Not One Acre!
- colin7931
- Jul 1
- 45 min read
Today Doug opens the container with Jessica Turner, president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable.
Doug begins the show by recounting the personal impact the recent legislative attempt to sell off portions of our public lands had on him and the relief he felt when that attempt failed. He also highlights how the collective response from the outdoor world—spanning hunters, hikers, and conservation advocates—showed what the outdoor community is capable of when we act together.
Doug is then joined by Jessica Turner, the president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable. During their conversation they dissect the ramifications of the failed proposal and emphasize the necessity of preserving public lands as vital resources.
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Episode Transcript:
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:00:00.320 - 00:09:23.900
Hey everyone.
Before we get started today, I want to thank you for listening to Open Container and ask that you please subscribe to the show by clicking Follow on the podcast app you're using right now. Following the podcast is the best way to ensure that we will continue to crack open the container every single week.
Thank you and let's start the show. Welcome to Open Container. I'm Doug Schnitzbaum. I'm a journalist, writer, and overall lover of the outdoors.
I fought wildfires, reported on national politics, published magazines. I've even woken to the dawn chorus of songbirds in the deep reaches of the Great Basin Sea of Sagebrush.
On this podcast, we're going to have an open conversation about culture, conservation, policy, business issues that matter the most to the outdoor community. Let's get some Just before the summer solstice, I found myself in a state of deep depression.
At the time, Utah Senator Mike Lee's proposal to sell off a mandated 3.3 million acres out of a possible 250 million acres of public land felt unstoppable. I felt powerless facing the idea that something so many of us hold sacred could be taken away. This modest proposal was nothing short of a coup.
It would completely restructure the way the United States manages public land. Instead of being spaces open to all, these lands would be parceled off and sold to private interests.
Senator Lee and his small group of supporters argued that this land was unused and could be better put towards housing. But it didn't take much investigation to uncover the disingenuousness of their pitch. The land wasn't going to be sold for affordable housing.
It was to be sold to wealthy donors, developers looking to build gated communities and industries that believe they have a divine right to the land over everyone else. Some excellent reporting in the Colorado sun exposed exactly what Senator Lee and his allies envisioned freedom cities run by Tech Bros.
And free from federal laws and regulations. They would use nuclear reactors to power AI. It sounds absurd, and it is.
One proposed city for 350,000 people was to be located north of Fruita and Grand Junction. As the sun pointed out, the idea wasn't even feasible when you considered water access infrastructure or county zoning regulations.
But this was what we were facing, people who saw public lands not as shared spaces, but as parcels to sell off for profit or pipe dream schemes. Back to my own despair, the world has been hard on many of us lately.
Personally, I've been battling cancer, trying to navigate the shifting financial terrain of the outdoor media world and working to define myself as a leader, as a good human. As someone who cares deeply about the legacy our generation will leave on this planet. Some of this is the common angst of modern life.
But what gives me hope is always the planet itself, the wild places, biodiversity, spaces of life and renewal.
The loss of public lands would be the loss of a unique kind of freedom, a democratic freedom that allows any of us to experience nature on our own terms, regardless of politics, race or gender. And for a moment, it felt like that freedom might vanish.
Feeling powerless, I watched the sun set on the solstice and reminded myself, we don't know what tomorrow will bring. Victory or change can come suddenly. And it did. I was exhilarated to witness the overwhelming response from the outdoor community.
The opposition spread like wildfire. Hunters, hikers, wilderness advocates, ATV enthusiasts, all people who use public lands rose in outrage. The slogan not one acre caught fire.
Caroline Glake, who ran for Senate in Utah last year, issued bold calls for activism. She urged people to contact their senators and representatives to protest this sell off.
Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico delivered impassioned pleas.
Surprisingly, some of the strongest reactions came from the hunting and angling communities, people who understand wildlife and the land it depends on. These were not people easily fooled by empty rhetoric.
They appreciate ecosystems that function freely without no trespassing signs popping up on every corner. We posted, we called, we protested, and we were heard.
Senator Lee eventually scaled back his proposal, reducing it to several million acres of Bureau of Land Management land instead of the full 250 million. But the pressure continued. Advocates like Rachelle Schrute and meat eater continued the call. Not one acre.
Caroline Gleich delivered 11,000 letters opposing the sell off to Senator John Curtis of Utah, the same man who defeated her last fall. Traditional conservation groups like the Wilderness Society and outdoor advocacy groups like the Access Fund kept up the pressure.
And of course, hundreds of thousands of Americans who love public lands made their voices heard through letters, social media and phone calls. At last this past weekend, Senator Lee removed the provision from the bill entirely. Still, he didn't seem to understand why.
He claimed outside money had come in to defeat him. An ironic accusation when it was actually ski bums, hunters and other dirtbags who loved this land more than profit, who rallied against him.
He also claimed the bill's language was flawed and could have allowed lands to be sold to China, a desperate attempt to save face. But the battle is far from over.
The forces pushing for privatization, tech moguls wanting freedom, cities, industries hungry to log and mine, will continue to spread propaganda and work to transfer public land into private hands. Already, the Trump administration plans to eliminate the ruleless rule, threatening to open 58 million acres of pristine wilderness to road building.
The very agencies meant to protect these lands, the Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, are being systematically defunded. The strategy is clear. Starve them until they can't function, then claim privatization is the only option. This would be a grave mistake.
If Senator Lee accomplished one thing, it was uniting both sides of the political aisle against him that gave me real joy. This is what we need in America.
People coming together, regardless of party, to rally around what matters, to stand for what heals us, empowers us and defines the best of who we are. And that's exactly what terrifies those who would rather see us divided while they count their profits.
There are times and places where public land can be responsibly traded or sold to benefit local communities, especially in the West.
If this conversation were approached with integrity and the goal of finding real solutions for the challenges rural communities face, we could find a way forward. We could preserve wilderness, protect biodiversity and support human communities.
Unfortunately, too many of our politicians prefer slogans over solutions. They'd rather point fingers than work together. And they underestimate those of us who love wild places.
People from all walks of life, from every corner of the country. We are not going anywhere. So let's unite. Let's compromise where we must. Wilderness lovers and off roaders, conservationists and small town residents.
People who can see utility in the land and people who just want it left alone. We can find a way forward together. My guest today was instrumental in this fight to stop the public land sell off.
She has also been key to many wins and much of the advocacy around public lands and outdoor recreation in Washington, D.C.
jessica Turner is the first president of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable, America's leading coalition of outdoor recreation associations and organizations. Jessica began her career at the Department of the Interior where she managed external relations for the Secretary.
Jessica is also the co founder and past chair of the Coalition for Outdoor Access and has been recognized for her leadership in D.C. and the outdoor industry with outdoors 30 under 30 and the Hill's top lobbyist. So let's open the container with Jess Turner.
I'm really excited to have our guest with us today, Jess Turner, because we just went through one hell of a week here fighting for public lands and Jess has been on the forefront of that battle. Which brings me to my first question for you Jess, which is just have you slept recently?
Jessica Turner
00:09:25.020 - 00:10:13.300
No.
I wish you could see, honestly, mostly because I Have a kid who screams about comets in the middle of the night, a two year old terrified of comets, which I understand, but. But no, it's been busy. Couple weeks, months, years.
I think this weekend was kind of crazy to like be going to bed and getting senators from both sides texting me about info and votes and whip. And so Saturday night wasn't ideal at the beginning to be staying up late on this, but obviously the outcome was awesome. Slept very well after that.
And you know, this is just a small part of what ORR does. Right. So we've got all the other things in the hopper, so I think the team has just been on overdrive.
So it's been a lot, but well worth, well worth it.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:10:14.340 - 00:10:27.140
Yeah, we certainly had a comet hit the outdoor industry. Right. Isn't that what I believe that was it Mark Twain or someone described John Brown as the comet that started the Civil War.
Jessica Turner
00:10:27.860 - 00:10:34.580
Oh, funny. I didn't even know my comment relevancy. My kid's ahead of his time. He knows what's going on.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:10:36.100 - 00:11:12.880
That's right.
So anyway, for anyone who doesn't know, obviously over the past several weeks, the whole outdoor community has really rallied and gotten together to take a provision out of the reconciliation bill, the big beautiful bill, as some people call it. And Jess, at Orr, you've really been working hard on talking to legislators all across the aisle.
And my biggest question for you then is, do you think we've finally seen some proof that outdoor recreation and public lands are not partisan issues?
Jessica Turner
00:11:14.340 - 00:12:55.940
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I've seen, I see proof, you know, daily, but I think this was really like a much more public setting of things that I've seen over the course of, you know, the past couple years. You know, Joe Rogan has done a bunch of stories on it, quoted myself and Martin Heinrich in one of them, which was kind of wild from an out.
I think it was an outside piece. So. And then Don Jr. I don't know if you saw his statement yesterday, but he was like, we won. Like, public lands are safe.
Yeah, you got to check it out. It was a, it was, it was a crazy thing to see.
But he, you know, and then he acknowledged Senator Lee, you know, and being a partner and a friend and like, it wasn't. But it was definitely like, we won, we saved public life. So that's Don Jr. So.
And then of course, you know, the Wilderness Society event last week with all that side Wilderness Society and Sierra Club and of course they were working. So I don't think it gets farther right and it really was like the recreation side of the public lands.
I mean, of course, people care about public lands, I think, inherently.
But the value to the people who spoke out, whether they were, you know, just concerned constituents or members of Congress, I think, like, the recreation aspect really made it to the top and to the. To the forefront of the conversation, which was really great to see.
And I was getting, like, memes sent from my friends who won't even go on hikes with me. Right. Like, they're like my D.C.
friends that are totally outside of the space, and they're, like, sending me these, like, hilarious memes that people are putting out about, you know, getting our public land stolen. And that's when I know we've broken through. And I'm like, okay.
You know, like, the general public is, like, understanding this issue, hearing about it, seeing it. It was really, really amazing.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:12:56.820 - 00:13:30.500
Yeah, I knew. I knew the balance had tipped when I saw Ted Nugent was posting, you know, famously conservative wacko was posting for public land.
So that seemed like a win in general.
So all this good energy, all this good feeling, as you said, this is not, you know, maybe people might not be aware that, you know, both sides of the political aisle can work together, that they've done it before in recreation. How do you think this. We can take this good feeling and move forward with it?
Jessica Turner
00:13:31.540 - 00:15:57.310
Yeah, I mean, I'm just excited that I think people are seeing what I've seen through orr, which is that we've come together definitely all sides of the aisle, you know, definitely all sides of outdoor recreation, and had some amazing wins over the past five or six years. Just, like, phenomenal things have come from that.
And so where we sit sort of on the business side, maybe that's a little bit easier because there's, like, a business interest to help each other and lift all ships and understand that our consumer is sort of the same. I think now this is, like, more of the general public having an awakening that, wow, like, whatever I feel about Don Jr.
Or Joe Rogan or the Wilderness Society or Sierra Club, like, we were in this together and actually did this together. What if we did some other things together? What if we talked more? What if we realized that we have some things in common?
So that's pretty exciting, because I think at the higher levels of things or in the business side of conversations, even in the halls of Congress, and I know people won't believe me on this, but I stand by it. Things are not as polarized. It's theater, it's theatrics. It's where constituents are leading members.
But I think a lot of times people want to come to agreement and they want to have consensus and they want to be friends with their peers on the other side. And it's the general public that doesn't feel that way or doesn't see that.
So we haven't worked with user community groups because of the trailhead conflicts, because a user community like a mountain biker might be so threatened by a horseback rider or vice versa, or a motorcyclist might be a climber might be so threatened by someone on atv. So that's just not where you see that compromise usually.
But you do see it when you have Yamaha and VF talking in a board meeting or the ski industry and the snowmobile industry sitting next to each other. Like, of course they care about snow and they care about winter and they care about, you know, people getting outside.
So I would love to see like the groups at the local level because that's where I think we need the work coming together and saying, okay, you're a hunting angling group or you are maybe even affiliated with like the nra. There were some really conservative hunting angler groups.
And we are, you know, human powered mountain bike group, or we are whoever we can come together around defending public lands. Maybe we should do more locally. What does that look like here? How do we build that? How do we build those politicians locally?
So there's a lot to do and I'm excited that I think people are seeing what I've seen, which is we agree on a lot of stuff.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:15:57.870 - 00:16:11.870
Do you think there's some good examples of places where those different user groups have come together? I mean, I immediately think of somewhere, I immediately think of all the good work Arkansas.
A lot of towns like Bentonville and Arkansas have done to prove that this works.
Jessica Turner
00:16:12.980 - 00:18:31.610
Yeah, Arkansas is amazing. I think there's examples everywhere. And I think these state recreation offices and what you just mentioned about Arkansas are a great place. Right.
For bringing those conversations together. I think even Utah does a good job of it.
You know, there's amazing backcountry, human powered experiences and there's amazing motorized experience and amazing hunting and fishing. And oddly enough, that's the state that wants to sell off a lot of these places, which is.
But that's the other piece of this that was really interesting was we weren't talking about wilderness, we weren't talking about monuments, we weren't talking about national parks. And I don't know that the American public even knew that. And that's okay. We were Talking at the end of this, Forest Service got stripped.
We were talking about Bureau of Land Management lands, which is like, you know, you gotta really be an outdoors person to even understand distinction there. And people are coming out of the woodwork defending these lands. And I'm like, where have you been, guys? Like, the budget's getting cut.
Like, BLM lands are always the least, I feel like, you know, respected or talked about. And it's so fun because I think BLM lands are like, it's where I started my career is with the Bureau of Land Management.
So I have like a little soft spot there. But that is the West. I mean, that is where that is multi use and that is recreation.
What I kept telling Senator Lee's staff and what I told the, you know, the house side that was doing this was their unallocated BLM lands. The lands that we're talking about in most of these sell off proposals. That's where multi use recreation takes place.
Because a lot of recreation can't take place in a park or a wilderness or monument. So like, that is literally where people hunt, fish, mountain bike, you know, motorcycle, ATV, camp, boondock, RV boat. Like that's the land.
So to see people come out for it, like, that's awesome. Let's do more of that.
And I'm also on the America's foundation for Public Lands Board, which is the new congressionally chartered foundation for blm, just like the park foundation or the forest foundation. And I'm just excited for them because I think they've got, they've got some room to work with.
Half of our job is just letting American public know about blm. We call the hardest working lands.
Like you can do so much and they work so hard for the American people that this was, this was just awesome timing, I think, for people to understand. And hopefully everyone wants to learn more about BLM because that's what they cared so much about apparently over the past couple of weeks.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:18:32.810 - 00:18:47.290
Yeah, I mean, I love what you say that. That's the west, right? That's when you get out and drive. That's, you know, that's what captures your heart, your imagination, your sense of freedom.
That's great. But I also think it's funny because, yeah, I've heard it. I remember the joke is what, Brown lands management or something, right?
Jessica Turner
00:18:47.370 - 00:18:53.350
Yeah. To be the Bureau of Lands and Minerals.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:18:53.910 - 00:18:54.310
Right.
Jessica Turner
00:18:54.390 - 00:19:49.140
Blm. So I mean, it used to be like literally just oil and gas, kind of mining and grazing. And they still do that. Right? Which is kind of amazing.
And they still do all These other things. I mean, BLM is really the ultimate multi use, multipurpose and it's a hard job. And so, you know, and of course. And maybe we'll get into this.
Like, of course there are BLM lands we probably should dispose of. And every secretary since I've been in these roles has disposed of BLM lands appropriately through the process that exists. And that's okay.
And oftentimes they use that money to purchase more BLM land that's better suited for access and recreation or, you know, in holdings or things like that.
So like, BLM land is not all perfect and wonderful and used, but the process of just kind of saying we have to sell off 2 to 3 million acres is not one that the American public could sit with. And I think that's great.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:19:50.340 - 00:20:07.940
Yeah. I mean, that gets down to it really is. This was a horrible idea, a horrible proposal. It didn't even make sense in the way it would be executed. Right.
And tried to sell these lands or develop these lands. It all was a little nutty, I would say. Right.
Jessica Turner
00:20:09.780 - 00:23:40.270
I don't, I mean that's kind of where. And I think it's been interesting, like my LinkedIn stories. I'm not like, we're not public facing. Right. We're B2B.
We're, you know, we're not going to do the memes and the social media, but on my LinkedIn, you know, I have my own thoughts and, and you know, I'm centered on them. Like it's not, it's not black or white, truly.
And I think I've been getting a ton of like thank you notes and like messages and just a ton of interaction because like, wow, this is, this is kind of a good, like the voice I need to hear, which is. Yeah, actually some of Mike Lee's proposal probably makes sense. Some of it's already in law. Right.
Flip the flipflow process of land exchange, lease, sell off. There was other things that, you know, would set a new precedent that would totally, you know, you know, not be appropriate for outdoor recreation.
I think a lot of other things actually on BLM lands. So there's, there's definitely some reason behind it. Like his constituents want less BLM land for a reason.
Not because they hate the government, they hate the blm. Oftentimes, you know, that's a partner. Right. In western communities, it's because it's not working for them.
They can't develop their football field for their, you know, high school team. They can't get housing, they can't get a. Well for, you know, well, water. Like, there's real issues we need to solve.
And so I would never, like, downplay those things. And I think that the rhetoric, especially in social media, completely cuts out the rural and local voice, and I don't think that's actually helpful.
So I've been trying to bring us back to, like, no, no, no. There's a reason behind this.
Like, especially on the House side, the bills, which were a little more nuanced and much smaller acreage, at least in the Utah one, like, there's something there and if you're not paying attention to it, you've kind of missed the line here, the storyline.
There is a housing issue in Western communities, especially those that have bought BLM lands, because BLM lands are often at the interface of a community. They're a little more front country and there are rules and laws and decades of institution in place for a reason.
So that you can't just do what the senator was proposing. I think some of the biggest issues for us were not having a recreation safeguard. Right. Where do we get to say that?
Like, yes, maybe 20 years ago that land was appropriate for disposal, but now it's a boondocking place. Now there's just hundreds of people camping there all the time. And again, we should have that conversation.
It should be definitely with a local community. And I think the biggest part was the funding.
Going to treasury is such an issue for our organization because we fight so hard for every dollar for recreation and conservation. In fact, we give a lot, obviously through excise tax and, and sport fish restoration fund. I mean, we are the ultimate payers in a lot of cases.
And then to say, you know, we're cutting the budget, we're cutting funding, we're cutting and oh, any proceeds from the sell of land are actually going to be diverted to the treasury because right now a lot of that goes back to recreation. So if you're taking a trail away from a community, a, there's a safeguard in place now to have that conversation, like, whoa, there's a trail here.
And B, there's a mechanism to say, okay, we have to take this trail because this is the land. Like we, we need it for something, maybe a higher value in the.
And we're going to actually build another trail of better, you know, quality for you nearby with the land we're going to get from that sale. None of that was in this proposal.
And, and so it set a new, like, standard where anyone needs money for anything, which, gosh, we need money for things every day in America. Oh, there's some land over here to sell. And that is like, you know, that's, that was scary maybe.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:23:40.270 - 00:23:57.170
Do you, do you think you could go through kind of the anatomy of, you know, what this bill was going to do? I guess it was a provision, not a bill. Excuse me, what the provision was going to do and kind of how it was finally thwarted after several attempts.
Jessica Turner
00:23:57.170 - 00:29:13.200
Right, yeah, yeah. I mean there's a lot. Right. It's been months, it's been years. Right.
But I think starting just from this Congress and the reconciliation process, just to like back up reconciliation, is the only way any of this could get done. Because you only need, need 51 votes, right? 50, 50 with the, with the VP but technically you only need 50 members of Congress.
So if this was not reconciliation, none of these would have been brought up because no, everyone knows you don't have 60 votes. So it was the process of reconciliation, which only comes around really when you have House, Senate and administration that are all the same party.
You can, that's the only time you can do something like this. So maybe this comes around every eight years.
So like what has been building up the pressure on these issues is out ahead right now for a lot of reasons. And they had a mechanism to do it of which they won't have again in a very long time and they haven't had in a long time. So that's the reason for it.
And I think the House process was a really interesting one because it was much more organic. It wasn't as strategic. It was a last minute add on to the House natural resources provision.
It wasn't something the chairman crafted and they got pummeled. And Congresswoman Malloy who was part of that, the Utah sell off, called me and was like, can we talk? I want to explain myself.
We had a meeting with her again. A lot of it made a lot of sense, the disposal and why. And she listened to us. It was a great conversation.
I hope we can continue to work with someone like her. And it was Congressman Zinke and a couple Republicans who said, this is not in aligned with my values or my constituents.
And I'm not gonna surprise leadership. I'm gonna tell you right now, I'm gonna vote no. And it did take a little longer than I thought actually. Cause we had a good group.
We had about five or six Republicans.
And honestly the night before the text was released and they were gonna vote, it was Congressman Zinke and Whitney from my team working there and just talking to the leader, to Johnson, us sending in the rec areas that would be impacted.
Having a real back and forth on it and getting enough members to say they couldn't, they couldn't vote on it, and getting also the members that introduced the bill to say, okay, we're not gonna vote against it if our bill's not in there. So it was all behind the scenes, very little people paying attention.
And then when they said it was gonna come back in the Senate, I was like, there's no way, because we just. The House can't pass it. And sure enough, I mean, a chairman can do that sort of thing.
And I think when you see what we did in the House, we were able to replicate that in the Senate. Really took the Montana senators to say no way.
And then our Idaho guides and outfitters, just amazing recreat businesses getting together with Idaho senators and them saying no way. And obviously, the public pushback, I think played in. You know, it was a. It was a lot more behind the scenes, I think, than people realize.
There were real procedural issues, and those hurdles, I think moved the timeline in such a way that it became very hard for leadership to see how they could get a bill in that would be jurisdictional, not have issues. So part of Senator Lee's statement, I think is it's right. It was procedural.
Part of it was, I think there was enough pushback and there was enough members to go in and say we could vote this down on the floor in an amendment. And that was the threat. And so I think they came around that let's take this out and maybe work on some other things with the senator.
And I can't stress enough too. I think Senator Lee was talking about the White House being behind it, and it was Trump. I'm doing this for Trump. And a lot of. We were able to.
To talk to Secretary Burgum last week. We got a sectional order. It was awesome. It was kind of amidst all this stuff, so it probably got lost.
It's the first recreation sector order of this administration. It's awesome. And we were able to talk about the housing issue. And a day later, he and the Senator Liebeel.
A day later, he went on and interviewed and said, we don't really care about that provision that much. Like, we just want the bill. I don't really know about that provision. And that was a flag right to the Republicans. Like.
Like this is not necessarily coming from the White House. We have a housing issue. We're dealing with it. He has an mou. So I think it separated the White House a little bit from what Senator Lee was doing.
And I think that helped Republicans. But at the end of the day, this will come back in other forms.
This was just the easiest path to passage in a scary sense because it was only 50 votes you needed and obviously there's that many Republicans. So getting the four on the record early on and making them feel good about that.
And then behind the scenes, we were still talking to Senator Lee staff the whole time and say, airing our concerns and having an open dialogue. And, you know, I hope that pays forward to, you know, continuing to show that there's pragmatic voices in the room that understand housing needs.
Like, because who's, who's creating a housing issue more than like some of our recreation communities. Right. And, and so we can't not be part of that conversation. We're, we're in the conversation. We're, we're there, but we're also really clear.
And we have been since, you know, my board put out something, we put out something in January of our guardrails, and those haven't changed. And that's been really nice to be, to say this isn't about Senator Lee. This isn't about a specific proposal. This is something we decided pre.
All of this that we have to see in order to get on board with disposal. And, and we haven't seen it.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:29:13.680 - 00:29:36.710
I mean, I think it brings up a lot.
I mean, one of the first things it brings up for me is in an era that's so polarized, I think it's, you know, people can give you a hard time when you have to create open dialogue with the other side. Right. As Juice Inman. So I had a guest on here once, you, he's quoted the old, like, if you're not at the, if you're not at the table, you're lunch.
Right. So it's really table.
Jessica Turner
00:29:36.710 - 00:29:41.430
You're on the, if you're not the table, you're on the menu. That's what I always, Salazar taught me that when I worked for him.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:29:41.430 - 00:30:00.220
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and, and, but right now things are so polarized.
I think you take a lot of heat for, you know, trying to be open to all sides, but it's so essential to really coming to solutions. Right. Like when you talk about that there is actually a housing crisis and if we're not all working together, we're not going to have any solutions.
Jessica Turner
00:30:01.180 - 00:33:45.010
Yeah. Congresswoman Malloy said something and I just like, can't stop thinking about it and I want to be on the solutions end of it.
But, you know, the reconciliation process that, that bill Coming out of nowhere in the House, like, we did not foresee that. Really got a couple warning signals from members of Congress, you know, from Republican members, probably like the night before. Right.
And I just didn't believe it because it wasn't in the original text. So it's like, oh, we're good. It was. There is such a bubbling up of issues in rural communities.
A lot of them had to do with development, housing and public lands. That this reconciliation process was like busting open the door like this. Like, this is the only way we're doing it. This is where we're gonna do it.
It was bigger and broader than it probably should have, you know, And I was like, okay, how. What do we need to do then? Cause we don't want the door to keep busting open. Right. Cause fighting those fights is expensive. It's hard.
It's all of the air in the room. Right. Orr doesn't make money off of, you know, we have membership dues. So, like, we're just following our members. We don't fundraise for this.
And then we have our team working on it day in and day, night, when we have other things to do. Right. So it's like, how do we stop this? And she said, you know, well, help us break open some windows.
And like, I can't stop thinking about that analogy because it's like, there's windows we could break open, right. On this issue. We could find some improvements of current policy and current law that help do some of the things that we all would agree make sense.
Right?
Or most of us, you know, most of us in the policy world that care about these things and follow these things that we would agree and the public probably wouldn't notice, just like they haven't noticed the many, many times, including Secretary Holland and Tracy Stone Manning have sold land, Right. BLM land. You do not know, because the process is. So it's difficult. It's onerous, as it should be.
To sell an acre of federal land is very difficult, and I think we need to keep a lot of that. But I also think we need to open some windows so that we're not always busting down the door with the. These huge proposals of 2 to 3 million acres.
If really what you need is a couple acres for well water in a community. Let's talk about those couple acres of well water and the. This is a difficult opinion, I think, for some people to hear.
But like, I think the conservation, environmental community has made it very hard to do any of that without acres of wilderness or Acres of protected land. Because that's usually the tit for tat for selling land. And the Republicans are not into any acres of protected land until they can sell some land.
So we're just at the, this stymie. We're just at this like stronghold on both sides where you can't get conservation or protection if we don't get sell off.
Well, you can't get sell off if we don't have conservation protection.
It's like now we're not doing either and we probably need a little bit of, I would love to have a lot of conservation protection but like we probably do need a little bit of the disposal. And you know, does the DUI process work? It sure does. Does it take years and years and years? And is it outdated in a lot of ways? Sure is.
So like, what, what's that? And I mean, I think that's where we'll probably center going forward.
But it's, but it's not as clear cut as like the social media things I've seen, which, you know, it's hard for me behind the scenes to like. I guarantee 99.9% of the public who weighed in didn't read the bill. You know, I didn't read it. Yeah, right, right.
And I feel I have a little, you know, a tiny, tiny.
You know, I understand Senator Lee staff being so upset and saying that's not what the bill says because I'm like, you're right, it's not what the bill says. But like it's great, you know, it's great communications. But what the bill said still was not.
I mean, we read the bill a thousand times and there was no way to, there was no way for us to support it. And obviously we worked to ensure it didn't pass, but it kind of stinks that we weren't all talking about the same thing.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:33:46.130 - 00:34:30.310
Yeah, I mean, I guess the problem is there's a lack of confidence that Senator Lee and other people doing this are actually out there trying to get public land for wells and affordable housing, that, you know, that these huge tracts of land were going to go back, you know, that ski resorts on, on public land, were going to take over that public land and be able to operate however they wanted that, you know, they were going to build these ridiculous, the Freedom Cities.
They were going to build a proposal for a 350,000 person city north of Grand Junction in Fruita where tech companies could have nuclear power reactors to run AI and have no federal jurisdiction. This is the kind of stuff that I think is Scary.
Jessica Turner
00:34:30.310 - 00:35:36.050
It doesn't solicit confidence.
I totally agree 100% on all the things, and I'm not saying that everyone was a good actor, but I do think as we've done really deep rural development work in communities, recreation economies need. Need is need to focus on housing and. And we got to figure that out. Right. So if we say recreation is the solution and.
And you're, you know, communities are veering away from extraction and either supplanting or supplementing with recreation economies, well, we're no better than any other, you know, industry.
If we're going to move out million, you know, hunt thousands of people who have lived there forever, if they're going to be priced out, if we're going to have workers traveling two hours to get to wherever they work. So I want to be better. Right. And I think that's the interest in continuing to have these conversations.
And also, we just set a pretty big line in the sand, that the proposals we've seen are a no go, a hard no go, and that we have to be a lot smarter and more specific and thoughtful going forward.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:35:36.770 - 00:35:49.270
Yeah.
Because I think the people who do live in rural communities want their public land where they hunt, where they've been with their families for years and years. And the people moving in. The people moving in obviously want that land too. Right.
Jessica Turner
00:35:49.270 - 00:36:01.070
So that's the economic benefit. Right? Right. Yeah. That's what drives them. So we are. We're fully on. Save our public land, do not sell it. And we're fully on. But the. But there's.
There's a housing issue to work on.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:36:02.030 - 00:37:00.390
Yeah. And I think that's maybe something that might have surprised some of these more conservative lawmakers. Right.
That, you know, I think there's been a huge shift, especially post Covid right in. And we all experience it. Right. When you try to go camping, you need a reservation that you haven't made six months in advance.
You know, Zion National Park, I was there last summer and, you know, did the Narrows, which I'd done 30 years before pretty much on my own. And there was just a, you know, pilgrimage of hundreds of people doing it. Right.
Five million people went to Zion, I think, last year or something like that. All these. And, you know, that puts pressure, as you said, on BLM lands.
It's like, well, we can't, you know, we have to find new places to be able to just recreate sort of casually. Right. There's so much pressure and there's so much love for these public lands.
And that's changed so Much recently that I think that might be a surprise to some of these lawmakers who are more used to being able to do whatever they wanted to do out there. Right?
Jessica Turner
00:37:01.110 - 00:38:29.600
Yeah. And I think too, like what you just mentioned, like the aspirational piece this came up from one of my members in the motorized side.
But I was like, why are you guys against it? You know, I'm just trying to understand because a lot of, you know, our recreation assets were at risk. Right. When you.
When you look at some of the maps, the maps that we were looking at, and. But I. But at this one group, I thought, man, I don't really see a ton of your specific places at risk. Like, what's.
And they were like, we're growing and we want to grow. And we were aspirational. We think that land might not have a place right now for our recreation activity, but it could in five years, it could in 10.
I mean, that's the beauty of BLM land. A lot of it isn't, you know, designed in a way that it's just one use or it's just for something.
I mean, some of these places could be the next awesome campsite, the next epic mountain bike, you know, trail, the next, you know, amazing water, you know, community opportunity for fishing and boating. So that was a cool way to think about it too, is like, the public lands are all of ours. A not just.
Just one person from one state to make a decision on their own state. And, gosh, if we knew 50 years ago what we know now about recreation, we would have been protecting a lot more land for recreation.
We wouldn't do any lot more.
So now that we have that vision and we know what recreation does to people and economies and quality of life, let's not let any of that get taken away, because really, we're going to need all this if we're trending. If these trend lines continue, we're going to need these people places.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:38:30.880 - 00:38:46.240
Yeah.
And then at the same time, all that pressure, I think, as you're getting to on the other side, makes these communities that have been there for a long time, people who've worked hard, maybe in extractive industries, maybe somewhere else, it's squeezing people out of their traditional communities.
Jessica Turner
00:38:46.960 - 00:40:54.720
Yep. Well, they see it as tourism.
And I think what our rural development work has done is, yes, of course, recreation has traditionally been that tourist economy, but in so many towns now, you've mentioned in Bentonville, Salida Fruta, Farmington, New Mexico. You know, Harpers Ferry, like, New River Gorge area now, this is where people are living and working. It's a recruitment and retention strategy.
And that is what we need to do more. And that takes. That's longer and more complicated work. But like if you're out in Livingston, Montana, right, It's.
There's tech companies and healthcare companies like you've never seen, some of the biggest in the country. And it's because their CEOs and founders wanted to live, you know, nearby Bozeman in Montana.
And then they brought their hundreds of workers with them and all that economic value. That's not a tourist economy.
That's not where you're going when you're doing like the Mighty Five or your big park, you know, trips with your parents. That is a recreation economy. That is there because businesses are there and people.
It's the number one recruitment for young people to Utah to live and work in Utah. It's not family values. That's number two. Recreation is number one. And so you're, you're seeing this real, I think, redesign.
I think it's happening organically and we're trying very hard to make it happen. We're giving grants, we're working with, you know, rural development. We're passing new laws and farm bill to help the infrastructure of it.
But really, like, there's authentic recreation economies coming to be, and they're based on where people want to live, work and play. And I think that will, that will help.
That will help, you know, I think mend that divide that you just spoke about that's real in so many communities, is that there's this recreation economy coming into this tradition, traditional, maybe extractive community, taking all the housing, taking all the, you know, opportunities, transforming it into something that's maybe more seasonal. That, that isn't welcomed. Right. And I've seen that dissipate, especially because of COVID because now you.
A lot of people can work wherever they want, live wherever they want. You know, the workforce has dispersed. And so there's.
There's a realignment that I don't even think the members of Congress have totally caught up with yet. That's happening that we should all capture.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:40:55.990 - 00:41:15.590
Yeah.
And I mean, and that seems what we said to get said before, like, it seems like there's actually a place where both sides could maybe get together and, and if they worked for solutions instead of just political screaming, they could find ways to build better communities in these, you know, around public lands.
Jessica Turner
00:41:15.990 - 00:44:08.120
You know, we have this program. It was actually designed by an Obama political who a lot of people know was carried out and implemented. It was the end of the Biden administration.
So they kind of waited and implemented it with the politicals under the Trump. First Trump administration, Biden carried it over. Now Trump too is carrying it over.
And it's called the Rural Recreation Economies and Rural Communities Program. It's an amazing partnership between epa, usda, Forest Service and Appalachia and all the rural commissions.
And they ask communities who want to make an effective transition to a recreation economy, like, who's thinking about recreation? There have to be sort of a underserved rural community with not a lot of infrastructure money.
And out of like 300 applicants, they only had funding for like 10. Right. So 300 communities have raised their hand pretty much every cohort and said, we want to be a recreation economy.
But the 10 that get funded, all of these agency and consultants go in for weeks and into the community and help them design a real authentic who do you want to be? What do you want to look like? Because, you know, they don't want to be a Moab. You know, they don't want to be a. They don't want to be a Boulder.
And what do you want to be? What do you want to look like? What does it take? And then ORR has been able to come in and fund some of those implementation plans and with grants.
And it's just this beautiful thing that's happening around the country. We're now in our third cohort, you know, through every administration, and it's real work.
And it's so amazing to see, you know, do the top line work that we've been doing, obviously the past couple of weeks with the sell off, but then the real community work that puts it all into action, you know, that these policies really do impact these communities and these communities need the support and like, more things like that.
If we could go and fund every community that's asking to be a recreation economy, I think there'd be so much less of this because they'd be developing thoughtfully with the widespread support of, you know, hopefully many members of the community that have different backgrounds.
And then, you know, our implementation grants have allowed them to unlock, you know, millions in federal and state and, you know, other funding because they see that the private sector is involved. We just did some in rural North Carolina, Tennessee, the communities that got hit by the hurricane to help grow back their recreation economies.
Because they told Secretary Rollins when she was down there asking the Asheville area, what do you need? And they were like, we need to get people on our rivers, people on our trails. That is what we need. And so we've been able to fund some of this.
So that's the hopeful, amazing side of some of the political stuff that's happening is these are real people in real places we're talking about.
If you haven't been there and talked to them, you probably shouldn't be weighing in on either crafting legislation that could really hurt them, like maybe the Senator Lee bill or going against legislation that maybe is more pragmatic down the road. And I'm hopeful that we can get there.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:44:08.440 - 00:44:25.900
Now, here's one thing that we use a lot right in the outdoor community, outdoor recreation community. Especially as we talk about the $1.2 trillion outdoor recreation community number. How confident are you in that number? What, what is it?
Where does it come from? Is it real?
Jessica Turner
00:44:26.540 - 00:47:58.420
I'm not confident at all. I think it totally undermines and undervalues us. I, I, you know, so Bea does a beautiful job. We are in lockstep with Department of Commerce on this.
ORR sort of fields this work and gets it funded every year. It is under threat.
So like if there's a to do out of this, everyone needs to go to their appropriators and say we need to fund the Bureau of Economic Analysis that does these accounts. I've heard that they're going rid of accounts. This is, this is so valuable. This has put us on the map as an industry.
It literally is the reason why we can stand up with this voice that we've had over the past couple weeks and be heard legitimately.
Because when I was at oia, I don't know, a decade ago, as like their first full time lobbyist for the industry for Outdoor Rec, I would use our OIA numbers, which were awesome, like really probably the gold standard at that point. And I'll never forget a Republican senator saying, yeah, but those are industry numbers. Those aren't real.
And I said, well then why don't you count them? And then we crafted a bill together and we got it passed. And it's that now the federal government counts us as a unique sector of the economy.
So whenever you're going somewhere and you say, oh, it's the recreation economy and someone's looking at you like that's just a nice to have. You're like, no, this is an actual need to have that's counted by the federal government. It is so important. This is our next battle.
This is truly scares me a lot that we, that we could go without these numbers that we've relied on for six years, years. But what's fascinating about these numbers and where I think we're under counting is they don't count what private industry counts.
When we do our own accounting, they don't count the anything that's happening overseas. Right. Because it's the American gdp. And so, for instance, in the OA report, we would count the entirety of a bike. Right.
That should all be included because even though the bike is being assembled abroad, like all of those parts, everything that goes into the bike is what controls, contributes to you riding a bike here. Plus it's usually an American company, right? So like it's an American company, it's maybe assembled overseas. Come back.
BEA is only accounting for the difference between the price that it was taken to assemble and then the cost that the retailer sells it at, because that's all that stays in America. That's the only. So honestly, they could be for a $2,000 bike, they can only be looking at 300 or $400.
Whereas if you're a private industry accounting for your value, of course you're looking at the $2,000 bike. It's a $2,000 bike. So we are A, undercounted in that very kind of specific area that you may cut out because it's like getting very wonky.
But B, you know, of course we're not evaluating the bigger picture of real estate value, clean air, clean water, quality of life. And I don't think we should. I think we want these numbers to remain like, legitimate and for them to be direct output.
But at some point you got to say, hey, I live here and my house is, is more expensive and I'm contributing more taxes because I have access to park or trails or water, you know, or my health care costs are down because I get out and hike every day and I'm around trees. So no. 1.2 trillion is the, is a low ball number.
I think for all of those reasons, I also think it's the best we're going to get and I'm pretty happy with it. So we got to keep making sure we get those numbers. And you know what? I don't know. That will be 1.2 trillion, you know, in the next couple of years.
We've had some headwinds and trade is a huge one.
And so it'd be really nice to have government data tracking what's, what's happening in our industry because I think we're, I think, I think it's really changed over the past, you know, six to seven months.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:48:00.020 - 00:48:00.820
In what way?
Jessica Turner
00:48:03.060 - 00:48:41.460
I think with, I think with coming back from the COVID slump, we had more headwinds so we didn't have the turnaround that I think think we all thought we'd have. Obviously everyone buying their products at the same time. Not buying, not needing them. And then the trade. I mean, we've seen businesses.
I don't think there's enough reporting on it that are close to shuttering their doors. Have shuttered their doors. We're laying off people. We're not hiring. We're not investing in the innovation we have.
Even the conservation we've invested in. Traditionally, there's very little margin for error and that's across the entire recreation economy. That's every sector.
So having government data track that now and into the future is. Is just important. It's really important.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:48:42.500 - 00:48:44.980
And you say that office is in danger of being cut.
Jessica Turner
00:48:46.020 - 00:49:12.010
Yeah, that counts. Are all of the Bureau of Economic Analysis satellite accounts, which is where we live, is in danger of not moving forward. So I don't know.
The action is on that. We're obviously meeting with a lot of members. There was probably a broader action.
Again, we don't really speak to the public, but whoever does and is paying attention, I think there's going to be a real need for us to speak up on this issue. And it might come down to a call with the agencies.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:49:12.890 - 00:49:16.850
That's great to know because I've heard nothing of that before and I'm sure most people listening.
Jessica Turner
00:49:16.850 - 00:49:23.050
That's kind of new from last week. A lot of stuff got lost last week when we were fighting this. Senator Lebo.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:49:24.330 - 00:49:58.810
Well, let's talk a little bit more about some of the other wins that I think you've been a big part of and experienced. The Great American Outdoors act, which was actually passed by during the first Trump administration.
The Explore act, passed during the Biden administration. You know, these are really big, important acts. You know, how did we find agreement here on both sides of the political aisle?
And also, you know, how would these acts continue to help, you know, protect and encourage outdoor recreation?
Jessica Turner
00:49:59.210 - 00:52:25.360
So, you know, I think ORR coming together has had a lot of impact on these.
So when we're going in and we're saying all of these user communities or all these activity groups in recreation agree on this and you won't get one that's going to push back. It creates a very nice padding for a member of Congress to support infrastructure on access are why we were formed.
Everyone in our entire recreation economy agrees we should have good infrastructure and good access. And so GAOA was the Infrastructure Access Bill. It was really cool.
It used to be just parks and we Brought in Fish and Wildlife Service, BLM and Forest Service. And with that came a ton of other members of Congress. Right.
That didn't have parks in their district, but they had fish and wildlife refuges or they had national forests. So I think that, you know, the big ten is always the better ten. And so we've been able to do that with all of these things.
Helps that some of these didn't come from taxpayer dollars. Right. We're not always creating new taxes or new opportunity that the Great Outdoors act had to offset.
Explore didn't have to come with funding, I think. I think it's also building those relationships. We've expanded our champions.
You know, we had a whip count, a secret whip count on what the vote would look like if we did have to run an amendment against the Lee bill. And you would be shocked. Like, I was floored at the support we would have had for that. So.
And that comes from building members into, you know, champions for Great American Outdoors Act. Okay, well, now do Explore. Okay. And now do, you know, you know, now you can, you know, hear us on our lands and issues.
I love that we always say thank you. You know, after Explore, members of Congress called me and said, I've never been thanked for a bill in my entire life.
Usually groups are like, okay, we did that. Now here's the next fight. Here's the next fight. Like, the recreation community is pretty amazing.
Like, we're pretty grateful when we get something done. And it's usually a place that. That people can celebrate for a long time. They're still celebrating. Great American Outdoors Act.
Every member who voted yes to that can still go to their community and say, here are the projects. Here's the money. Here's what's happened, and that's gonna help us in our next rounds. We're trying to get it reauthorized next year for the 250th.
That's gonna really help us because we can go back and say, hey, thank you. You did this. It was awesome. Do it again. So it's been amazing wins.
Even though it might not feel like that on a daily basis with the headwinds I've mentioned, it's been amazing wins, and I do think this win last week is like another building block, right, For. For more to come, we just have to harness it in the right way.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:52:25.840 - 00:52:35.600
What would be your kind of dream scenario for the next step, then? Building on Great American Outdoors Act. Building on Explore. Act, building on this. This recent win and stopping this public land sell off.
Jessica Turner
00:52:36.560 - 00:54:05.730
Oh, gosh, I Haven't had time to think of this. A great question. I don't, I think it's, I think it's these.
Maybe it feels like smaller things, but it's like getting the right funding, getting the right infrastructure, getting the right smaller things for rural communities and workforce. You know, maybe, maybe some of the like things that feel harder and like they are more complicated. But we've got this great support now.
And of course it's not. I mean the win that we got this week was actually just status quo, right. So I think we need to get back to actually winning. Let's call it a win.
I think everyone should take credit for it. That's great. But we just protected what we already have today that we shouldn't have even had to protect. Right?
So when can we start stepping forward again? And I think that's what the past, you know, I think for a lot of us, the past couple years even have felt like.
We're fighting cuts, we're fighting, and this is even before the Trump administration, fighting cuts on federal lands, fighting climate change impacts, fighting all these things, the threat of tariffs. I would love to get to a point where we're actually making new cuts, gains, like new things explore was new.
And that secretary order we got last week was new.
So those feel new and forward thinking, but just fending off things that, you know, shouldn't be happening anyway that are already, you know, current law. What a, what a waste of energy, right? So we got to get out of that space. We got to get out of the defense space.
We got to get into the proactive, like offense.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:54:06.610 - 00:54:17.290
And what do you think for, you know, for people listening, what is the best way for them to be involved in a lot of this very complicated political maneuvering?
Jessica Turner
00:54:17.610 - 00:57:17.270
I think stain, I think paying attention and really paying attention. Check your sources, make sure you're getting the right information, be involved locally.
And then I think there's just these bigger plays, the connecting recreation that maybe not everyone feels as connected to as we do and probably the people that listen to this, but the next frontier is health. Health AI.
I mean there's all these huge national issues coming at and like, I think recreation is a major player in all of those and we're just not connecting that dot. We're not great at like aligning with the cool national or the big national conversation. Right. We're like in our bubble on public lands.
Well, how, how does public lands and what we just did connect to our health crisis? Well, I mean, it's huge, right?
Like nature and getting Outside and being able to have those experiences is a health benefit and it should be seen that way.
And we actually, actually had legislation in reconciliation, it got stripped that would have connected your HSA FSA dollars to like everything you could do outside and all of your outdoor products. So let's move that now. You know, like, let's move that.
I mean, let's buy our ski equipment, our hiking equipment, our helmets, let's buy them, which are with our HSA FSA account. Because it's a medical expense, it's a preventative medical expense.
Not just on the physical side, but on the mental side, like, this is where we need to be heading and thinking and working and talking.
And I think the more people that connect lands to these other bigger conversations, like, oh, yeah, you're worried about health and you're worried about medical costs and you're worried about the mental health crisis and you're worried about kids in digital access, like, what about nature? So there's definitely something there. And we're doing a huge health forum next year on that.
We're also doing a tech and innovation forum in a couple of months that's bringing in the best and the brightest in our outdoor tech companies to help agencies think a little bit differently. Like to what you said, 5 million people in Zion, the narrow's crowded. That doesn't have to be the way forward.
And it doesn't necessarily have to be permits and reservations that fixes that. It's like better data and real time data and visitors making the decision on the experience they want to have.
I would see like a bunch of red blobs in the narrows, right? As in a heat map, and say, hell no, I'm going somewhere else, right? But someone might say, that's the experience I want. I don't want to be alone.
I don't know what I'm doing. This is my first time. And they will have a great experience if they know that.
If they know the line is two hours long and the kid's ipod is like charged and their snacks cool. But I want to know where am I going to have the type of experience I want to have? And if it's not there, where else? Send me somewhere else.
Show me the adjacent blm, show me the adjacent state parklands, show me the adjacent county lands, and then tell me what I can do when I'm there. And this is all like 2025, easy peasy, right? But it's not happening. And instead we have antiquated systems that don't talk to each other.
That are making decisions that affect a ton of people and a ton of businesses and a ton of communities. And I think data solves a ton of this. So we're really excited about that conversation in a couple months.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:57:17.910 - 00:57:34.760
Well, unfortunately we're starting to wind down. So one thing I'd like you to let everyone know is how they can get in touch with you.
How can they learn more about the work that Orr does and how they can get involved in some way if they want to.
Jessica Turner
00:57:36.120 - 00:59:29.710
Yeah. Outdoor recreationroundtable.org, we have a ton of great resources. We have an awesome team.
We focus a lot of our day and just making sure the recreation economy is successful and it grows and more people can access it. Get outside no matter what your activity. So anything you do outside is something we support.
We work more with businesses so helping your businesses, buying your products, going to your local retailer of any sort is an awesome way. We'd love to hear feedback though from communities especially.
We work a lot with agencies, agency folks on the ground and I know they're really interested and I would say follow, follow some of the resources we put out. We have an amazing rural economic develop toolkit. We have a workforce resource for people having, you know, an outdoor related careers.
We're obviously doing this tech and innovation side which I think is going to be of interest a lot of people. We've got the new healthcare webinar series rolling out with some really interesting healthcare topics as it relates to outdoor rec.
So some of those are available to the public. But I'd say in general get outside. Every time you get outside you are driving a local community. I mean you're helping.
These are real jobs, these are real communities and so fun to see this industry come together the way it has. And I just hope there's more of that of like centering on the land, not what divides us, but like what brings us together.
And clearly America's lands and waters bring us together. I think we're going to hear some interesting announcements this week from the president like at the national level on these things.
We obviously had the one from the secretary last week on our explorer Secretary order. So we are breaking in the national dialogue and I think that's a really good thing more to come. We're an A list industry.
I like to say now we were like an A minus B plus when I got into it. Now I feel like we're like a industry. People know who we are.
Doug Schnitzspahn
00:59:30.750 - 00:59:44.710
Well, thanks to people like you. I think you've done so much incredible work and finally and I'm extremely curious to hear your answer on this.
I'll give you the last question we give everyone on this podcast and that is simply what gives you hope.
Jessica Turner
00:59:45.990 - 01:01:00.780
My team gives me hope of amazing professionals who work tirelessly on these issues. Tirelessly and thanklessly. Right.
We're not a big publicly facing, so that is amazing to see people just behind the scenes grinding and grinding, like really complicated issues. Our members are trade assist. Trade associations are just the coolest things in the world that very few people interact with.
I think they do a lot of, a lot of the work for keeping all of us on the map here.
And I would say the past week, like the responses to some of the dialogue, the thoughtfulness, people wanting to know more, they want to know the nitty gritty. And then my kids, when they are not outside, we are a different family. So when they are outside, we sleep, we are happy, we are awesome, we eat well.
And I see it every day. I'm like, God, everyone's got to get outside every, every day.
So my kids give me hope that, you know, that we got to look at the kids, what drives them. It's like, God, if they're in nature, we have like zero issues, sibling fights, everything's gravy.
The second we get inside, you know, all hell breaks loose. So let's keep watching those kids and learning from them.
Doug Schnitzspahn
01:01:01.980 - 01:01:06.380
Love that. Everyone's got to get outside every day. I think that should be on your desk.
Jessica Turner
01:01:06.460 - 01:01:09.180
Yeah. As I sit inside all day.
Doug Schnitzspahn
01:01:09.660 - 01:01:12.600
You're going to get outside. I think you're going to get outside today after seeing it.
Jessica Turner
01:01:12.600 - 01:01:13.560
I got my run in this morning.
Doug Schnitzspahn
01:01:13.560 - 01:01:25.760
I'm good. There you go. There you are. Well, I can't thank you enough for being on and getting into some of these deep issues and really how everything works.
And I'm excited for the next time we have you on Open Container and talk again.
Jessica Turner
01:01:26.560 - 01:01:31.440
Thanks for being so thoughtful and for what you do. A lot of fun people on here. So happy to be part of it.
Doug Schnitzspahn
01:01:32.640 - 01:01:59.530
Thanks for imbibing Open Container, a production of Rock Fight llc.
Please take a second to follow our show on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on and send your emails and feedback to myrockfight gmail.com learn more about outdoor recreation roundtable@recreationroundtable.org our producers today were David Carsad and Colin True. Art direction provided by Sarah Genser. I'm Doug Schnitzbahn. Get some. Thanks for listening.
