It can feel like every week there’s a new emergency, a new deadline, a new fight. That’s not an accident.

Rebecca Gillis — Vice President of Government Affairs and Advocacy at The Conservation Alliance — joins me to decode what’s actually happening: how executive orders drive agency actions, how the Congressional Review Act is being used in ways we’ve never seen before, what budget reconciliation really means for public lands, and why things seem to go quiet and then explode out of nowhere.

Rebecca lives in this space every day. Talking to her is the antidote to the overwhelm — because once you understand the strategy, you can start to fight it.

A note from Missy: I’ve been asking people to sign things, call things, fight things — and I realized I didn’t fully understand the system behind all of it. This episode is for everyone who feels the same way. And as Rebecca said, “Keep going outside. That’s our protest. That’s our prescription.” So after you listen to this one — go outside.

E85 - Website

Episode Guest

Rebecca Gillis — VP of Government Affairs and Advocacy

The Conservation Alliance

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Show Notes & Links

Transcript

Understanding the Strategy Behind the Chaos
The Parks Podcast, Episode 85 | Rebecca Gillis, VP of Government Affairs and Advocacy, The Conservation Alliance

It can feel like every week there’s a new emergency, a new deadline, a new thing to fight for. That’s not an accident. Today, we’re gonna explore the strategy behind the chaos — what executive orders actually do, how the Congressional Review Act is being used in ways we’ve never seen before, and what we can do about it. I’m your host, Missy Rentz, and this is The Parks Podcast.

Welcome and Why This Episode Is Different

Missy Rentz: I’m so excited to welcome Rebecca Gillis to The Parks Podcast. Rebecca is the Vice President of Government Affairs and Advocacy at The Conservation Alliance. Rebecca, welcome to The Parks Podcast.

Rebecca Gillis: Thank you so much for having me, and thanks for all you do with the pod.

Missy: Thank you. Oh gosh, and I am so grateful to you and the entire team at The Conservation Alliance because you help educate me and so many organizations around the country, and you keep us on top of things. I’m thrilled that you were willing to do this episode because it’s a little different from a traditional podcast episode, and it all stemmed from my desire — our conversation about other people may have the desire — to better understand the regulatory process. We’re constantly asking people to do things and all of these things are happening. But I don’t really understand what it should look like and where our challenges are. So that’s what we’re gonna dive into today, and we’re gonna make it as exciting as we possibly can for everybody listening.

Rebecca: Can’t wait.

Missy: Yeah. You live in this space, so you’re the perfect person to talk to. So since this administration came into office, my social feeds have just been slammed. I obviously picked it up and started doing a lot of content around it. But what is going on with administrative actions, congressional actions, executive orders? What is the process? What’s going on, and what should this look like?

Executive Orders — The Nucleus of Everything

Rebecca: Yeah. Thank you for that question, Missy, and please don’t be hard on yourself about tracking all of these things. It’s a lot. We’re sitting in unprecedented times, which I say over and over again, and I’m sick of saying, but it’s good you’re asking this question and to practice curiosity about what the heck’s happening. So I’m gonna start with executive orders because literally everything the last 18 months has been really driven by this nucleus of executive orders that I believe we saw around January 21st, 2025. So those executive orders were signed by the current president, and he used those orders to make it clear where he wanted all of the policy that happened during his presidency to go. So we’re talking energy dominance executive orders, extremely deregulatory executive orders saying cut through all the agency and bureaucratic red tape — and then a lot of orders that are very specific to places like Alaska specifically. The point of those executive orders was really to drive everything that happens at the agency level within his cabinet and beyond. So those executive orders — massive deregulation, energy dominance — have driven everything that we see at the Department of the Interior, the US Department of Agriculture, and beyond. And then also, Congress has hopped on this too because we have a Republican majority Congress that wants to make their president happy. There’s nothing new about that, but so much of their work is also focused on his stated policy goals of these executive orders.

Rebecca: So I just wanna give you a quick example. If you look at the roadless rescission on the Federal Register — because that’s what we all enjoy doing with our free time —

Missy: Right.

Rebecca: — you’ll see that the USDA cited several executive orders that they used to justify this rescission and their proposed rule to roll back protections across 45 million acres of our national forest. So unleashing prosperity through deregulation, expansion of timber production, unleashing American energy, unleashing Alaska’s extraordinary resource potential, and a very particular EO around the Tongass. So as you can see, there’s a direct red line between the executive orders, agency actions, and even congressional actions as well.

What Deregulation Actually Means Right Now

Missy: So you brought up deregulation. Is deregulation another phrase for no regulation or breaking the rules? Am I right in how I understand that?

Rebecca: In a normal time, yes — a deregulation would say, “Let’s cut bureaucracy. Let’s cut government oversight in very specific areas.” It could cross across any policy decision. However, you bring up an interesting point, and I think this is where your brain is going. We’re seeing deregulation in a way that deeply favors certain corporate players in public lands. So not only are they deregulating and trying to roll back NEPA requirements — the National Environmental Policy Act — or not following FLPMA procedure when the public is supposed to be able to provide feedback on this stuff. We’re seeing something go even further: deregulation in favor of mining companies, oil companies, and these other big players — and the system rebuilt to favor them. So it’s almost one step further than deregulation into a different kind of economy that our nation probably hasn’t seen since World War II in the way that it favors corporate power. Of course, in World War II, we were doing that in order to support the war effort. But it’s different. It’s different this time.

Missy: Yeah, and I feel like as I listen to you and start to kind of put pieces together — it’s removing obstacles to get things done, but then it’s also been when there is still a process that is supposed to happen, just move ahead. It’s like this apologize-later sort of approach, and that’s new. That’s not the way we work. And maybe there are pros and cons to looking at the system, but we’re just forgetting the system altogether.

Rebecca: We’re forgetting the system altogether. We are forgetting — to your point — the role of due diligence in these processes. We’re seeing a direct kind of circumvention of any roadblocks for carrying out these policies that are being driven by these executive orders.

Missy: And there are systems in place because we just actually did an episode with your colleague on the roadless rule, and we were talking about how there’s this decision that they want to rescind the roadless rule, but there’s no budget for the roads. So there’s not even internal checks and balances in the system that they’re doing right now to make sure that everything’s aligned and these things can actually happen.

Rebecca: Taking that even further — the roadless rule is a specific example where we cannot see in a bigger way who came to the administration and said, “Do this EO on timber production.” Inherently, we would think, okay, larger businesses, anybody involved in the supply chain of timbering. But industry itself is not in a place to accept the scaling up, and they’re not in a place to really take advantage of these massive deregulations. So it’s also confusing on that end. It’s just the perpetuation of a system that really held court in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s that is not — not even industry’s asking for it. Industry also needs predictability. They need to know the rules. They need to know the bounds. And all the bounds, everything’s off the table right now. No one has any idea of what the future looks like here.

Missy: And one of the things I think — and I want you to please correct me if I’m wrong on this one — there is a process for challenging. And I think that advocates are not saying “Don’t challenge.” Make us think, make us really realize that the decisions that we’re making are right for our public lands and for our nation, but go through the process and the due diligence to make sure that they’re the right decision. And I feel like that is — at least for me — that’s what gets me very angsty. We should have a 90-day comment period. You’re putting it in 10, and really the decision’s already been made. You wanna change something, okay, let’s go through the process and make sure it’s the right thing for the American people.

Rebecca: Agreed 100%. There is so much room for innovation in our public lands management sphere. I myself wanna devote my entire career to this, and there are so many good ideas floating out there on both sides of the aisle, non-ideological. Let’s do this. Let’s think hard. That is what America is about — innovation and smart minds, and us respectfully coming to one another and saying, “I think we could do it better.” But there’s no interest in having a dialogue here. It’s simply a monologue at this point.

Missy: Yeah. That’s just something that every time something comes up — okay, just do it right. Let’s do it right.

Congressional Actions — Oversight, the CRA, and Budget Reconciliation

Missy: Okay. There are a lot of other actions that could, if we were running in a normal cycle, happen — including congressional actions. What are those?

Rebecca: Yeah. So on the congressional side, in a normal time we would see kind of oversight of the agencies. But back in the old days, if a party was in power and even had all branches of government, we would still be able to move through the oversight process where the House in particular could be saying, and Senate, “What are you doing, Chairman Lee?” Or “What are you doing, Secretary Rollins, and why, and can you explain this to us?” However, that oversight isn’t happening unfortunately. So right now what we’re watching, especially at the committee level, is quite partisan domineering over everyday business of Congress, which is frustrating. We have so many bipartisan public lands bills that have been on the docket for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee since this Congress started, and the chairman over there is just unwilling to engage in that kind of proactive collaboration. We see the same thing on the House side with House Natural Resources, and it’s worrisome because public lands and those committees used to be the places where a lot of bipartisan action happened.

Rebecca: I really do wanna highlight some other aberrations we’re seeing in this Congress — and that’s really the use of the Congressional Review Act in a new and particularly troublesome way. This has been around since the Clinton era, I believe, and it’s usually used in a highly bureaucratic environment to change a rule that has been passed by a prior administration in a certain amount of time. It has been turned on its head, and it has been the vehicle of some of the most pernicious attacks on our public lands so far this Congress, including Boundary Waters and an attempt at rolling back the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument resource management plan. So we’re seeing these new tools emerge. I also just wanna point out budget reconciliation. We all saw the sell-off attempt last May or June. We saw how the community came together when an amendment was put on that budget reconciliation tool that only requires a simple majority vote to pass it through. We’re seeing that this will likely come down the pipe again, or at least it’s going to be invested in heavily, probably into the lame duck for the rest of the year. Again, these are things that we have not seen used the way they’ve been used in the past, and we’ve not been ready for it at first. But I think our community’s starting to get smart and respond a little better to these actions.

Missy: So unprecedented, but legal?

Rebecca: Legal in the fact that this administration’s legal apparatus says it’s legal. Especially in the view of the CRA — the Congressional Review Act — something called the Government Accountability Office has to decide if a policy is a rule and whether it is applicable to have the CRA used upon it. And the GAO itself has made some calls that we’ve just never seen before, but they are the body that makes that decision. With budget reconciliation, we saw that whole process. There’s a nerdy thing called the Byrd Bath that kind of delineates what’s allowed in budget reconciliation versus what’s not. And we saw a lot of conversation the last two budget reconciliations about whether or not the administration or Congress was going to move to remove the nonpartisan parliamentarian who makes those decisions. And so it’s just a really interesting time, to say the least.

Missy: I don’t know that in my lifetime has this happened, but historically when an administration takes such liberties, there usually is a rebalancing — with new laws, new restrictions that come into place? Or does the other side go, “Well, these might benefit us next time, so maybe we don’t wanna do it”? And are we just in a vicious cycle of this stuff happening over and over again?

Rebecca: It’s such a smart question. With the CRA — the Congressional Review Act — specifically, there are two things I wanna point out. Number one, use of the CRA explicitly states that a policy or a rule, if they’ve deemed it a rule, cannot look substantially similar in the future. So if something is CRA’d and we like it — think Boundary Waters or the Central Yukon planning area up in Alaska — if the next administration came in and tried to redo that resource management plan, it cannot look substantially similar to the first one. And so yes, we can move and re-protect these areas, but it can’t look the way it needed to look based on the initial protection effort that was backed by science, public input, precedent, and legality. So to your point, I will say there’s a lot of talk in the Democratic Party about how are we going to use the CRA tool when we have the majority? How are we going to look at this tool moving into the future? Do we draft legislation to amend the CRA? What do we do to figure this out? Which puts us back on that sort of ping-pong table unfortunately.

Missy: Yeah, it seems like wasted energy. It seems like elected officials could be more productive focused on other things that impact us.

Flood the Zone — The Strategy Behind the Chaos

Missy: You’ve talked a lot about what’s going on and what’s really causing the chaos. I was thinking — in the past week, I have asked people to sign for two different things, and I’m sitting here thinking, “How do I build urgency and explain what’s going on?” The chaos part of it. It’s there are so many projects flying off of executive orders that I think maybe — they want us to think it’s chaotic. Is that true?

Rebecca: It is the flood the zone technique in a big way.

Missy: Okay. Are they — do you feel, because I feel like in working with organizations like you and others, you all are getting your arms wrapped around it, and whenever I talk to you, I feel like, “Okay. We’re good. They’ve got it.”

Rebecca: I’m glad you feel that way. That makes me feel good. Look, I think you talked about this already with the roadless rule. Okay, you’re gonna roll back the roadless rule. You propose that you wanna do landscape level management unit by unit in place of the roadless rule. Where are the field staff that are gonna do that landscape level management? Where’s all the budget that requires landscape level management? What’s gonna happen here? So I will say the one thing that kind of allows me to fall asleep at night without worrying and ruminating on all this stuff is — they’re rolling things back left and right. Do they have the people power in order to pull this off while we hedge our bets and fight a legal fight, and hope that they don’t break ground sooner than we can win in court or things change on the electoral map?

Can It Be Stopped?

Missy: Yeah. Very good point. So can it be stopped? Can any of this be stopped?

Rebecca: I think we are starting to see that a few of our leaders in Congress are starting to pay attention to the public sentiment. A lot of folks look to the sell-off fight that we all fought in the first budget reconciliation in early summer 2025. Our community gathered and we said, “No, this is not gonna work for us.” And I know that for a fact that many of our elected officials on both sides of the aisle saw this tidal wave of unlikely partners and allies across the conservation and rec and even motorized space get together and say, “Heck, no.” So I think once we get through midterms, we’ll be in a different landscape that allows us to talk to a lot of new elected officials who are gonna be in Congress that we’ve never seen their faces before, and it’s our job to go in and educate them on making good decisions. And then on the other hand, at the congressional level, I think just continually reaching out. I know it’s exhausting, but letting them know you as a constituent are not okay with their decisions, not okay with their apathy, is so important. That pressure has to go somewhere. They need to listen to their constituents. It can be stopped. We’re seeing it in Texas right now with Big Bend — it can be stopped.

Missy: I love that you said we should keep calling and keep making that noise, because I’m exhausted from it, and I think other people are, and there are a lot of people I’ve heard say, “My voice doesn’t matter. My one phone call, my one email — that doesn’t matter.” But everybody — even Senator Kaine, who was on the podcast — said, “It matters. It makes a difference. We listen to that.” I’m gonna call it a squeaky wheel. Nobody else has called it a squeaky wheel, but we listen to that.

Rebecca: They do. And my main goal in life is for a lot of the natural resources and energy staffers across every Senate office in the United States to know who I am by first name — or to know who my business members are by first name that are in their state. We should be on a first-name basis with these people by the end of this Congress because they’ve heard from us so much. And because we do it respectfully, and we do it in a way that says, “Hey, this is really causing harm” — not in an angry way, not in a threatening way. We show that we are willing partners to come to this table and do democracy together. And that’s my goal — let’s know the email of our public land staffers across the United States and have their cell phone numbers.

Missy: I think the other thing I have heard a couple of times is that certainly I live in Virginia — I have my two senators, I have my representative in my district. However, if your business takes place in other parts of the country, your voice also matters in those areas. Like for me, obviously, this podcast is national. I could call all of them because my voice matters. My business is based off of what happens in their states.

Rebecca: Absolutely. Always take the time to step back and say, “Where the heck do I have constituency via my customers, my vendors, my retailer partners, anybody like that?” You can even do that in your personal life. I often find myself battling my parents’ healthcare issues. They’re in Nebraska, I’m in Colorado. I either write them scripts and get them phone numbers for their senators and congresspeople, or I call them directly and say, “Hey, my mom and dad don’t really have the capacity or understanding about how to call you and tell you what’s going on, but this is happening. Here’s their address, and let’s talk about it.”

Missy: I love that.

What to Expect in the Lame Duck

Missy: What happens during the lame duck? What are the scenarios based off of what happens in November?

Rebecca: Yeah, I think it’s a great question. Lame duck — we consider the day after election day to December 31st. And I could see a world in which if the electoral map looks different and a lot more changes than we expect, I think we can really prepare ourselves for a Congress that’s still Republican-dominated — because we’re still in this Congress — to try to push as many of their priorities through as possible through whatever vehicle or means possible, including that budget reconciliation tool that only requires a simple majority. That budget reconciliation process is fast-moving, and we can stay involved with it step by step, but it is one of the kind of scariest things that I’m looking at that could occur in the lame duck. There’s also an interesting thing of — okay, if the majority party loses one chamber and they see the writing on the wall, are they more likely to be more bipartisan? I don’t know. I could hope. So I’m really interested to see the tone and tenor of the election and how specifically Republican leadership looks at the writing on the wall and how the president, the leader of their party, reacts.

Missy: Okay. So I typically think of lame duck as kind of softballs that take place. So we may need to be prepared to be very active this lame duck — where I’m gonna be going out daily with, “Here’s what you need to sign. Here’s the letter. Here’s the person you need to call.” You may be sending me things more regularly about what actions need to take place. It could be a much more active lame duck than we are used to.

Rebecca: 100%. You put it a lot better than I did. We need to be ready.

Why Issues Go Quiet — Then Explode

Missy: Now, let’s talk about — you brought up Big Bend, and I’m gonna use that as an example for a question I have. There are a lot of things — I’m thinking Big Bend, I’m thinking the roadless rule — but there are some that they’re really busy, and then they go dormant for a little while. And then suddenly they’re either busy and dormant again, or it’s like, “Hey, this is happening, and you have 10 days.” Why does that happen?

Rebecca: That’s a great question, and we touched on it before. The agencies are so understaffed, and they’re trying to do so much. So I think pet projects are a real thing — pet projects of secretaries or of folks at the director level. I think that we see these bursts of energy when someone in leadership, whether it be in Congress or the administration, decides that it’s a pet project and they wanna hit on it — and also when it intersects with another major policy priority of this administration. So Big Bend — immigration enforcement. That’s why it’s been pushed so hard from the administrative level, less so about Big Bend itself or the public lands piece of it. Boundary Waters was couched as a national security issue. Critical minerals — critical minerals and national security are huge pillars of this administration’s priority bucket. And so that’s one kind of explanation about why things are popping up and when. And when they are slowing down, I really do believe it’s because there’s a serious backlog at the agency level, and they just don’t have the time or resources to get things done as quickly as they announce it.

Rebecca: Big Bend — I’m just gonna say electorally, Big Bend is a huge issue as we speak today on Monday, August 31st. So as of today, the hard and soft infrastructure that they were planning through Big Bend and surrounding public lands and private lands has been paused without good explanation from the Department of Homeland Security as to why. One can understand that the Senate race in Texas has just moved from lean Republican to toss-up, and that they have heard a ton of grassroots local opposition to this effort. And I think that this really is — they’re taking a pause because they’re afraid of what’s gonna happen in November. And so we’re watching all of this stuff fluctuate.

Missy: Yeah. In that one there’s a lot of local politics too — there are Republicans that are switching parties over this and saying, “This is not what we want.”

Rebecca: Not what they want at all. And we had gotten a lot of calls at the Conservation Alliance about how national business voices could help with Big Bend. And of course, amplification is huge. But what’s happening with that campaign and those local stakeholders — law enforcement, church leaders, small businesses, ranchers all coming out in opposition to this effort — that is like the powerhouse of a winning campaign. And so although I believe in our community and I believe the outdoor business community matters and we can put our thumb on the scale, the locals are really the ones fighting this, and they’re really the ones that needed to be heard. I cannot think of a campaign that has been so robust in the local opposition.

Missy: Yeah. That’s amazing. And then the Boundary Waters — in this one it was Governor Walz and the Minnesota state political system that is putting a pause to it.

Rebecca: Yes, and it’s fascinating because we watch this kind of interplay between federal governance and state-based rulemaking and laws and the devolution of power from the federal government to the state level government. And at the end of the day, Governor Walz has done all he can at the state level to really push activity to particularly hit on permitting and other requirements at the state level. But really the only thing holding the thread at the federal level that continues to protect that landscape is the Clean Water Act — and so that’s one thing our community really needs to watch out for. But Governor Walz is really leveraging the power of federal law, state law, and public sentiment, and doing the right thing for right now.

Quick Updates — Chaco, Bears Ears, Grand Staircase, Alaska, and Yosemite

Missy: Okay. So we talked about some of the big things that have happened in the past year. Just quickly — Chaco Culture, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, and then a plethora of things happening in Alaska. Any quick updates on those?

Rebecca: Yeah. It seems like Chaco Canyon — that setback will be removed any day now. We had a pathetically short comment period.

Missy: Days. We did an episode as quickly as we could. It was unbelievable.

Rebecca: It’s so unbelievable. I think the good news on the front of Chaco — and I’m knocking on wood right now — is that no development company… I can’t see a world where a company would step up and drill closer to Chaco than that setback, given the potential public backlash and tribal backlash. But that one’s going to court for sure. That is an ancestral homeland. That is such an important place to tribes first and foremost, and it’s illegal.

Missy: Yeah. It’s crazy.

Rebecca: Alaska — I wish I could spend all day talking about Alaska. The big things we’re watching are really around ANWR and drilling up there. A bunch of Endangered Species Act things being softened — we’re seeing a lot of protections for animals like polar bears being eroded, which is devastating. My shop works really closely on something called D-1 lands, 28 million acres in western and central Alaska that are crucial to subsistence for over 100 indigenous tribes, and of course Tongass. So things are moving quickly there.

Missy: I feel like I wanna do an entire episode on Alaska, so maybe we’ll have to work on that because there’s so much happening. And then what about Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante?

Rebecca: Great questions. Bears Ears is probably the most newsworthy right now. We did see the president dissolve that Bears Ears commission via his proclamation. We saw the tribal signage removed from the national monument landscape, which was really devastating. And we are expecting the withdraw to expire and to allow mining companies and other exploration companies to start staking claims and start that process. However, they’re not waiting for that — we’ve seen proof. There’s been some breaking news around some claims already being explored. And then also, unfortunately, we saw some really horrendous certified and verified reporting on insider trading around a uranium-focused extraction company that took place right before the monument proclamations to roll back the boundaries happened. So a lot breaking on that front. Grand Staircase — it’s been a little quieter, but I know a lot of our friends in Congress, a lot of public lands allies, have signed on to a dear colleague letter that Congressman Huffman has been leading. Our job as a community, your listeners, is to keep these two monuments top of mind for our leadership in Congress. And right now there’s not much to be done, but in the future there will be. We just need to not let it disappear into the news cycle.

Missy: Yeah, we’ve gotta keep remembering it. And then the one that broke on Friday — the rumor of the administration wanting to sell or trade land in Yosemite.

Rebecca: Yes. Very much in the spirit of this administration — some late Friday afternoon news that broke. The amount of land in question is very small, but it would have to do with greater right of way and further development directly adjacent to the national park. There is some weird stuff going on about land and water conservation fund dollars being utilized to pay for this transaction between DOI and this private entity. To be honest, in the last 48 hours the reporting hasn’t emerged any deeper than what we had on Friday, so we’re waiting. Our friends in Congress — Congressman Huffman, again — he’s on this, he’s aware of it, and specifically is calling for some oversight on this particular transaction.

Missy: Good. Yeah, man, I was shocked when I heard that. So we’ve talked about what’s done is not done — we need to stay very close to all of these issues because they might pop up again. Thankfully people can go back and listen to episodes and read information to refresh their memory.

The Power of the Outdoor Industry

Missy: Let’s talk for a minute about the power of the outdoor industry. I love this.

Rebecca: I love it too. Little Rebecca 30 years ago would’ve never thought she just gets to work with these companies that have such powerful presences and bring such passion to public lands advocacy. So I have the coolest job in the world. It’s hard, but it’s amazing. Okay, so I love to work with our member companies at the Conservation Alliance to unleash their economic, reputational, and what I call people power. Those are the three core pieces of leverage that I think they really are great at exercising. So economically, we’re a behemoth. Everybody already knows this. Our friends at Outdoor Recreation Roundtable work with some folks in the federal government to measure our outdoor economy annually, and we keep getting bigger and bigger. Over $1.3 trillion this year — which is incredible.

Missy: Huge.

Rebecca: And what people don’t necessarily understand if they don’t work in politics or in government is that once you’re able to measure your economic impact in that way, you can enter into policy making and engagement with the federal government and regulatory issues in a more serious way. So now that we have these numbers and can count our impact, we have standing. We’ve gotten our stuff together. The guys and gals in the garage pulled ourselves together, and we now have the economics to prove it. So economic power, absolutely. Reputational — we are this industry with the power of hearts and minds in a way that no other industry has. So many elected officials on both sides of the aisle just love our brands. We have this crazy reputational power that we exercise, and we’re good guys — the soft power dynamic is a big deal for our industry. And then last but not least, people power — customers, audiences. It’s global. We have this reach that is growing and growing, and again, we leverage it for good.

Missy: Yeah, I love it. And I find any time I’ve been out at protests or meetings or whatever we’re talking — it’s non-political, the people that are there. And there is such a passion and commitment for the industry, for public lands, for our recreation, for our animals, our clean water, the leaving it better than we found it philosophy — that it’s loud. It’s really loud when we activate. And everybody listening to this podcast is part of that community. Your voices are being heard. Just keep talking. Keep talking to everybody, and there’s a way to activate that works with your passions. And if it’s not picking up the phone, there’s something else. You can go to Conservation Alliance socials, you can go to my socials and ask that question, and we will inform you as much as we can about how you can get involved.

Rebecca: 100%. And if I could add one more thing — I wanna keep putting people to work, and activism and advocacy is important. But I would say the most important piece for the next three years is that outdoor lovers keep going outside. We have to go outside. We have to celebrate what we’re fighting for. We have to take our friends and our family outside and talk to them about these things. It’s kind of our own sort of protest — being out there, spending time offline, really saying, “This is not the world we wanna live in. We wanna be outside together in community, and we’re gonna fight for this.” If people don’t go outside and enjoy everything that we have, we’re all gonna burn out. So that’s a doctor’s prescription there.

What You Can Do — Call, Comment, Vote

Missy: I love that. Okay, we’re gonna go outside. What else can we do as Americans to help protect our public lands?

Rebecca: Keep calling. Even if your congressional representatives in the House and Senate aren’t on a committee that matters or don’t really get engaged in public lands issues, they still have an energy and land staffer in their office. So call. I don’t care who it is. The second thing I wanna put a plug in for is that both ONX and Protect Our Parks have created these amazing platforms that help people navigate all the open comment periods across all of the land management agencies. So as of a few days ago, there were no less than 77 comment periods open that members of the American public have the responsibility to go look at and decide which rules, proposed rules, draft environmental impact statements, where they want to comment. So go check that out once a week. Don’t flood yourself. Don’t inundate yourself.

Missy: Yeah, and I will say — because I went to ONX after you told me that — that page is so user-friendly. But the other thing that’s so wonderful is it tells you what information is important to put in your public comments. Because I think that’s a barrier. What do I say? And the Conservation Alliance will often have a form letter that you can send, which is amazing, and we’ll link to those from this episode. But ONX does a really nice job of spelling out what it is you need to tell people.

Rebecca: It’s beautiful, it’s perfect. And I know they emphasize — talk about your personal connection. We all have a story to tell about these places, and those stories are all equally valuable.

Missy: And I wanna add — vote.

Rebecca: Vote.

Missy: Make it a point to understand who supports our public lands, and go vote.

Rebecca: Go vote. Think about time, attention, money — where you’re expending your attention capital — and support good people with good ideas. Voting. Yes, please vote.

National Public Lands Day — September 26th

Missy: So Rebecca, before we wrap up today — National Public Lands Day is on September 26th. You talked about of all things going outside, and I think this should be celebrated. Our public lands need to be celebrated. Tell us about National Public Lands Day and what we can do.

Rebecca: Yes. Thank you. National Public Lands Day is a time for us all to get together and really call out why public lands matter to America. So go outside, like you said. Go and find — if you want to go — there will be protests, or there will be pro-public lands rallies. You can find those events either through user-based groups. Any of your affiliations that you really follow and love, they’ll be doing something for National Public Lands Day. So look that up. And then also, don’t forget to sign the petition for Save Public Lands prior to the 26th, that we are going to deliver to Washington, DC. We’re gonna get a million signatures from Americans across the country who love our public lands and wanna protect them. So celebrate National Public Lands Day. It’s to be celebrated. And it’s our time to come out and joyously celebrate everything — our common ground that we fight for every day.

Missy: You’ve mentioned so many links in this episode, so go to TheParksPodcast.com episode page where I will list every link that Rebecca mentioned so that it’s easy to find when you’re looking for them.

Speed Round

Earliest park memory?
Driving Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. There were no barriers as I remember it in my six-year-old mind, and it was wild.

What made you love the parks?
Time with loved ones and best friends on these landscapes. This is really soul medicine for me, and just as a little kid, I’ve always felt deeply at home outside.

Favorite thing to do when visiting a park or public land?
I love to trail run, ride my bike where it’s allowed, and take long hikes and look at the stars. Stay up as late as I can to look at the stars.

Park on your bucket list?
Every park in Alaska — just every single one.

Three must-haves for a park visit?
Snacks, my poles, and a journal.

Favorite campfire activity?
Sing-alongs.

Tent, camper, or cabin?
A tent — while my body can still take it.

Hiking with or without trekking poles?
With, absolutely.

Favorite trail snack?
A peanut butter and jelly on top of a mountain — with extra jelly.

Best animal sighting?
Moose never get old. I remember two moose in particular — one swimming across Jenny Lake in the Tetons, and then one in Glacier a few summers ago, also in the water. Moose in the water are really fun for me.

Favorite sound in a park?
Definitely birds.

Greatest gift the parks and public lands give to us?
Peace, awe, and unity — for sure.

Missy: Rebecca, thank you so much. This was a tough conversation. I appreciate you breaking it down for us so that we better understand what’s supposed to happen and what is happening, and keeping us updated on what’s out there — because it’s a lot. So thank you so much for being part of this episode.

Rebecca: Thanks for being a leader in our community, Missy. I really appreciate it.

Missy: Thank you. That’s it for this episode. Until next time — we’ll see you in the parks.

Music for The Parks Podcast is performed and produced by Porter Hardy. Follow us @TheParksPodcast or visit TheParksPodcast.com.