Dave Willms: Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Your Mountain Podcast. I'm your host, David Wilms. Nephi Cole is sitting across the screen, co-hosting this as always. Nephi, it's late and I'm tired. However, you're older you're older than I am.

El Nefi: Well you should be tired. You're old. You need your sleep. I know, but ⁓ I drink more caffeine than you do. And so

Dave Willms: But you just don't you don't fatigue. ⁓ I that's debatable. We just diff drink it in different ways.

El Nefi: Look this. Pine Top Soda Shop. It's delicious. If you haven't got one near you, which you don't because there's only one, then I'm real sorry.

Dave Willms: Yeah, I don't have one near me. ⁓

El Nefi: Delicious. You what this drink is called? It's called a campfire. Cause I can't be with one right now. So I'm just gonna drink one. That's how manly I am. That's how much I love campfires.

Dave Willms: Yeah. You can you even have a campfire where you are right now?

El Nefi: I dunno what's stopping me, the law? Give me a break, Dave.

Dave Willms: ⁓ yeah, I'm pretty sure the law's stopping me. I don't think I can have campfires where I am. ⁓ it it has been. I I don't want anybody to think that us saying that means we're gonna talk about Colorado River policy or anything, because we're not doing that. ⁓ but I am gonna I am gonna lead off by reminding people that we have a new email address. People have actually been using it and ⁓ yeah,

El Nefi: Pretty dry, isn't it, in the world? ⁓ excellent.

Dave Willms: Your mountain podcast at gmail.com. Feel free to use it. I've actually been pretty responsive. You'd be surprised, Nephi. I've been responding like a madman. As it turns out, this account is way easier to use than the one we were using before. I don't have to take yeah, I don't have to do five steps to get into it. And it just makes it a lot easier. So I'll probably be more responsive.

El Nefi: The Gmail? Yeah. Yeah. It's like people who knew what they were doing, you know, set it up.

Dave Willms: Yeah. So I'll be more responsive if you email us at your mountain podcast at gmail dot com. ⁓ again, we'll still answering emails on the old account for the next month or so, ⁓ but we're gonna pivot away from that and and do this one full time.

El Nefi: So what emails did we get? So you said somebody's using it. What did we find out?

Dave Willms: Well, I mean, Mr. Ryan Bronson sent us a test email. I think he just won proof that it worked. ⁓ but mostly just people ⁓ you you'll like this. Most people mostly just people saying, Hey, appreciate the the podcast. Thanks for keeping it up. ⁓ and then a couple of topic ideas.

El Nefi: I feel like Ryan's I feel like Ryan's potentially he wants our podcast and this is his foot in the door to take it. You think there's a chance of that? Like this is really kind of a hostile takeover. Like he's just feeling us out through the email process and pretty soon because there was a feud. Most people don't know this. But Mr. Bronson, Ryan Bronson, if you will, used to have a podcast. In fact, he had the podcast called On Gravel with ⁓

Dave Willms: I it

El Nefi: Eric Dinger.

Dave Willms: Andrew McKean.

El Nefi: And Andrew McKean. And the podcast, they wanted a podcast of war with us and we destroyed them. We literally destroyed their podcast. Their podcast no longer exists because they messed with the wrong podcast.

Dave Willms: I I'm gonna be f I'm gonna be fair. You know what actually destroyed their podcast?

El Nefi: Dave, l don't go we don't need revisionist history here.

Dave Willms: Can we d we don't need to actually tell the truth. I'm an honorable gentleman and ⁓ and for purposes of Ryan, ⁓ and he'll know if he's watching this what I'm doing right now, for purposes of Ryan, I'm an honorable gentleman and ⁓ I know that it was simply because he took a new job and he wasn't able to continue the podcast with his new role.

El Nefi: I think that's a lack of commitment.

Dave Willms: He should have just not taken a new job.

El Nefi: You and I took new jobs. We still do a podcast.

Dave Willms: ⁓ well that is true. We we do, but we were never told not to, I don't think.

El Nefi: Yeah.

Dave Willms: I think that's the difference. I don't no, I have you have?

El Nefi: You haven't been told not to? No, I but I like I'm not gonna ask. I mean, come on, Dave. If we asked about this. No. No, we asked once and got permission. So if for people that don't know us, or which is probably everybody, when we started this podcast, we went in. ⁓ we were both working for the governor of Wyoming, the senior policy guys for him. And ⁓ lucky for us.

Dave Willms: I mean why why why ask if you don't want if you don't want the answer you might get? Yep.

El Nefi: The governor always runs things through his chief of staff first, who's now ⁓ Justice Carrie Gray of the Wyoming Supreme Court. And so Justice Gray, we go into the office and we Except us. I'm not an attorney, so that's my excuse. What's yours?

Dave Willms: Yeah. That's right. How come everybody we know became judges, by the way? Except us. And go ahead. Yeah. I'm bad attorney.

El Nefi: So we go in to talk to the ⁓ to the chief of staff and ⁓ Justice Gray, and we were talking, we're like, Yeah, we want to do a podcast. And she said, Sure, what's a podcast? And just gave us the green light to this podcast, as long as we didn't tell anybody where we worked. And so we're like, So it was just our first names, right? And we were like just doing this podcast. And ⁓ years later we went and talked to the, you know, the to the To the governor after he was out of office. We told him that story. And he said, It's a good thing that she didn't tell me because I would have said no.

Dave Willms: I know he did say that. He was pretty clear about that. I he almost was a little annoyed that we were doing it. That we had d Well, that's 'cause he'd been on one while he was governor.

El Nefi: Yeah, well he knew what one was, so it's pretty funny. Yeah, we had him on Steve we went on Ranella's podcast with him.

Dave Willms: Yeah, one of the early, early episodes of of Runella's podcast was with yeah, like twenty or something like that, or ten or I don't know. Yeah, it was really early on.

El Nefi: Man, one of the first, like seven or something. Yeah, it was really a low number. Yeah. ⁓ Brownie points to whoever figures out which number podcast we were on early on and then puts it in there. And that was a funny podcast too, because it was at the governor's mansion and we picked Steve up. Do you remember like what we did is like we wanted like we were angling to get a message out on the podcast to get the governor on the podcast. And so we were stalking Steve Ronella. And we were stalking Steve Ronella because we knew that he had put in, because we, of course, work for the governor's office. So we were so we were inside the Game and Fish database, and we knew that he had applied for an antelope tag in a given area. So because of that, we also knew that he drew the antelope tag he wanted for that area, and that there was some warden who was trying to help him. So first we called the warden and kicked him out of the process. And like usurped we we like just stepped in front of him. We're like, hey Steve, did you get your tag this year? And we knew we got his tag this year, right? And so then we were just like, ⁓ well, like coincidentally, we could help you out with some information. And so we ended up ⁓ arranging to pick him up at the Denver airport. And ⁓ as I recall, we ⁓ you and I picked him up for his podcast. And the funny thing about it was I went to pick you up.

Dave Willms: Yeah. Yep, that's right.

El Nefi: And it's like we matched. So I picked you up at your house and you were where we were like wearing like blue jeans and like almost the exact same shirt. So you went back and changed clothes and and then we went and picked Steve up. And then ⁓ my favorite part of that podcast for anybody who listens to it was like Steve asked me a question and or us a question or something, and I talked for a second and then I pointed directly at you to try and get you to say something, and you just kept your mouth shut.

Dave Willms: That's exactly right.

El Nefi: For like there's like this extended, uncomfortable pause where you just sat there, just didn't say anything.

Dave Willms: Yeah, well I did that. I I I remember at the end of that podcast, Steve kicked it over to me. He was like, Well, do you have anything to add? You've been sitting there quiet this whole time. Do you do you have anything you want to say? Anything you want to add? I'm like, why would I say anything when the boss nailed it? Like I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get in there and and correct the governor. I'm like, he did it perfectly. I've got nothing to add.

El Nefi: Yeah. No, that was pretty f that was pretty fun. But that was the start of it. That's what gave us the idea that it was possible.

Dave Willms: Yeah. And and here we are and and right around this time of year. This is sort of our anniversary of of doing this, like eightish years now. We were much younger when we started this.

El Nefi: Yeah, but

Dave Willms: I think it's pretty cool. I think it's pretty cool. We outlasted to to circle come all the way back around. We outlasted. We're s we're still rolling down a gravel road. We're still technically on gravel, even though that podcast is

El Nefi: Like I can't believe it's yeah. Nope. Yeah. Yeah, we defeated what else did we we defeated on gravel. I'm pretty sure. What was Ben O'Brien's podcast with Meteor? We crushed that. ⁓ let's see. We've we've defeated ⁓

Dave Willms: So I know. When you're not in it for the money, you can outlast everybody. But ⁓ maybe the thing that keeps people come Yeah. Even if they don't. I appreciate you, Nephi. This is it's fun.

El Nefi: Yeah. I mean I hope you all appreciate it. You know what I what I wonder about before we move on, the last thing I'll say I wonder about is I wonder about Ben Perry.

Dave Willms: I why? He's been here since the beginning. He's like the OG on listeners.

El Nefi: Because he was like our longest listener. I know. He used to send us like we used to get so much like he like I think may he was just bored. So he would send us like stuff all the time. So I I just worry about him now.

Dave Willms: I think maybe we've officially bored him now.

El Nefi: Yeah. I think maybe it's Canada. I think it's Canada's fault. Like maybe they have, you know, I'm worried. I'm worried. Let's just say I haven't seen him personally in a long time. So so I'm thinking he you know

Dave Willms: Well, since we're name dropping, I'd be remiss if we didn't talk, you know, and and and drop another original listener, you know, and longtime listener, Chris Tymuson. I'm sure he's gonna hear this. So we gotta throw his name out there again.

El Nefi: Probably the first listener, one listening to it. Who else is like a longtime listener?

Dave Willms: There's a lot. But now I feel like we're just we could Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Lots.

El Nefi: Yeah, John Zinnell, Bronson, Dinger, ⁓ and all the rest of y'all. We'll just say that. Yeah.

Dave Willms: Yeah. ⁓ appreciate it. And we're gonna keep riding. We got we're gonna make this we took ten minutes and this thing probably only gonna take like thirty. ⁓ you're just trying to kill time.

El Nefi: I know I was this was a ⁓ gratuitous stretching of the podcast through stories that aren't really that important.

Dave Willms: ⁓ man. Well let's talk about a couple of things.

El Nefi: It's almost like meat eater now. We could talk about something absolutely ridiculous now if you'd like to. Like this has nothing to do with it. We could not too much.

Dave Willms: I'm gonna keep us bat I'm gonna keep us focused. ⁓ let's let's talk I got two things we want to talk about. And I guess as we're talking about it, we could have tangents. I don't care. ⁓ but two things we want to talk about. One of ⁓ I I'm gonna timestamp this because a thing is gonna happen tomorrow. And we might not get this out before this thing happens tomorrow. So we are at about nine thirty PM on Tuesday, June ninth.

El Nefi: Okay.

Dave Willms: When we're recording the mountain time. ⁓ so that's just the timestamp because there's this thing that's gonna happen tomorrow. There's a a markup that's gonna happen in the Senate Environment and Natural Resources Committee in Washington, D.C. on a number of bills. But one of them has got people all stirred up today. I've seen it ⁓ all over social media. ⁓ I've seen I've seen some stories written about it. It's really got people ⁓ fired up ⁓ across the conservation spectrum. So What what is it? Well, here's the here's the lowdown, I guess, like the the short, the shortish version. Senator John Barrasso, ⁓ our senior senator here in Wyoming, the number two ranking senator in the ⁓ in the U.S. Senate, introduced a bill, Senate Bill 140, the Wildfire Prevention Act of 2025. So he introduced this bill, and the bill is really without there's a lot of stuff in it, but at the highest level, what it's meant to do is increase annual goals or at least establish annual goals for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management for acres to be mechanically thinned and for acres. ⁓ to be treated by prescribed fire. And the idea is reduce wildfire risk. That's there's a lot to the bill. I don't think there's a need to go into tons of tons more detail. There's some there's some provisions about using great yeah there's some that's right. That's right. But it's all focused on how do you reduce fuel loads and

El Nefi: There's some there's some grazing components in it, some tech components in it too. Yep.

Dave Willms: reduce fire ⁓ risk i on public lands. That's the way I describe it. And there's some disagreement about different provisions of it, right? But the I think this is the second time he's introduced the bill, the second Congress it's been introduced. And it's there's been some pretty broad bipartisan support in the past for it. ⁓ it Because I think people realize we need more prescribed fire and we need more mechanical thinning. Like we need some active management on our forests. ⁓ and I'll tangent for one second here, ⁓ because I I would volunteer to take anybody out blindfolded, of course, ⁓ blind ⁓ out to some of the places that I've hunted over the years that are impacted by, for example, pine beetle. ⁓ And if you're an outdoor recreationist and you like to go hiking and you're hiking mountain trails and so forth, you're not really seeing, I hate to say it, you're not really seeing what the national forest is like. You know, these a lot of these trails are are, you know, maintained and and down trees are cut out every year, and it's it's nice hiking. You're going into some of these places, and I've got some photos of them. Maybe I can share them on our social media at some point. But if I ever remember how to use social media again. But there are places. Like there's a place I used to Elk Hunt and and there was a a number of years ago I'm like, I may never go back here again. Because you know that game, this'll date us a little bit. Remember that game pickup sticks where you have like that handful of plastic sticks and you drop them and and then you're trying to pull, you know, pull them out of the pile. That's what the forest is like in so many places.

El Nefi: Yeah. Yeah.

Dave Willms: It's like a game of pickup sticks. Like you find yourself all of a sudden 10 feet off the ground, climbing over logs, wondering how in the world can anything survive in here. And the collar data on elk and stuff shows they don't, they don't like, just like people, they don't like to use that stuff. They avoid all that really nasty, gnarly deadfall from the the pine beetles. That's just my long way of saying like forests need to be managed. Like active management is a thing that our forests need. And we can disagree on ⁓ how to do it, but we should all be moving in the direction to try and come up with some policies to address it because it's it's pretty bad.

El Nefi: Yeah, you the timber's gonna get removed. The only question is how is the timber gonna get removed and how do you wanna see it removed? There's a I'll tell a story because it's anecdotal. You can't prove that it's true. But ⁓ there was a series of large forest fires in the Bighhorns. ⁓ in the you know, last year or the year before, I don't remember which one. But an interesting thing happened, which is that ⁓ you the these forests Like you j you just burn in you know the mountains for you know 30 miles. And ⁓ there was some discussion of why you didn't see forestry teams up in some of these areas that were burning, ⁓ why they just basically moved back. And ⁓ part of the discussion was just because like you're not they didn't have the money, nobody has the money to go in there and treat the stuff, and so management decision, this get again anecdotal was let it burn. You know, it's got to get cleared out somehow. And it's, you know, it's something that people that we all need to kind of have as a, you know, it's a it's a reality check. The fuel load is going to go down one way or the other. And so, you know, we always say, you know, Mother Nature isn't necessarily ⁓ she's not a nice person. And when she takes care of it, she doesn't take care of it in same, you know, necessarily the ways that you would want it to. ⁓ so i it's gonna happen. The the fuel's gonna go away. The question is you wanna see it burned or do you wanna see it harvested? And it's gonna be one of the two.

Dave Willms: Well and and there's some other there's some other factors here too. Right. ⁓ there's this book ⁓ I'm holding it up here. I don't know have you ever read this, Nephi? Wildlife in America.

El Nefi: I have not. And just so the public knows, while when you guys see this, everything will look crystal clear. But because Dave, we have a limited connectivity, you just look like a splotchy blob on my screen. So I can't read anything in your office.

Dave Willms: That's right. That's right. That's right. ⁓ it it's funny. Anyway, the book's not funny. That's funny. There's this I'll give credit here. I was listening to Carl Malcolm ⁓ on a podcast. He's a former ⁓ Forest Service employee, ⁓ now works for Grouse Partnership. ⁓ anyway, I was listening to him talk about forest management and the need for active forest management in places, and he was really focusing on you know parts of the upper Midwest and so forth. But But he was talking about things like and and it it he was rec he was highlighting this book and he was talking about things in this book. So it it this is what triggered me to go find the book. I had to buy it. Actually, I couldn't, it was really hard to find a copy. I ended up finding a copy in London or something and have it shipped. But he was talking about things like passenger pigeons, right? And how passenger pigeons. you know, used to there th all the discussions about passenger pigeons used to blacken the sky, they used to darken the sky. There you know, hundreds of millions, maybe billions of passenger pigeons at some point. And through a aggressive hunting, market hunting, you know, harvest trapping, poisoning, all the things. They became extinct in the early part of the twentieth century. It was one of the very f you know First big time species that we in the, I don't want to say the modern era, but kind of into it. My grandfather was alive when this happened. I'll call it the modern era. ⁓ species went extinct. But the thing that was interesting about the passenger pigeon is, and and I'll get this close, but I won't get this exact, and I won't do Carl justice, and I won't do this book justice, but they nest in a certain type of tree. And they effectively kill. it w they nest in such high concentration and density and and have such disturbing activities that they effectively kill these areas where they nest. And so they're harvesting timper. They're impacting these forests, these forest ecosystems just with their roosting and nesting, you know, that sort of thing. When you take them out of the ecosystem, there was nothing to replace it. So you ended up with kind of these unnatural stands as a result. You didn't realize passenger pigeons were such an important component of the ecosystem and managing it. And so like we've altered things in so many profound ways over human the course of human history that if we take a sit on the sideline and let nature run its course approach, it's not going to run its course the way it did hundreds of years ago. You know, but there between tribes that had ⁓ you know Native American tribes that had active management, forest management and burning, but also other species like species of wildlife that were out there and had impacts on on forests as well. We've changed that dynamic so much that if we just leave things alone and don't do anything, ⁓ like we have we're where we are right now. We have some problems.

El Nefi: Yeah. There's there's no such thing. You know, that's the problem. There's no such thing as a, you know, this idea that it it's it's fictional. The, you know, the Disney utopia is fictional. It's never existed. ⁓ the only thing that you're changing is you're just like the the only difference is when we manage the difference is when when humans, when anthropogenic management occurs, it manages to a specific goal. It's because there's a forethought Of like we would we think that we would like it to be this, or we think we would like it to be that. And even if you're saying we want to stay out of the picture, that's because you're actually making a conscious management decision to pull back and not be part of it. Because there is no stasis, there never has been, that is that looks like a Walt Disney movie. And so it's you know, it it's something that we have to reconcile with is that. We are part of the ecosystem. We are part of the entire process. We are probably the only part that really thoughtfully considers what we want it to look like in 10 years and then tries to drive the car to get there. And that's not a bad thing. But we need to recognize that and that that intelligent management has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years in different roles, in different ways, sometimes with different goals, but it's really part of who we are. You know, we are, you know, we're part of nature. We're, you know, humans, we're animals too. You know, we're part of this entire ecosystem and process. And we should embrace that, but embrace it in a positive way. And there's people that, you know, we that are that are scared of that because they all they take it almost, you know, there's there was the Adomic, you know, there's the, the, the, the biblical Adomic kind of view of it of like man is a caretaker. And some people have kind of rejected that. But regardless of how you feel about religion, you shouldn't. You know, it's a great opportunity for us to be part of the positive, you know, if you look at it from the, you know, the positive universal standpoint, be positive, the pot par part of the positive karma that makes the world a better place. And I think that we, you know, we we have to commit to that because if we don't, there's nobody else that's going to, because Mother Nature doesn't care. But we can. So why so why shouldn't we?

Dave Willms: So now I'm gonna now that you say that, now I'm gonna jump into the controversy. Cause it might make us sound a little bit hypocritical at some point, which I think is great. So here's right, like after we said all of that. So so here's the deal, right? ⁓ so I mentioned this Senate bill, this one forty, the ⁓ wildfire prevention act of twenty twenty five. That's not the controversial bill. I told you it has a lot of bipartisan support.

El Nefi: All right. Might as well. It's not the first time.

Dave Willms: Like there's it's been broadly bipartisan. There it appeared that there was actually a path at some point. I don't know when. Maybe it would have been this year, maybe another a future Congress. But it was moving in the d right direction. ⁓ I would have thought at some point it would have passed. And maybe it still will. But I can tell you after today, I don't think it's gonna pass in it's in the in the form that you're gonna see tomorrow. and and that's because Senator Lee

El Nefi: I think you're probably right, Dave.

Dave Willms: ⁓ it it touched it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. a priority of his was to see the t 2001 roadless rule repealed. So tomorrow there so there was an amendment filed today, and tomorrow there will be this markup and they will be discussing this bill with

El Nefi: Touched it.

Dave Willms: the and the proposed amendments and one of the amendments is to ⁓ to repeal to recent roadless rule with with a couple of conditions the Idaho and Colorado have their own roadless rules and it would not impact those two roadless rules that were negotiated separately. It would be everything else. So it's it's largely meant to mirror the proposal

El Nefi: rescind the the two thousand and one roll this rule. That's it.

Dave Willms: That the federal government made, ⁓ that the Forest Service made last year to repeal or rescind the roadless rule. So it would just do it through congressional action. That is the thing that has really become controversial. And there are people as we're talking right now, there are people trying to find ways to to get that, make sure that that doesn't survive markup and that gets pulled from the bill. ⁓ I don't know that that's going to be successful. But here's the deal It's it is now because of that, it has gone from a bipartisan bill to a hyperpartisan bill, which may get out of committee on markup. We'll find out tomorrow. Maybe it gets out of committee on maybe it gets out of markup. ⁓ or or you know, gets through the markup maybe and maybe that provision stays in with the roadless rule rip rescision.

El Nefi: D do you think this Senator Lee knows when he puts his name on stuff that it's just like a kiss of death?

Dave Willms: ⁓ he has to. At this point? I'm sure. Th this wasn't done with an intent of passing this bill.

El Nefi: So do you think? No, this wasn't like he's like, let me help. That wasn't his thought process in this is like, let's get this baby across the finish line. That is not what this was. Which is why again I'm like, what do we yeah?

Dave Willms: Th there is some other motivation behind it. Yeah, i there is some other motivation behind it. and y it's

El Nefi: Do you think he's mad at Barrasso? Do you think he's just

Dave Willms: No, I don't think I I yeah. I I mean I don't think so. ⁓ I just think this has been a I just think it's been a priority. There there have been a number of senators and representatives for decades now that have not liked the roadless rule and have wanted to see it be rescinded. Remember after it was passed, after it was adopted in twenty in two thousand one, it was litigated for

El Nefi: No, I'm just kidding. I don't wanna delve into too much of that, but it is funny. Funny to me, I guess.

Dave Willms: nearly a decade, you know, by a number of Western states. It's it's not a thing that had huge bipartisan support at the time. And ever since it was it was at the time folks felt there were a number of folks that felt like this was a huge federal overreach and it was it was ⁓ you know it was shutting down potential, you know, timber harvest and forest management and you know out out off road recreational ORV uses and you know, all that sort of stuff. That that it was just locking places up and throwing away the key. and

El Nefi: And there's and a bunch of that was very Utah-centric. There's a lot of groups out of Utah involved in specifically the off-roading community because of the impact that it had on ⁓ communities like Moab, Utah, where you had a lot of motorized ⁓ recreation and and a big economy built around that. And so

Dave Willms: A lot.

El Nefi: It's kind of interesting, but it kind of mirrors some of the other, you know, if you wonder why these controversies and why Utah's in the center of them, it has a lot to do with the the the huge percentage of public ground in Utah. And then the fact that Utah is a is a very recreation heavy state. And so, like how those rules impacted the potential economic benefit of having access to those federal lands in the state of Utah. And that's why you see these things kind of repeat themselves in these repeating patterns in in states like Utah.

Dave Willms: Yeah. No, that's right. And and you're seeing it in other western states as well. But Utah has been an epicenter of this for twenty five years now, right? And so there was an opportunity here. I don't perhaps Senator Lee didn't see a path for this bill to pass. So there was an opportunity to tack on something that he probably views as ⁓ look, if we're talking about increasing like reducing fire frequency. or an intensity and increasing forest active forest management. In his eyes, one way to do that is probably to not have the roadless rule and to have those 45 million acres ⁓ available for prescribed fire, timber harvest of some sort, you know, mechanical thinning. ⁓ it and and so it gets back to what we were talking about before about this need to manage a forest. And this is where I'm gonna I'm personally begin to come become a hypocrite of sorts. Which is like I personally because of the way I hunt and the things I like to hunt, I get great value out of having big blocks of roadless area. I think it it provides refuge for large ungulates ⁓ and incredible hunting opportunities. Just incredible hunting opportunities. and I will say in a lot of the places that I've been that are that are inventoried roadless. I don't know that you'd ever go in there and do any kind of timber harvest. Like there's a reason why it hadn't been done before. ⁓ there's a lot of like gnarly, rugged country that's covered by that. But that's the fundamental debate, right? You've got one contingent of folks that that has always hated the rule, has felt that it's that it's locked people out, that it's prevented active management of you know, tens of millions of acres of forest. And you have another cohort that says, you know, I kind of like having places where there aren't roads. I think there are these places that the animals need to have where there aren't roads. And I see exceptional value in having roadless areas. And that's not to say, to be clear, they're in the roadless rule, ⁓ the 2001 rule, there's There's not an absolute prohibition. It there are limited exceptions for timber harvest and construction of roads, for public safety and fire mitigation, for example, and for maintaining specific forest health characteristics. So some of the some of the work that S-140 contemplates might actually be able to be done in some roadless areas. ⁓ I will say one ⁓ yeah, go.

El Nefi: Here's an interesting question. Because it's late at night, so my brain is wandering. Here's a question for you. What do you think it would take? ⁓ or what's the time frame? And I wonder if people have given thought to this is like, ⁓ you know, we have Pre-forest service. You know, we we've been the you know, the reason we have these fuel loads that we have is because we've managed and fought fires for. Yeah. We've we've made it a yeah, we've we've made it a priority, right? So how long do you think it would take? And and the funny part is like socially, the answer is this people wouldn't just wouldn't accept it. But what would happen if you did?

Dave Willms: Yeah, fire suppression. The the twelve o'clock policy or whatever it was called, yeah. Twenty four hour rule.

El Nefi: Encase mankind in a cement box and just stood back and just said, You know what we're gonna do? Just gonna let it burn.

Dave Willms: Just see what happens.

El Nefi: Yeah, just let it go. And, you know, because the problem is like, you know, we can't, you know, it's it's protecting structures and and for whatever we say, like we get these fires, they kick up and there's always some level of suppression that we that we, you know, build in. And you wonder how many years it would take before you could get back to ⁓ you know, pre-settlement era where you know tribes, they did just burn it. They lit it to in order to to maintain spacing because that was good for game and things like that. But like you wonder how long it would take. And of course, you know, part of the challenge is like, of course, it would ruin the timber resource, right? You wouldn't be able to utilize the timber as a as a renewable resource that you went in and harvested and and and economically used for benefit anymore because it would be too un unpredictable. But ⁓ I just wonder how long it would take if we really did just backed away from it for it to look like, you know, we imagined that it would for it to, you know, to

Dave Willms: Yeah.

El Nefi: You know, just a curiosity. Somebody's got a paper on this. Somebody's done this study.

Dave Willms: I mean Yeah, I mean I I'm I I think I mean the answer is gonna be it depends right on what part of the country you're in and what your what your climactic conditions are like, how much precip you get, yeah, what your growing season is like. It's gonna vary. ⁓ I would say in the inner mountain west it'll take a freaking long time. I just it I d it to me, it it seems like it'll take a a long, long time.

El Nefi: And it'll mess up a bunch of ski resorts. But hey.

Dave Willms: Mm. Maybe open up some more some more backcountry runs. ⁓ I don't know. But the I I guess the last thing

El Nefi: The snowmobiling will be way better. I'm just kidding.

Dave Willms: Yeah, yeah, may maybe maybe not. ⁓ the last thing I'd mention on this before we move to the other topic is well, maybe two things. So one is this is different. We've talked about the Congressional Re Review Act before and how when the Congressional Review Act is you used to repeal regulations, it means that that no administration can come back in and put in place a substantially similar rule. In this instance, there's none of that language in this bill. The language is is simply it repeals the 2001 rule. If the bill were to pass, which means ⁓ that would go away. It would not prevent a future administration from coming in and writing the same rule and calling it the 2029 roadless rule. Okay. ⁓ so there's that's a piece that I think is worth noting, which means the other piece that it means is That the process, the forest, it it doesn't do anything to impact the process the Forest Service is going through right now on rescinding the roadless rule, except to say if this were to pass, they wouldn't have to finish the job because it would have just been done by Congress. and if they decided, no, we want to have a modified version, we don't want to rescind the whole rule, we want a modified roadless rule, they'd still be able to do that. So I I'd mention that. And then the other piece I'd mention is. Let's say as a hypothetical that this provision stays attached to S one forty and and that it passes out of the Senate ENR committee and goes to the full Senate. I don't see a path to sixty votes. I just don't. Like I so it The the fact that this provision is in there, I don't see a path to this bill actually passing. In fact, the good pieces of the bill now have been hijacked by this provision. And so even the like the good there's no path to passing the good pieces in unless you somehow strip this language you know, or introduce a new bill.

El Nefi: Do you think that he just didn't You think that he just did it for us? So we'd have something to talk about?

Dave Willms: Something to talk about. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. You know, the there you know, last year around this time, we were in a hair on fire moment, right? Remember it was the when Senator Lee was pushing to sell three million acres of public land. And and yeah, right. What we did do is we tried to get

El Nefi: Well, if he did, thank you, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. And we and we stopped that. On gravel wasn't even there. It was off gravel.

Dave Willms: We tried to get a lot of information out as fast as possible. We were recording at all kinds of hours, p jumping pop podcasts regularly. We we were sounding alarm bells. We were saying this is a five alarm fire, right? And this is a real thing, a real threat that could actually happen. And your public lands could be sold. It's like this is a real thing that could happen. The reason I today, even though there are all these stories out there ringing these alarm bells and saying, you know. The sky is falling. The reason I'm not sitting here tonight ringing alarm bells, even though I disagree with the approach that Senator Lee's taking here, ⁓ I'm not ringing the alarm bells because I'm looking at this and saying, I don't actually see the path for this to pass. I don't see, even if there's a third reconciliation bill, there's no way to attach this to that bill because it's not a revenue. type of type of bill. The only other path would be to attach it to something like an NDAA, you know, defense authorization type of bill where you can get through with a 50 vote threshold. ⁓ but this is the type of provision that likely gets stripped. I just don't think this piece passes. I guess is the like if I'm putting my ⁓ my looking into the crystal ball

El Nefi: I don't think this is the type of thing that you need to freak out about. But ⁓ that's okay because yeah, it's philosoph it's philosophical that's it's not actual. But ⁓ again, maybe he didn't do it for us. Maybe he did it because he's maybe secretly, maybe, maybe he's a member of BHA and he's trying to increase membership.

Dave Willms: You can be mad about it. You can be mad ⁓ it's fine to be mad about it and say this is why are we doing this? Fill it Yeah. Yeah. That'll do it. That'll do it.

El Nefi: You know, give you know, fundraising. I bet Ryan, you know, did it he did it for Ryan.

Dave Willms: Maybe. Anyway, that's that's why that's why we'll go on to what's next. Yeah, we'll do do what's next. Anyway, that's the that's the scenario that you're dealing with on the on the roadless rule. ⁓ or the you know, the Lee amendment that you might hear about.

El Nefi: Thanks, Mike. What's next? I think one ⁓ like one one thing to note though. ⁓ I don't Lee did not the amendment doesn't have his name on it. But make no mistake, it's his fault. It's not like whoever got suckered into whoever got suckered to put their stamp on this, it's not their it's it's it's Lee.

Dave Willms: That is correct. But he He is the one that pushed for it. Yeah, it's driven from from Lee's office for sure. Yep. ⁓ all right. So the here's the second thing I want to talk about. And maybe we'll be even briefer on this. This is in the world of pendulum swings. Just wanted to bring it up. ⁓ because this will be the man, we've probably talked about it every time it's happened. We've been doing this podcast long enough. It's probably this is the third time this has happened since we've been doing this podcast. This is a hard pivot to a different topic. We're talking endangered species at this point. in nineteen seventy-eight, the Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a rule called, and it just it's just been called the blanket 4D rule. And here's what it does in a nutshell. So under the Endangered Species Act, there are two categories of of listings. You're listed as threatened or you're listed as endangered. ⁓ there's a third status of warranted but precluded, but it but but when you're listed, you have two listing statuses, threatened or endangered. You might hear about take prohibitions. You're not allowed to take, harass, harm, all that sort of stuff. ⁓ that is specific in the act, specific to endangered species, not to threatened. Threatened and endangered when you read the text of the act from 1973 actually meant two very different things. They had two different statuses. In 1978, the Fish and Wildlife Service adopts this rule. And it's just called the blanket 4D rule. Section 4, subsection D of the Endangered Species Act gives the service the authority to write these rules that you know aid in the conservation of the species. And it can, in a lot of times, you might hear them in the context of providing. some regulatory flexibility. you know, there there's a 4D rule for grizzly bears that dates back 50 years now, something like that. and it it creates some flexibility to say, you know, if you kill a charging grizzly bear in s self defense, you're not gonna be prosecuted for violating the Endangered Species Act. Right. So it creates some some flexibility. Anyway, the 78 rule applies this blanket 4D, which means blanket just meant any species that's listed at all. If it's listed as threatened, it's going to be treated as though it's listed as endangered for the take prohibitions piece. So once it's listed, no harming, harassing, killing, all that sort of stuff. Blanket across the board. And then you could come in later and tailor a ⁓ 4D rule to a specific species and relax some of those take prohibitions. So in the instance of grizzly bear, you might allow the take in the case of self-defense. In the case of wolves, maybe you allow the take if they are ⁓ harassing wildlife or or killing livestock or something like that. So there's set that flexibility. So that's the that's the history of it. So what happened? Well, in the first Trump administration, ⁓ the Fish and Wildlife Service wrote a rule to rescind that blanket four D rule, basically saying every species that's listed will have to have its own species specific four D rule. We're not gonna do a blanket rule anymore. Then fast forward to the Biden administration, and they reinstated the blanket four D rule again. So we went back to the 1978 ⁓ metric and enter the next Trump administration here and just learn that they're moving forward with a rule to again rescind the blanket 4D rule and go back to individual tailored 4D rules. Now I don't want to bore everybody to tears because Nephi, you look bored out of your mind right now. So I can only imagine what listeners are. Yeah, I can only I can only imagine what what listeners are thinking like

El Nefi: I'm just tired. I'm sorry. I I I ⁓ I in my head I'm thinking about intelligent things to say. Nothing. Nothing's happening up the stairs.

Dave Willms: Yeah, here's the here's the thing I'm gonna say. Because this is again, I just want to cut through all the hyperbole that's out there and talk about like what actually happens. So the hyperbole out there, the fear out there, the the the you have one group of folks saying this will be catastrophic for for threatened species because they won't have this blanket four D protection. And it means there'll be more of them killed. And and the and they'll say the Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't have the resources to write a species-specific 4D rule. Okay. They don't have this the resources, which means there won't be any take prohibitions. They just won't be able to do it. There won't be any take prohibitions. ⁓ the flip side of the argument is ⁓ is that they that they absolutely will and And not to worry, right? And I think it probably falls somewhere in between. And because I hear one camp and you'll you'll hear it. During the first Trump administration, after the 4D rule, the blanket 4D rule was rescinded. The administration was able to write species specific 4D rules for every single species that was listed. So the in that instance, the argument of like they don't have the resources, they can't do it. They'll never do it. The data doesn't bear that out. They did. Okay. ⁓ but that was pre-Doge. And Fish and Wildlife Service staff is now down what, 25, almost 30%, something like that. And and the other thing is there's some politics to species listings, even though it's all supposed to be based on science. All you have to do is go back through history and see. how many species are listed or not under different administrations. And you know. I'll just say under democratic administrations there are a lot more species listed than under Republican administrations. So theoretically, if it were a democratic administration listing species, yeah, there might not be the resources to write species specific four D rules for all those species listed. ⁓ But I'm just not convinced it's a sky is falling. Again, I'm not convinced it's a sky is falling scenario. ⁓ but it's something that's out there that's probably worth mentioning. You might see something about it, and now I've just bored you all to tears on something I kinda like wonking out on. I know I know.

El Nefi: Well, that was exciting. Yes, you do like walking out on, but like, hey, that's great. This was a good discussion. Glad we had that talk.

Dave Willms: That you didn't that y I just rambled on about.

El Nefi: God we had time. Nope. ⁓ let's see. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Dave Willms: Wasn't even do you have it you have anything to add? Or are you like nothing, not a word? You're like, just stop talking Wilms, let's move on.

El Nefi: There's nothing to move on to, man. It's late at night.

Dave Willms: Yeah. ⁓ that's all we got right now.

El Nefi: But it might be that but hey everybody, thank you so much. ⁓ I would like to dedicate this ⁓ podcast to ⁓ Ryan Bronson.

Dave Willms: and with Ryan. I I'm representing I'm representing his ⁓ his org right now, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

El Nefi: Start with Ryan. End with Ryan. All I see is all I see is pixels.

Dave Willms: Well, I'm just telling you what the hat says. RMEF. Great organization. ⁓ I can. I don't know what's wrong on your end. You might need to go get glasses or something.

El Nefi: ⁓ I appreciate that. Can you read my hat? I can read my hat on my end too. I just can't read your hat.

Dave Willms: I can I can read like I can see the vortex sign on your back wall. ⁓ I can see the isn't that like it was from some adventure race you did, the one the thing right above it.

El Nefi: Yeah, that's ⁓ yeah, that's from the s the ⁓ Sniper Adventure Challenge, which is a yeah, it's like a multi day it's a multi day ⁓ it's like an adventure race for gun teams for for like a ⁓ for a sniper team. It's pretty fun. ⁓ interestingly enough there's lots of stories with that, but people don't care to hear those stories 'cause ⁓ yeah.

Dave Willms: That's what it was. Sniper Adventure Challenge, yeah. See I can see your stuff. Probably more interesting than the blanket four D roll.

El Nefi: Probably. They are more interesting than me. But my teammate that like actually the first time like the story behind that, the first that when I did that event, I'd always wanted to do that event. And ⁓ my my I my f friend Scott ⁓ maybe I don't say his name, I don't know, because he was well, I said his first name. So Scott, but he ⁓ you know, he wanted to go to do the same thing, but I actually I knew he was in the military, but he actually didn't tell me what he used to do.

Dave Willms: You just did. You didn't say last name. Yeah.

El Nefi: And so I just knew he was just, you know, he was like, you know, he was like, ⁓ yeah, I was an army ranger and some stuff like that. Well, turns out Scott used to be in ⁓ an entity of the government they don't admit exists. So it's a it's a group that some people call combat operations, combat applications group. ⁓ some people call it Delta. Anyway, so ⁓ he was my teammate and we went and did this event. We did really well. ⁓ I don't know if that's a big surprise when you have a guy like that as your teammate. Yeah, well, it's funny. We joke about it, you know, because he didn't carry me, but he kind of like just when you work with somebody like that, like you know, this event, only five percent of the people that have ever entered the sniper adventure challenge, it's competition dynamics event, have ever finished it. So we have we finished it. We I finished it a couple of years in a row, actually, but Scott.

Dave Willms: He he carried you, is what you're saying.

El Nefi: ⁓ you know, you just you're not gonna quit if that guy's your teammate. The reason that he is where he is is because he doesn't quit. And so you know that like there's no quitting. And so there's something positive to that to having people around you. And so this is maybe the take home, you know, like your ⁓ food for thought after the other stuff is like make sure that you surround yourself with high quality people because the reality is sometimes it doesn't matter what they you like what area they're in or what their job is. As long as they are committed to excellence in their job, you're gonna find that you have a lot in common. And when you surround yourself with those people, they bring out the best in you. And so, ⁓ that was a really fun thing. And yeah, we finished ⁓ I think that's fifth place ⁓ in the out of about fifty international teams. And it was ⁓ it was interesting. The one above that, that's a third place from ⁓ a ⁓ another, you know, team competition. It was like shooting sports competition in the state of Utah. It was ⁓ Different teammate, my good buddy Cody. But ⁓ too.

Dave Willms: All I hear you saying is that you're a two time loser. Yeah. You're fifth place is just the the fourth loser.

El Nefi: Yeah, I've never had mediocrity, Dave, is what I pride myself on. Yeah. Like if I Yeah. Yeah, I don't know that I have I have one interestingly enough, I do have one first place trophy. It's up above my desk. It's a motocross race. And so yeah, basically, you know, you know, which reminds me of another great story is that people like

Dave Willms: Everybody else fell down. Sorry, I don't mean I don't mean I don't mean to jab you. I just know you can take it.

El Nefi: People who don't know, we had this ⁓ we worked, ⁓ we worked for the governor when they were doing a refurbishing the capital in the state of Wyoming. So they put 300 plus million dollars into making the Capitol beautiful. But they they made us move during that time. Our offices went from the Capitol to a mortuary. And so there's this old mortuary where our offices ended up

Dave Willms: I think I know what you're gonna say.

El Nefi: And of course, that you know it was refurbished and everything, and it was built in an old mansion. They turned an old mansion into a mortuary, but now we're in this mortuary, and we're in the basement of the mortuary. And literally, one of our colleagues has his office in what was the embalming room, right? And so we did not, you know, I had a I had my own office. Somehow you got stuck out in like the middle of like a cubicle.

Dave Willms: Yeah.

El Nefi: in like some hallway. Yeah. In the you know, bot in the basement of a mortuary. And so and it was it was because they did it by seniority, right? And I'd been in the office longer than you. Yeah. And so I had a you know, my office pretty good.

Dave Willms: The pit. Yeah. Yeah. There were like five five of us that got that were stuck out in this open room down there. Right. Who'd been there yeah, yeah, who'd been there the longest. Yeah. Not who was the old not who was the most experienced professional, because that was the other thing is there was somebody that there was somebody that had an office. You know, Colin had that office ⁓ and he was just a baby. That's like his first job.

El Nefi: Yeah. Or more handsome. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Colin was he was like an analyst for me. Yeah, before he was that moved up, but it was it was pretty funny. And so ⁓ Justice Gray, who we talked about before, was our chief of staff and took great pride because this mortuary had historic value in like picking all the artwork and making sure that everything was like had to be so so with where it was and like approving.

Dave Willms: Know where you're going now for sure.

El Nefi: And so Dave makes a point of being the biggest pieces of crap, personal items that he possibly can, and putting them in his office just as a big middle finger to the world. So he has a broken coat rack that he sets in his office so it hangs off to the side when it has a coat on it. And just as that in it, and like he's just a random old like.

Dave Willms: Yeah. It's like at a forty degree angle when you put a coat on it.

El Nefi: bowling trophies just he's just like from like his eighth grade stuff like this and like puts them all over his office so his office just looks like you walk through the mortuary into the basement and it's just like you walk into this space and you're like it looks like you walk into a salvation army it was just like

Dave Willms: Brought in my basketball trophies from my teenage years. You know, it wasn't much longer before I got my own office. Yeah. Yeah.

El Nefi: Yeah, and then they moved you. ⁓ man. You fought that too, though. Cause like I insisted, I was like, I because I we I was in the basement with him. I was like, I'm moving upstairs. It's like as I like commandeered like this nice office. I was like, you're coming with me, Dave. Let's go. And you fought it. You're like, that's you're such a such a stubborn, such a stubborn turd that I'm like, I'm getting you a good office. You're gonna be right next to me.

Dave Willms: I didn't want to be in eyesight in the I didn't want to be in the direct

El Nefi: We're right in like the like we're right in the middle of the action, you know. You're like, no, I wanna stay in the basement by by the judge in the frickin' embalming room.

Dave Willms: Well, it I didn't want to be in the direct l line of sight to Carrie because her office was direct line of sight from those two offices. And I'm like 'cause 'cause then she can just yell our names and we have to come do stuff, lots of stuff. Or we or we have to take the blame for something. Yeah, no that no is a great time. I I'd forgotten about that office story. I'm glad you said that. I 'cause I totally did that to give the middle finger.

El Nefi: Which is probably why she put us there. Yeah. We did have to do a lot of stuff. That was a good times. ⁓ man.

Dave Willms: ⁓ good times. all right, on that note, I'm gonna c I'm gonna call it. We're this is devolving quickly. ⁓ everybody, thanks so much for listening and listening to hopefully you got a laugh out of that last story. It made up for the four D conversation, ⁓ blanket rule conversation.

El Nefi: Yeah. talk about your co your co your cowboy boots sometime too. We'll talk about those.

Dave Willms: That could be the next that could be the next thing. Or my ⁓ my my rain gear at that point in time or yeah, I was the butt of a lot of jokes around that time for my cheapness. ⁓ I still am in a lot of ways. ⁓ thanks for listening, everybody. Really appreciate it. Reminder, our email address is your mountain podcast at gmail.com. I have to stop every time before I say it and think it. think about it because it is a little different than what our other email address was. So your mountain podcast at gmail.com. Find us on social media if you want to hit us up with a direct message on Instagram and Facebook in particular at the handle at It's Your Mountain. Go to YouTube, follow us there, subscribe to our YouTube channel. we're we'll try and do more stuff there now that we're doing this video stuff more regularly. ⁓ we'll we'll we're there. So go find us on on YouTube. And as always, remember life is about experiences. So go have one.