The Public Lands Council held its 55th annual meeting in Pendleton, Oregon bringing in producers to discuss issues impacting their operations. PLC. Executive Director Kaitlin Glover said they typically focus on the 13 states the group represents, but having the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, the American Sheep Industry Association, and the Association of National Grasslands there is important.

We’re really able to leverage a national perspective a national platform and national support for policies that affect the West because I mean, not only do they affect those states, but they affect national food security, national wool and fiber security. But really sort of the the headwaters and the foundation of the most, you know, arguably most important but certainly most focused on landscapes in this country.

With deadlines looming in DC, Glover says there’s a lot to take back and work on before time is up.

Anytime agencies have unpredictable funding, the impacts trickle down to folks like this. It impacts their turnout dates, it impacts their partnerships. It impacts what kind of fence they can build after a fire. And so those are the real data, tangible impacts of the decisions that Congress can make. And the next thing is a Farm Bill. A lot of the policy whether it’s targeted grazing, using grazing as a management tool, elevating grazing in those conservation practices at USDA, or even just having more robust timber and forest management, to prevent those catastrophic wildfires, we’re gonna be spending a lot of time on that this fall. All of the messages here are central to the work that our producers do. But I have to say as I look at the head of the calendar, those two bills are going to take up the vast majority of our time.