rid of that land. You're

So the logic a little bit is it was like it's last in, first out.

Yeah.

Can I just say, though, like I want to make I think it's really important though to point out like there isn't in most people's mind, and maybe I'm just speaking for myself here, like an open legal question about whether or not public lands are constitutional. I think there is like this assumption that some people have that like, hey, this has like been an open question, and we just want to push for, you know, some clarity on this, right, Like like I don't want there to be I don't

With one exception, and it's the exception that UTAH is putting out there. So there have been a series of cases that have said under the Property Clause of the Constitution, the federal government can own land, can manage it, can exclude people, can regulate. You take, for example, can say this forest, we're not going to hunting on it right now. It's the stuff that's used today when there's a fire and they administratively close it and you're like, well, can't

Claim, right, I'm asking you for your opinion, though.

I'll get to that. I just want to make yeah, but I want to make sure people understand.

Okay, I really appreciate this because I like to hear you know, people should understand the argument. Yeah, right, exactly right.

So the argument is, yes, the federal government has the authority to manage lands as long as it takes to dispose of them, and if it takes thirty years to dispose of them, they can manage them like any other landowner for that thirty years. This is the argument Utah effectively makes. They're they're just saying the Supreme Court hasn't weighed in on this very narrow issue of can they hold those lands in perpetuity? And that's what the claim is.

And to be clear, Utah is trying to set they're trying to go to the US Constitution or sorry, they're trying to go to the US Supreme Court. So they're not arguing this is not necessarily about what is going on in Utah, because if the court finds in their favor, it finds in everybody's favor.

That's my argument.

Other states, every other state that has BLM land would be able to be like, well, that applies to me as well. Why would it somehow becif to Utah?

But I say not just BLM land. This is where I keep having to dive in and say not just BLM land, all public land.

Yeah, so how how if you look at it like like how many acres of BLM land of like how many acres of public BLM land or in Utah? How many acres of BLM public land are in the US in general? Like what's what's if this was to be found true, how many acres of hunting and fishing ground are at risk?

Well, so if you're just doing on BLM, I don't have the exact numbers on me. Maybe somebody else knows about their head. It's I think it's over two hundred million acres. If you're talking does it apply to all lands federally owned lands that are that are not military installations or the the capital. We're talking six hundred and forty million acres. We're talking about one third of the land mass of the country.

My daughter's buck here BLM BLM.

Yeah.

I mean I think it's like the.

It'd be like if you sold some land to your neighbor, right, and then you went, you know, you wanted to like build a driveway or something, and you said, oh, I can do this because the original transaction is void, right, and like it's ultimately, if you have to accept the argument for this part, it applies to the whole thing, because what they're arguing is that the federal government cannot

There's you know, like, yeah, there's nothing in the constitution.

Yeah, there's nothing constitutionally different about every other type of federal public land that we know of.

One of the things about this this current legal push is it winds up you're shooting for the same thing is you've always shot for. This is just the latest way you're trying to do it. Okay, So if we let's go back to twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, you're some about the ten year cycle. Let's go back ten years. The conversation was around and it was coming from Utah as well. The conversation was around like divestiture or there was this like excess how do they put it, the excess public lands?

Yeah, unincorporated, Yeah, unappropriated.

That there was a push where they carved off a chunk of land that they felt was like like some level of excess public lands. Correct.

Yeah, the lands that hadn't been, in their eyes, set aside for some other public purpose like a national park or a wilderness area or a national conservation area national forest. Right, the ones that didn't have that specific articulated congressional designation for specific purpose. They're saying, well, that's what we're that's what we're after. It's what's left.

That was the twenty fourteen argument.

That's the same one today.

Okay, So that that was the but no, there was a bill. Oh yeah, that's right, like like it was. It was like sponsored by Jason chaffits right, Yeah, And it was a how does no one remember the hell this was? It was like the.

Yeah, yeah, it was I think it was like the Divesting Public Lands Act or something like that.

They had a word like excess or Yeah.

They were trying to identify the chunks of ground that weren't all that important to the public and sell those.

Yeah, and it was putting it forward as a bill that these would be sold. When I say that this is the same you're driving towards the same goal. You're just taking different attitudes about it. Like let's say I I really wish I definitely don't. Let's say I really wanted to get rid of my neighbor, and one year I try where I go back into you know, I go back into when he initially did his permitting. Did he make any mistakes? I'm like, Okay, he didn't make mistakes.

Right?

Meaning my goal is to get rid of the neighbor. Definitely don't want to do this. My goal is to get rid of the neighbor. I'm just going to keep trying things. Utah has been pursuing this for a long time, Right, that's right? Is this a fun like? Do you feel that this approach is somehow more sound, is going to have a different result than the other ways in which they've attempted to take the federal public land and make it something that they can sell and privatize.

Here's why it's different. Okay, they've invested. I can't remember, Brad, do you know the number twenty.

It's like twenty the Yeah, I know what you're gonna say.

It's about twenty million dollars has been approved taxpayer dollars Utah taxpayer dollars twenty million dollars for a PR campaign to support the lawsuit.

So so Utah's tax money is paying their own way toward not having their public lands.

Correct, absolutely, one hundred percent. Although it's a campaign that the ads.

Are talk about, like talk about losing control of your tax money, Like I got a good idea, I'll pay my taxes. Then you take my tax money and make it that I don't have any public lands.

Yeah, although they're they're using kind of a rebranded keep it public campaign.

Oh actually, I mean you're talking Washington Post ads, podcast ads like there's I mean, they're going it's a pretty serious PR campaign.

Yeah.

So there. That's one thing that's different is they're investing in this. But I I argue they're not investing in a PR campaign for the litigation.

Okay, right, you don't need.

A PR camp. The law is what the law is. You're gonna run through the judicial process. Maybe you run a small PR campaign in state to convince your constituents that this is the right legal move to make. But

It's it's the how do you sell the idea to a guy in d C. What are you telling him that he's gonna care about?

Well, I think you're trying. I think you're trying to do a couple of things. It's who's in DC.

No, what I'm saying, what do you Let's say, let's say you're in You're in Utah, right, and you get campaign money and your cronies and things are in development and other issues, and you guys are looking at all of the land that will never be generating money for you, drowndating business for you, generating profits for you, generating profits for the state, and it's sitting there. How would if you were ever going to take a message and bring

So I think it's it's this, it's the overall political message of the tenth Amendment should matter. And so who are you appealing to in DC? It's the center of power in the country. That's where it's where your Senate, your house, all of the thousands of staffers that work for them live.

Yeah, John Roberts washing his dishes and in the background this adds like subliminal but not just argues in him, and he's.

Like, you know, by God, not just the justices though. Remember you're going to have a senator from Utah that is going to have an extreme amount of power over natural resource issues in this country starting in January, you know, Senator Mike Lee. Yeah, I don't you know when we're having this conversation. I don't know what how it's going to pan out. But he's in line if he wants it, to be the chair of the Senate Natural Resources Committe

And for folks who don't know, Senator Lee has been like very prominent in what what would be considered like an anti public lands group. He has been pro anti public lands.

Yes, so it's I've I've viewed this lawsuit as they want to they want to win the lawsuit. Obviously they're going down this route if they if it doesn't go to the Supreme Court, they'll likely file in federal district court. Lawsuit buys you time to lawsuit, creates uncertainty because you don't know what's going to happen in the legal process it and it locks things up and creates time to

Campaign, and as well management right is the other one which kind of ties in to bowl, but it's well who manages land better?

Right?

And and that's something that you've heard over and over and over again, is well, the Feds don't manage that as well as the state does, or everybody knows public land is not managed anywhere near as good as private land, right. And that's something that we hear over and over again.

In terms of laying out everybody's like biases and what they're after. And you've done a good job of making of presenting an argument, you know, even though you're not necessarily here to represent Utah's position.

Necessarily, yeah, you're not.

But you're not here to represent their position that you're explaining that trying to explain. And I feel that and I'll do the same on my position, okay, because this is one of those things where I think that everybody is driving at what they find to be beneficial. There's there's some art, there's some things that happen and it transcends.

Yeah, it's a libertarian paradise.

It's a libertarian paradise. And I know that there's things you could do with it, like you could sell it and make condos and mine it and whatever to hell. And someone's going to make some money right now. But all in all, considering that the country's going to keep existing for you know, hopefully thousands of more years, it'll stay like that. It'll be a place where Americans can go be Americans. And and that is the thing that

It says it's a different color.

It says Utah Bureau of Land Management. But we're still going to have it be that. Everybody can hunt and fish and camp and do what they want. It's just we just it really means a lot to us that it says Utah on it. I think most people will be like, oh, it's cool, not my fight, but that's not what we're talking about. No. Now, no one wants it. The state doesn't want it because they wanted to have

It's like the same box. You just go out there and.

It's a place to American. It's the most American place to be American. They don't want it because that's what they want to keep happening. They want it because they want to develop it, right correct. I mean, I mean like that therein lies the issue. It's not who owns, it's like what are you gonna do with it?

Yeah?

Like all I mean it's hard for me not to get really like pissed off when I talk about this shit because so unlike my friend they were here, I don't have to pretend to like be friendly to the state of Utah, which I appreciate your.

Uh he's doing the lord's he is he is when I hear a story, When I hear a story about like someone's like, oh, you know, his wife is terrible, She's the worst. I'd be like I'd have to talk to his wife. I don't know, you gotta be objected.

But like the thing is is like when you look at well, a couple of things I want to say, like what's different between this time and last time? They realize people that don't.

Care about public land, they don't use public lands.

So the guys that it's most of the guys right that want that are trying to do this, they don't do the things that we do, So they don't there isn't a value to them for public access, for hunting, fishing, ATVing, motorcycle riding, they do not care about those things. It's not a part of their lifestyle, so they don't care.

Right.

But what they astutely recognized last time, So last time around, they really tried to frame this issue is like a states rights issue. Who do you hate more the state government of the federal government? And I think if you ask that question, most people are like, or who do you trust more? State government or federal government? Most people would say, well, I trust whoever my state government more because they're closer. Federal government means to me Washington, DC.

Ye, that's what it's about.

And let's frame it as an issue that's really about federal government overreach, because that is a winning argument in a lot of Western states. And I understand that that's not the issue.

No, it's definitely not the issue. It's like many other things we're talking with Crday, we're sending here talking about buffalo management, bison management, mannagement, and bison an engine where you're like, oh, by some we don't want them coming into the state because they carry brucellosis. They're like, well carry brucellosis, but yeah, but we like those. So are we talking about No, we're not talking about brucellosis. We're

When I want to get my five year old eat her vegetables, I'll tell her it's like, you know, I put some sugar on that, or we you know, we put some jelly on that, and she'd be like, oh really, and I'll be you know, like yeah, I'm straight.

Up lying to my kid.

But it's that's what's going on here, right, Like they're telling you, it's they're trying to reframe this whole issue away from the thing that they know everybody cares about.

Which is access. So smart move on their part to be like to say, oh no, no, no, no, it'll all still be availed, it will all still be public.

It also, but when you start this is something that you know, you know, I talked about years ago, but when you start really if you really understand constitutional mandates in Western states, you know that almost every Western state has a constitutional mandate to manage state lands. So if they do go to the states, right, there are constitutional mandates that require states to manage for the maximum economic return on state lands for the beneficiaries, which are the

Is that what it's called?

Or yeah, well, like I said, they're very they're asking for the court to accept jurisdiction to hear the case.

Okay, So if they lose that, what's going to happen though.

Then they'll file in federal court And this is a long time climb the.

Last but this is a long term play. This isn't going away. Like there what it's been going on since what was the that's been going on since nineteen seventy six? It's going on.

But I think this, like what I'm saying is like over the next several years, I think this is just tip of the icebergs.

I agree.

I think this is a part of a longer term strategy here where they're like, you know, they've got folks, you know, they're trying to reframe this debate to make this a friendlier political issue for the people in office, so that Congress can also try and take some action. I don't know what that's going to look like, but if I were their political advisor, I'd be like, hey, guys, here's what we're going to do. We're going to have there are three powers of government here. Let's try and go after all.

Of them and see what sticks.

Okay, let's talk about Congress, to talk about the courts. Let's go after the uh, you know, the presidential obviously what we can do there. Let's have a three pronged approach and let's see what we can do to really stir the pot and rake, you know, and see what happened. So, like, I think the pr strategy is a part of a much like more involved strategy.

So if I was bet.

Money right now, I'd say, even if they lose a lawsuit, like, we're gonna keep seeing different things happening. They're gonna they're gonna be poking around the edges of the public lands system in different ways to see what's gonna see what they can get away with.

Well, and what I'm saying is the lawsuit's gonna be out there for years, yes, absolutely, Like it creates. The lawsuit is what creates the space for all of that other stuff, Like what I said before, creates that uncertainty, so makes people maybe willing to agree to things that they maybe wouldn't have otherwise agreed to because you have somebody like Justice Gorsic for example, whose mother was the EPA administrator under the Reagan administration, was a huge part

If it gets there, right, That's what I was going to.

That's where the politicos say they have a puncher's may have a puncher's chance if it gets there. And so that's where the pr comes in as well, to try and squeeze out some even if even if the end result isn't a transfer or wholesale transfer or sale of public lands. It might be overhauling how we manage public lands.

Sure, And that's like I mean, when I look at the lawsuit, I think there's two things that are striking to me.

One is what we talked about earlier, how.

It's sort of the most explosive approach that they've tried. Because if they win, there the you know, the barn doors are open, right, Like, it means the federal government can't legitimately own land if the court finds in its favor. I mean the other thing about it that's striking is it's a very narrow question has to do with textualism.

But.

You know, like, like what they're they're asking them to do is say, hey, look look at the Constitution. It doesn't say anything about federal public lands. In fact, the Constitution says the federal government can only own these types

I I think, I don't know, have to like, I think it's a legal stretch, right, but it's not.

Do you mind getting into the plausibility of it?

Well, okay, I don't think we've introduced the fact that that Utah started the lawsuit, and now a bunch of other states have jumped onto this, so everybody needs to be aware of That's again why we're talking about this. Right, there's a bunch of Eastern states and.

To hell they got what do they have they need to do with them?

I don't understand what what the deal is. But but out here in the West, Idaho and Wyoming. Wyoming's kind of hilarious to me in a lot of ways because you can't even camp on Wyoming state lands and they're like, we want our chunky Yellowstone National Park, we want tee Tons, we want wilderness areas as state lands.

Yeah, stuff in there's restrictions on state lands about camping. If you want to trap on state lands, you got to go try to get some special permit to do it. You got to put signs up telling everybody that's what you're doing. You imagine, dude.

And in this state, we have a current plan paid for by the taxpayers of Montana that has already analyzed state lands for sale that just came out a couple months ago.

So well, the the thing too, that is so again back to the constitutional mandates in western states. The other thing that's interesting about most state governments is you're not allowed to deficit spend, right, So you're not allowed to so you have to run. So federal government can deficit spend if they want to, states can't. We had a

Oh yeah, fifty million dollar fire is very common.

Very common, right, So, like if you're a state and you have a catastrope wildfire here which you can't forecast or foresee, you just have to deal with it when it's happening. I'm forecasting right now, I'm gonna write that down, Steve take I'll.

Take that bet. No.

But like you, you're gonna what are you gonna do. You're gonna tax your citizens, raise property taxes, raise sales tax. You got to raise revenue. And uh, last time I checked, like people weren't wild about their property taxes going up, or sales tax or any other tax. So you're gonna look around at your assets you can liquidate. First thing you're gonna look to is like, what the hell can we sell around here? You know, if my house, if I was like going broke, I'd start looking around my house.

So I could really make this strike home. If you're one of our many listeners in Texas, I want you to ask yourself how much public land access do you enjoy in Texas? If you go like geez, that's a great question. I don't think I've ever been on much public land in Texas. It's because it was sold sold.

So the Utah deal just because they are pretty tidy numbers, they got it right around two billion dollars for the state lands that they sold. They did some trading with the Feds and got some coal claims and got a fifty million dollar check, but it all comes down to a little over two billion dollars for their little over four million acres of state land that they've already sold,

I don't think.

Every time I've had this argument in the past with folks that really want to make this happen, it is akin to having an argument with like an animal rights activist, where it comes down to what we because it's ours, we should have it real and you're like, you want to go down the economic path, let's talk about the economic path. You want to go down the management path,

Well yeah, but I mean it's not to contradict that, but you could be like, well, how many kids. There's one hundred million kids in the US. Who cares about

And it and it is inevitably going to be worth more and more and more and more. And you know, Teddy Roosevelt knew that he saw all the things that we see today just at an earlier time, and he said over and over again, we are not managing these lands for us. We're managing these lands for the generations to come, and we need to make sure that the things that we enjoy today are here for those generations.

I sat in the room listen to him say it. Yeah, so I'm not he said, quote, I'm not going to sell off your public lands.

Yes, yep.

Twenty fifteen, Las Vegas, Nevada. Yeah, man, nope, January twenty sixteen and January twenty sixteen is Las Vegas.

It's because the sportsman's vote was important then, it's important right now. But man, these groups are funded really well and they can take this public lands message that was very very effective back then and twist it right now to where people say the thing. But in Utah they're like, yes, we got them, because what we're talking about is state management of those lands and sell the sale of a lot of those lands. And again five hundred dollars an

I was gonna say it, Can I buy a bunch of.

You might be able to actually just hold on, Well.

There's there's something I need to do here, because when I hear about the loss of public access, however it happens, Okay, I have like like an emotional, visceral reaction where I do not want to see my my, my hunting and fishing brethren lose access to the places they like to hunt fish. Guy. But I also don't want to be hyperbolic here, so I want to like nail narrow in on focus on a point we've been raising as a sort of hypothetical and why And I'm trying to ask

Yeah, let me unpack that just a little bit. I don't believe it's hyperbolic. Okay, I'm not a guy that does a lot of hyperbole.

No, that's my problem with you.

I know you need more of it from me. I tend to be a practicate.

Let's get the who's the one guy, the real measured guy who tries to be real fair all the time, really solid information, but hot takes of David It depends.

But this is why I say this. I'm not a guy that's usually very hyperbolic. I'm mentally flipping you off right now, but I'm not very hyperbolic. But I look at this and say, one, yes, they would absolutely come in here and say this only applies to the eighteen and a half million acres they apply to in their own complaint. They say it only applies to these because they're these unappropriated lands. And they say these other lands have been appropriated through acts of Congress, so we're not

Yeah, the same way they couldn't tomorrow without doing a constitutional amendment. They couldn't vote to ban certain constitutional rights, right like if the Democrats took control of the House and Senate presidency, they couldn't say it's illegal to own a gun. Right. It's a the hold of the battle right, right.

So I'm looking at and saying public lands, all of them are at risk with this lawsuit, regardless of what UTAH tells you, what their lawyers might tell you, and regardless of what they wrote in their complaint, regardless what their PR campaign says. And I come out at this and I say, and this is to build off with something Brad said earlier as well. They're running this PR campaign that's saying your land's not going anywhere, We're just going to manage it, and you're going to have all

White economic?

Yeah, but what is the economic harm that The things they raise are we can't tax that land and we can't use eminent domain on that land to move transmission lines or roads or other infrastructure because it's federally owned. And my retort to that is, well, if it were transferred to you, you wouldn't be able to tax. You're not going to tax yourself, and you wouldn't need to use eminent domain. You wouldn't need to use eminent domain to run transmission lines across state land. You'd just do it.

This gets to the thing about when you're talking about something that you're not actually talking about, and it's got I think that like anyone, it's being intellectually honest. And if we had someone in who's the architect of this lawsuit, if they were being intellectually honest, they would have to admit that this is about divestiture and sale and development.

Even one of the other. So there were amicus briefs filed right Thirteen additional states, through either their attorney general, governor, or legislature, filed amicus in support of Utah, saying take the case. In one of them, there was a footnote in one of the briefs, did it. I'll just paraphrase, paraphrase. We think we want national parks too, right right, Yeah, that's right. The legislature, legislature what.

A gold mine?

Man?

Oh yeah, to hit yellow if wildly picked up Yellowstone, dude, because think about you could do, like if you did condo stuff and you did one hundred year leases even on condos, I mean you could develop gold. You could develop Yellstone National Park and just make gold literally because you could mine a lot of minerals do big developments put in ski hills. But the side imagine if you could buy your own hot spring and ship the other a gold mine.

The crazy thing too, is i'd want it to want if the state of Wyoming had to manage Yellowstone tomorrow, like body for body, dollar for dollar.

What the federal government does. I mean it's a double state government.

If you went and.

Found whatever Hosers ran Big Sky, okay, whatever people originally put Big Sky together and like did a bunch of land swaps, got this hill, Yellowstone Club, all this bullshit, right, golf courses all over the place. If you wouldn't got that crew and you said, listen, man, we just got possession of Yellowstone National Park. What do you boys have

On the plus side, I might My dream trip has always been to backpack into or horsepack into the Thoroughfare and then pack craft Thoroughfare Creek down into Yellowstone Lake. But that's illegal because you can't be on have a floatated floatating floatation device sorry, a raft or anything like that on rivers or streams in Yellowstone. So maybe if the state took it over, I could actually fulfill my dream.

Yeah, first supporting this argument.

But it's a gold mine. It's a gold mine. Yeah yeah, what are you gonna be able to haunt it for a minute?

Well, I mean that's one of the things that kills me right now, man, I feel like it's uh, somebody's like trying to sell you a car and you're like, well, what about the warranty?

Oh, don't worry about that, there will be one.

Yeah yeah.

Yeah.

You're like, okay, well the manager's drawing it up in the back right now.

How are the the are the tires in good shape?

Oh?

Yeah, it's got tires. Okay, Well what kind of gas mileage? Oh we'll get to that.

Yeah, you know, and you're like, so you sure is good?

Right?

Yeah?

Should I be buying this car?

And because it's not a who manages it best argument, it's not a I mean, all it is again is just coming down to we want it because we want it, and we're gonna make a bunch of money off of it.

All good.

How did that happen?

How did that happen?

It's because we demanded to have it right, and that's exactly what we need to keep doing. And unfortunately, like I swear to God, every ten years, we need to re educate everybody and say no, no, no, no, you have got to stand up and make a big stink of about this. It is absolutely not a real thing that you have to give up rights over here in order to have access to public ground. I mean, if you guys remember the Monuments rescinding fight and all the jack

Right, And people were like, you can't even walk on them there. It is Sean Hannity, where the hell he lives? And people in Utah and god knows what. Right they're like, You're like, what are you talking about?

Get his loafers, get his loafers all dirty?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just it's so bizarre. It's like we just had this great talk with Field and Stream Australia just like kind of akin to like a Delta Water Fowler Ducks Unlimited Group and talking with those guys, it's like a dystopian future of what the US could be where there's there's protesters out in the marsh stealing your ducks before they hit the water, trying to flare birds, and you know, really aggressive gun laws and and they

What do you think would happen? Something I've been thinking about this is like if one of the one of the things we all hear a lot about is like just hunter crowding, right, too many people in the field or you know, people get frustrated by it everywhere you go, and I'm talking about West in the West in particular. But the reason, part of the reason that there are so many people hunting is because well a people want to do it, and there's a lot of tags available

I'm asking an honest question, because I don't know what the implications would be.

Well, like if if the tags become unlimited and good luck finding access, that's what I'm saying.

Wanting to get more fragmentation and development and animal numbers drop and tags drop.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I just think about what is the potential opportunity laws for hunting in an already like finite environment where people are frustrated, Like, what.

Is that going to look like under this scenario?

Can I also point out one legal piece that we haven't talked about. We've made some assumptions here. We're talking as if the result of this would be that land would be transferred to Utah and then they would sell it, because that's what they've asked for, and we presume that the court would give them what they ask for. That in their complaint they say dispose of lands in accordance

Dad, Yeah, I mean, because the state of Utah is not entitled to those lands legally.

They they're trying to make the argument that they are, but they in their own constitution as a condition of statehood, which every Western state and like I have a spreadsheet of all the states with this, almost every state as a condition of statehood, had to give up all claims to and it actually they used the term unappropriated lands in these constitutional provisions, but unappropriated lands at the time

And that's why they give up from Australia owns southern Utah.

And that's the risk I've had. I had somebody right to me recently and said, you know, one of the big risks with this case is just that you have a lot of people that are concerned about foreign governments buying up land in the United States. And what's going to happen if Utah wins this and they and the result isn't the transfer of the land to the state. The result is the federal government has to sell those lands. Who's going to buy them and it could be foreign governments.

And I want to I just want to undo all of the stuff I just did.

There's a hot take for you, right, yeah, right, they just buy I don't think that the if I can speculate about what success looks like for these guys.

I don't think they care.

If I mean, it would be great if you're a state of you're the guys in the state of Utah, You're like ideal scenario, best case scenario.

We get the land, get to sell it and make some money. Right, We're happy. But if they I don't think they really care. I think they would enter it. It would enter into general it would generate the kind of economic activity they're looking for philosophical right now. Yeah, yeah, that they agree.

With philosophically, which is like there's a philosophical problem they seem to have with the idea of public land when you come down to the intentiment.

So like like if a bunch of big sky guys had it, they'd.

Be glad, they be happy to tax it.

Yeah, if the Chinese government bought it, like, I don't know if they'd be happy or Cal bring up a really good point. I'm going to verge into ground. I'm gonna verge very briefly into territory that I don't like to on this podcast. But but Cal made a point about talking about this after the election, like I'm speaking very I'm not speaking for anybody in the room with me, but I'm speaking very personally. After the election, there was so many areas I was happy about, Like, uh, I

Apparently you haven't read the eighteen thirty six Wig party platform.

You like gives me warm fuzzies, you joke, Jo, let's trying to do an impassioned speech ruined it. Great joke though you like you have to like you just look and admit no party will represent all represent all of your interests. So if you get the party you want, there's still work after the fact to go like, Okay, now I need to make micro adjustments, like I got who I want, Like you know, I have who I want in the White House, I have who I want

I don't think the Hunters need convincing.

No, no, no, right, yeah, hunters need to say, like, listen, man, I got you, border security, I'm with you, the whole list of things. I'm with you, But listen to this public lands thing. This is not for us.

It shouldn't be a political issue at all, and everything political. Well, but the polling data suggests it's really not for public lands. Like support of public lands is. It's like nonpartisans. That's why everybody supports it.

That's why it's become a word. It's it's a little bit years ago, we went to Rob Bishop's office in Utah, had a conversation on this podcast with Rob Bishop and and uh, very respectful he was. He was great. Okay, it was very respectful conversation about some things we don't agree on. I would do it again with his with his current counterpart.

Uh.

And it was funny because everyone likes the word access, right, we sort of agreed like we like we like just just like conservation, Like what hell does that mean?

You know?

Everybody's like, are you for a conservation?

No?

No politician in Americas to say no, I hate conservation. Everybody's like, yeah, because I know what I mean when I say it, And then it's not what you mean when you say it, But when I say it, I know what I mean. And Rob Bishop kept on about access, access, access, and you think he means like increasing like that there'd be more land for the public to use. What he means is basically, yeah, access for semi trucks, yeah, or

I think I think he used recreational vehicles, like like if you can't drive that up there and hook it up, yep, that's not access to me.

So you get these words that get squishy, and I think it's like after that big public land shootout from ten years ago, most politicians are like, man, okay, there's one lesson I learned here. Do not get labeled an anti public lands person. So it hasn't changed what you're after. But you're like, Okay, so from now on rhetorically, I

I think to your earlier point about like the election is not it doesn't end there, right, Like this is where conservation groups especially are very effective because like they're they're getting ready to work with the new administration, and like there's there's multiple ways that you can apply pressure to decision makers, and there's one way like in the last big cycle, I mean there's this huge public outcry, right, and like you saw rallies and you saw people taking

So yeah, it's like you can't ever.

Sort of step back from the policy making process for four years as a as an engaged hunter or angler, right, you got to support the groups that are working on your behalf. You got to talk to your lawmakers when you have a chance, because like we're all sort of enjoying the uh no more marketing calls from campaign offices.

My mailbox hasn't seen a flyer in days. It's fantastic.

Just bills and and uh, you know, bills. Yeah yeah, but like like it, we're just now getting started on this stuff, you know, like in terms of as a country, like this is the road is way far ahead of us.

Even though we feel like we can kind of.

Get a break from politics as we've been seeing it on our TVs for the past year.

I read all through the campaign, like I read voraciously, Like, uh, I follow it as an American, I follow someone's just like I'm just interested in politics. Maybe I missed it. I don't think that this issue came up.

It came up in a way tell me housing, yeah.

Yeah, and that's how the Montana deal ends.

Yeah, So it came up in the context of we need more housing in this country, and it actually came up in one of the I think it was in the presidential debate even of uh, there are all these public lands out there that and I can't remember the exact way it was phrased it, but it was like they're not being used for anything right now. We we should be using them to address the nation's housing crisis.

Democrats thousands of tiny homes. If the Republicans win, it will be eight really big homes.

But you know, the FEDS worked with the state of Nevada and they they did give up some BLM land there in Vegas.

So it's not like there's a process.

There is.

There is a process, right.

It does happen occasionally, and you know that's something that frankly, this is what Congress exists for. I mean, there have been plenty of to your point Nevada bills that protected public land and gave land specifically to be sold for development around Vegas.

I don't think many.

I don't know if you guys remember Harry Reid Yeah, Harry Reid back when he was in charge of Center, like he was the he was the unofficial king of doing these these big land deals.

So point is like there's a process.

If there are legitimate issues like housing crisis or whatever, like, there are ways you can go about addressing those issues in a reasonable way. I just want to say one thing you said, see, which I think is really important. I think too often people assume that whoever they support politically is like they're going to represent my one hundred percent of what I believe one hundred percent of the time,

Maybe they do, Like remember that photo Jason Chase looking with a Wiener dog.

You know what I mean, it's like, I don't think they don't do the things that we do. They don't understand, and so like help them understand. It's an opportunity. They may not want to understand, but make them understand.

That's our job. That's your job. They work for us. When you're when you're if you're sitting at home thinking like, how could I ever, you know, go again, or how could I ever like go against some aspect of the political party I involved in. Ask yourself this when you read about when the campaign's going on, and you read about those million dollar a plate dinners, every one of those people going to those dinners is saying when they get their chance, they're saying, we could really use some help,

Man.

We could really use some help on this public lands issue because we hunt that ship.

Oh absolutely, you can go to the vote party that you didn't vote for too. You know, hey, I gotta be honest. I didn't vote for you on this. Here's part of what you do that that I do agree with. Get on board with this, and you know, you might have my vote in four years or whenever that turns up. Like, there's nothing that says you have to vote for the person to go visit their office. There's no prerection.

Money doesn't. You don't have to donate either. Now I want to make sure like money.

Maybe I'm just trying to help people understand that that's what those conversations are. Those conversations aren't do everything you're doing. It's like they're all that, but also this, hey.

Tell me about where you grew up.

But I wanted to say, like I I worked for a governor, former governor, right, and hearing from people, particularly in state. I mean, we took calls from people out of state, but it really mattered when people called from in state and had an issue that they really cared about. It mattered to the governor, it mattered to us as his staff. It could have been one person calling in and they might raise an issue that we hadn't even thought about. That's a great point where we'll get on that. Right.

I think it helps to be a big donor.

You keep saying that.

I'm telling you from my position is I maybe it maybe it did behind it and I didn't know about it, but it mattered. Anybody that called it mattered. And I guess my point is, you know people out listening and whatnot, right like picking up the phone and calling your governor's office or calling your congressional delegation.

That matters.

You can build relationships there, you can get information there, and it can make it really can make a difference.

When it's it's an easy thing to do Cal.

That's first thing Cal does every morning when he wakes up. Let's you know, it's very good about letting Hell representatives know. It's great.

Uh.

When I brought up like it was like how much it was or was not a big campaign issue the presidential election, I was kind of getting at this idea that this might still be regarded as with the incoming administration, new new Senate House, this still might be you know, this could be regarded as a fringe issue, right, Like it could be that the jury still out on this. Like if you went to the Trump administration said love

Do you remember the Return Act? Yeah, that you know, the act that was introduced what a couple of years ago now that would have gutted Pittman Robertson and all the money that goes into state wildlife agencies, and how hunters went apoplectic over that and because of that, and they flooded offices of sponsors of that and co sponsors of that bill dropped off before the phone was hung up. They're like, oh, man, I did not realize what I signed up for. Get me off of this thing. I

From the top rope. There's there's a there's a there's an opinion. I want to clarify her too, because I just want to make sure that, like I'm clear of what I'm getting at. Uh if if the state, if a state was suing, because because here's a state and they said, you know what we want to do. We want to we want to give a sort of toned down Wilderness Act protection to all BLM land. We don't

Yeah, agreed, Well, yeah, yeah.

We used to talk about this just all the time.

Right.

We'd go out and lobby in DC and talk to people. And it's interesting because we have somebody who represents the nonprofit space and then we have a business owner entrepreneur. Right, And this is something that I used to get tapped with all the time. Right, It's like, hey, can you come join this fly into d C because all it is is individuals and nonprofits. We need some we need the business aspect, right. And I would go in on behalf of First Light and say, hey, we're this Idaho business.

Yeah, this is how the stuff was developed.

It's part of our experience by going out and trying to go deeper or push harder, get to the top of the mountain faster on public lands. That's why we developed this clothing line. This is why we keep developing this clothing line. This is how our brand is growing by talking to people about public lands and engaging them where they want to be. And don't jeopardize this because you're going to kill this business and you're going to kill our economic impact.

Talking your own language.

Yeah, and that is It's pretty funny. You can see the more rooms you go into, it's like they're checking the box. Right, It's like, okay, heard from the nonprofits.

What else you got? Oh, what's your deal.

It's like, can they kind of glaze over if it's another nonprofit person and they're like.

Oh, oh, okay, that's different. What's that? And it's like, okay, got the carpenters, great, then move on.

Move on, you know.

So I think that's why maybe I'd take it so personally this issue is I hunt private land.

I've got at least in Oklahoma.

I like hunting private land too, So it's not like I don't hunt private land. But my you know, the ideas, I mean, I have been on public The ideas for my products, the ideas for my business have all been forced on public land. All my best ideas have happened on hunting trips in public, on public plant. It's the only place I have to think get away from crazy world, right.

For me. This is personal.

You're talking about coming after like my sanctuary, and that's what like is so visceral for me with this issue because it's yes, those are all true, but I think people tend to even like tune out the business argument. They're like, how many billions of dollars are recreation blah blah blah.

It's like I don't care.

I care about that, but ultimately, what I really care about is like, you're coming after my home and that pisses me off, right, So you're coming after the thing that I really care about. I can deal with losing money. I can't deal with losing my home, and neither can my kids, to like, just keep your damn hands off of it.

That's the thing when when people when defenders of when public land defenders, when wildlife habitat defenders go down the pa of talking about money. Yeah, I always am like like, I'll let them do it if they win. If they win, I let them do it. But I'm always like a little bit like, man, I would be careful you're treading some dangerous territory, because are you telling me that if wildlife didn't make financial sense, you wouldn't wind it around anymore?

They looked at it like that.

I mean, I think you said it, like what everything doesn't have to justify itself economically to exist in this world?

Right? And yeah, that's why I still got your convertible, I mean, not yours, but.

I love that one, right, chryst Or Sea bring Could you imagine that, honey would be amazing?

That would be sweet, guys, I got I'm gonna bring something full circle on to give you a chance. But we started out this show talking about the podcast trivia, uh and then and then we got a bunch of kids coming in here in a minute to record our kids trivia tournament for our kids podcast. So we're gonna wrap it up in a minute. But I want to give you guys a chance to have any We used to do a thing in the old days where you get a closing thought.

The long line I remember remember that.

And I'd like to extend that courtesy. Do you guys in our waning minutes here, if you have a closing thought and uh, if you could within that closing thought, someone could have the the also do like a little bit of here's how to follow a long what's gonna happen with this whole thing? You want to want me

I think I've already said mine, this is personal, should be personal for you, stay vigilant, and if I may, I still I think there's an open question around whether or not Guy Fierti is the favor town.

I was going to go back to Flavortown with my closing thought.

Well, Randa, I think my closing thought, I said, at the very outset of this, which is, we know Guy Fierti is the mayor of Flavortown.

I don't know. I think we might have some hanging chads in that vote.

Bush v. Gore another original.

Assert went right that went right to the Supreme Court.

Well, I made a reference that you didn't catch. I said, who's the president? Oh no, I caught that. Why you're going back and redoing my line, Well, because you're just doing it for all the people that didn't catch it. Yeah, try to take credit.

Well yeah, I mean it's been a while since we should we go?

Okay?

Plus I wanted to show that I could think of another.

Can I share it quick? We're going we're going on a hunting trip. This is before like you couldn't no inreaches and stuff, Okay, whatever the hell you're that was, And we're going on a hunting trip. And we're like everybody's like, okay, well as soon as the election, everyonet to see the election, because we're going sometime around that window. So the morning after the election, we're going on a long trip in the back country. I'm like, damn, how could it be? You don't know who the president is?

All right, So mister hot take, I'm going to have another hot take. I feel like, I feel like now I'm just.

Two in one day. Yeah, that should be the thing with Dave. We have David and he has a given opinion, and take a shot.

Just see where we are now.

Just try to get him to pound table to solve the problems. Toward the end of the night, he pounds the table, will know we wont.

So I guess my closing thought is a thought and then a hot take. And then you said where you can, Yeah, how do you find pay attention? Yeah, So the thing I'd say is apathy is not an option, you know, apathy and thinking this is just going to go away, saying, ah, this is just a fringe issue. This lawsuit doesn't really

Oh oh yeah, yeah, I never saw it.

Yeah, what were they? I'd like to see you never saw it? What were they? There are thieves, right, but they were super sophisticated, creative thieves, right, professional, charismatic, professional, really invested in it. Right. And here's here's where it comes. Like, I'm just going to call this like, halt the heist. That's kind of what this is. This feels like a really sophisticated heist of our public lands. Maybe that's as hyperbolic as I can get.

I see that, and I'll remember Ocean's twelve eighteen. I mean, there are some other parallels we could.

Get.

I think it's well founded.

Right, And so I say that to say, yeah, and this will be the total selfish plug here, Like if you want to follow more and learn more about what my organization, National Wildlife Federation is doing, you can just go to NWF dot org backslash, halt the heist.

And you've already made it.

We've already made it, and all kinds of resources will be there for you. That's exactly right.

I already trademarked that before before you said it though, so today.

Yeah, I looked it up yesterday.

Yeah, I'm a business guy. Was there another phrase that gave you the inspiration.

For that literation?

Yeah, there's some parallels you could draw, but sure if you wanted to go that way. Yeah, uh yeah, so that's my.

I'll sell it to you, though.

I'll tell you that I don't know how you did your brother say something.

To disclose my methods, but offering.

It's not worth anything right now.

No, it is now. We were joking there, dise. I came up with a slogan, but I didn't have an organization for it, and it was Today's children Tomorrow's enemies.

Yeah.

It just came to me at dinner with my wife and and I thought, there's that sounds like something, And I was like, what organization could use that slogan? And then my my friend Savanna said it could be one of those book burning one of those book fanned organizations can use that slogan. There are kids now, but they'll read these books and they'll be the enemies tomorrow. Well, thanks, thanks guys for coming on man oh and to follow it, to get give the U R elegant.

Oh yeah, nw F dot O R G backslash, halt the heist.

Thanks Brad Brooks, Dave Wilms, thanks for coming out man men.

Thanks yeah, thank you for appreciate it a lot.

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