Visiting House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) at his Capitol Hill office during President Trump’s D.C. trip proved eventful.
Anytime I interview conservative conservationists, wild things happen. I saw a black bear with Congressman and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, I also spoke to Senator Steve Daines in Grizzly Country. So it was no surprise to see Westerman channel his inner waterfowler.
Pre-interview, he picked up a gavel that doubled as a duck call and demonstrated his calling prowess to me and his staff. Let’s say he could rival some champion duck callers.
Naturally, the lone registered forester in Congress is animated about conservation policy. His committee goes on both offense proposing smart bills and on defense responding to onerous Biden administration rulemaking, respectively.
“Some call it oversight; it seems more like whack-a-mole,” he told me.
He quipped, “I sometimes wonder if they’ve got a committee over there that sits around thinking up things to get us worked up because they’re doing a pretty good job of it. They give us a lot of opportunities to have oversight to push back on regulations that we can’t see any logic behind them, or what the benefit of it is.”