A Sporting Debate: George Bush vs. John Kerry - The Field & Stream Interviews

This much we know: The next President of the United States will be a sportsman. Whether it’s George W. Bush or John F. Kerry, each claims that hunting and fishing have been an integral part of his life. President Bush is a bass man. Senator Kerry is a saltwater fisherman. Both like to hunt birds. No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, this should come as very good news.

Beyond that, of course, it gets complicated. Bush and Kerry have different ideas about how to manage fish and wildlife, how to use federal lands, how to enact gun laws, and how to protect the environment. This is the only forum in which both candidates directly address hunters and fishermen. We asked them many of the same questions, but we also challenged them on the issues that have raised doubts about their commitment to the future of our sports. For Bush, that meant questions about his environmental record, which has been widely criticized for damaging fish and wildlife habitat in favor of drilling, mining, and development. For Kerry, it meant questioning his stance on gun control, and the fact that he’s been given an “F” rating by the NRA for his entire Senate career.

Who’s going to be better for sportsmen? That’s your call. All we know is that one of these men will have an enormous impact on the future of hunting and fishing, so think about what they have to say, and keep it in mind on November 2.

On the morning of July 29, the day Senator John Kerry would accept his party’s nomination in Boston, I met President Bush at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. After a brief tour of the property in a white pickup truck—the president was driving—we pulled up to the main residence, where he invited me into his private study. As the official greeting of sportsmen everywhere, he opened a gun safe and starting handing me some of his favorites. We then went into the dining room and sat down for an interview.

President Bush: One, I’m a sportsman. I love to hunt and fish. I love to fish more than I love to hunt. But I like bird hunting. So I understand what it means to be a fisherman and a hunter. I know that habitat matters, and that you can’t have good hunting unless you’ve got game that is able to thrive because of where they live.

I believe that the fishermen ought to know that I understand you can overfish. But I’m a catch-and-release person, and I’ve also seen species come back. The striped bass on the Maine coast is a good example of how proper policy can enable a species to thrive.

People need to know that I’ve got a record of enabling people to hunt and fish. Our public lakes here in Texas are some of the greatest bass fishing lakes in the world. In other words, hunting and fishing is not just the exclusive purview of somebody who can have their own private lake. It’s the ability for people to access them, access lakes and lands as well.

They need to know that I understand that vibrant industries thrive around fishing and hunting. That some of our colleges here in Texas have courses on land management as well as how to be a good hunting guide, on quail habitat. That happened not because of my insistence, but it thrived when I was the governor of Texas.

Let me tell you another reason why. When I came [to Washington], I understood the sensitivity of the Interior Department to hunting and fishing in America. And I told [Secretary of the Interior] Gale Norton I want people in there that understand the hunters and fishermen of the country. And this fellow Williams—

President Bush: Yeah, I’ve checked on him. And I want him to be user-friendly. I don’t want people to say, “Gosh, the Interior Department is antihunting and antifishing.” Quite the contrary. I think he’s…from the feedback I get, he has upheld that mandate.

President Bush: I like bass fishing. I’ve spent a lot of time on this lake out here by the house, thinking and casting and hanging out with Barney [the Bush family’s Scottish terrier]. Barney is a great fisherman. He literally sits on the bow of the boat for hours. And when you have your own lake, you realize the challenge of raising large, healthy fish. We spend a lot of time culling. We’re constantly trying to keep the food chain in balance.

And I like to striper fish with my dad—off the coast of Maine—although I don’t get to do enough of it. He and I will wake up early and we’ll walk out and get on the end of the rocks at the end of his house and flyfish for stripers.

I love to quail hunt. You know, I’m not a very good shot—I’d be the first to admit it. But I like to be outdoors. I like the exercise. I love to watch the dogs work. The last time I went quail hunting was in South Texas—they had a great quail crop this year.

President Bush: Yeah, it was. And I was with my dad. There’s nothing better. I can remember sitting on the truck, hanging out with him, and as much as anything else that was a pure joy.

Evans: Have you got one particular bass that you’ve caught that you remember? What’s the biggest one you’ve ever caught?

President Bush: Nine and a half pounds on Rainbow Lake in East Texas. Here [in Crawford], the biggest one I think we’ve caught thus far—and this is about a 3-1/2-year-old lake—is probably 5 pounds. Not worth measuring.

But we’re constantly checking the health of the fish. About every six months we’ll bring some conservation people over here and they’ll shock the lake, and [the fish] float up, and they kind of take a check to determine how healthy they are. We’ve shocked up an 8-pounder. Haven’t caught it yet [laughs].

Evans: Mr. President, you’ve said before that you admire Teddy Roosevelt, who is widely regarded as the strongest ally that sportsmen have ever had in the White House. What do you hope to be remembered for by America’s hunters and fishermen? What do you want your legacy to be?

President Bush: Yeah, [Roosevelt] is a person who understood that hunting and fishing are a very important part of the American scene. That fishing and hunting [need to] thrive. That the best land policies are policies that don’t emanate out of the halls of Washington, but emanate as a result of cooperative and collaborative efforts between the landowner—which in this case happens to be the federal government in many cases—and local conservation groups and local jurisdictions as to how best to manage the land. In other words, I don’t think you can have good land management policy if the only input you get is out of Washington, D.C.

President Bush: The one goal is cleaner air, better land, and cleaner water. Okay? That’s the goal. First, implementation of the wetlands policy—full implementation—which is no longer “no net loss” but is actually a net increase of wetlands. Secondly, in terms of air quality, the reduction of soxes [sulfur dioxide], noxes [nitrogen oxides], and mercury, through the Clear Skies legislation, that I hope Congress will finally pass and put a cap-and-trade system in place. Thirdly, the continuation of brownfields policies, which is a practical way of restoring hazardous sites, environmentally degraded sites, to become better used, or available for use, particularly in urban settings.

The Great Lakes initiative is a very important initiative, which is a collaborative effort between local, state, and federal jurisdictions. I’d like to make sure that we develop a reasonable plan to deal with the marshlands in Louisiana. I emphasize reasonable because this is a very large, important project that requires, in my judgment, expert planning. The continuation of the Everglades restoration, which did not start in my administration, admittedly, but has been perpetuated by my administration. I think those are notable goals.

I will tell you, though, the best environmental policy and conservation policy recognizes that we are in a transition period between how we have used resources in the past and how we are going to use them in the future. And to as best as possible accelerate the transition to a day in which interesting new advances are going to change how we use resources. A classic example is the automobiles we drive. We’re hooked on foreign sources of energy—it’s just the way it is—until we change how we use energy. I think we can do so by advancing vital concepts like hydrogen power in automobiles. We’ve put a billion dollars aside to see if we can’t accelerate the day when that’s coming. I know it’s coming. We could have zero-emission coal-burning plants—and will—but it’s going to require investment, and time, and technology. I think the job of the federal government is to advance the moment that those things arrive as quickly as possible.

Evans: A lot of Western sportsmen—speaking on the same topic—have criticized some of your policies that expand drilling for natural gas on public lands in the Rockies…

President Bush: Well, I respond by saying that when we have an energy crisis…it’s very interesting. California said, well we think we’ve solved our problems with power by adding natural-gas-fired electricity plants. And many in the environmental community herald that as a great advancement. The problem was, they hadn’t figured out a way to get the natural gas. So, one of the dilemmas I have as a president is to make sure people’s lives continue on as best as possible, and the economy grows so we can afford new technologies that come down the road. And therefore there needs to be a balance between our exploration for hydrocarbons in our own backyards as well as fueling the lifestyles of the people of the country. I think we can do both. I think we can be very responsible about federal lands, and at the same time hopefully find natural gas that’s commercial that will enable people to be able to live the lives they want to live.

And to answer your question… First of all, any exploration is going to take place on a very tiny portion of the land ownership. Secondly, there are strict rules in place. Thirdly, to the extent that any permitting is done, there needs to be input from conservation groups. Gale Norton has been charged with that by me personally to be sensitive to and listen to the needs of the local jurisdictions as well as the conservation groups. I think we’ve been responsible. There are some who say no drilling at all. And that’s a very difficult position for me to take, given my job as the leader of the country to try to promote environmentally sensitive ways [to find] enough energy so that our country can continue to move forward.

Evans: You recently proposed changes to the roadless rule that would open some prime hunting and fishing habitat—including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska—to logging and mining. Is it possible to avoid that?

President Bush: Yeah. Let me talk about the roadless rule. The roadless rule was imposed by my predecessor on the way out of office, and we kept it in place. We took a look at it and we said, fine, it’s in place, let’s take a look at its practicality. A federal judge ruled that the roadless rule by the previous administration was not legal, which prompted us…we were in the process of reviewing, don’t get me wrong. The review didn’t happen because of the judge. The review was taking place about the roadless rule. The judge then precipitated the thinking. And so we are in the process now of putting in place…

First of all, nothing will change for 18 months, until this rule comes to be. And here’s the idea. The idea is to work with governors and local jurisdictions as to how to mitigate certain problems with the roadless rule. One, access to private property. If you’re a private property owner in the midst of federal lands, you ought to have access to it, but the roadless rule says you can’t in certain cases. Two, how do you deal with forest fires? To me, if you’re the governor of a state, you ought to have input as to whether or not the roadless rule makes sense for a particular part of the world.

I believe—again, this gets back to the basic philosophy that I mentioned earlier—there’s an attitude in Washington where input from local people as to the decisions for roadless rules is counterproductive. I completely disagree. As a matter of fact, I think the people that would care more about preserving hunting and fishing rights on federal lands, or people who care more about making sure that recreation is balanced with nature, or people who care more about how to deal with the problems of forest fires, are the local people. Not people in Washington, D.C. Heck, half the planners in Washington have never been West. They’ve never seen a forest fire, and yet they’re the rule setters. And so, the roadless rule that we’re in the process of implementing is one that says, we’re not getting rid of all of my predecessor’s decision. It is that certain aspects of it can be changed with input from local groups.

Evans: A gun question: One of the most hotly debated topics among gun owners is the so-called assault weapons ban. Some sportsmen think the ban is the first step on a slippery slope toward broader gun controls. Should they be concerned?

President Bush: I think we ought to keep the ban…. I’ve said that the ban ought to be extended but not expanded. Secondly, they should not be concerned as long as I’m the president.

The best gun policy is to find and prosecute those who commit crimes with guns. The best way to protect people’s rights to own a gun without undue interference by the government, and I emphasize undue—or unnecessary—is to hold people to account who use guns to commit crimes. You know, I was an instant-background-check person. I think that makes sense. I think most gun owners understand that we don’t want people who should not be owning a gun buying a gun. And one way to do so is to use technology in such a way that we are able to identify felons, for example, or people that shouldn’t be owning a gun. And I think they ought to be extended to all places guns are sold, by the way, and I know we can do that. But I emphasize the instant background check. This ought not to be a cumbersome process. This ought to be a consumer-friendly process.

Evans: Speaking of guns… We’ve talked about this already, but what kinds of guns do you own, and do you have a favorite?

President Bush: My favorite gun is the first gun that my dad gave me, which is a Winchester .22 pump, Model 61. Another gun that’s one of my favorites is a Weatherby custom-made gun presented to me by the CEO of the company, Mr. Weatherby. I’ve probably got six or seven guns in a safe in my office there: two shotguns, two .22s, a couple of deer rifles and a varmint rifle. A .248?

President Bush: A .243. I beg your pardon, a .243. Given to me by the former lieutenant governor of Texas, Bob Bullock, my old buddy, who on his deathbed said, “I want to give you a gun.”

President Bush: No contest—Vice President Cheney. He is an avid outdoorsman. I had him down here for some meetings, and we got up first thing in the morning and went fishing. He flyfished, and I bubba-baited. But he loved it.

A lot of times we’ll be on a [video conference], and I’ll say, “What are you going to be doing today?” And he’ll say, “I’m going out on the river.” He’s a really good fisherman, and a great shot. I’ve seen him shoot before—skeet at Camp David. And he’s really good—and I’m not.

president bush: I don’t know. I imagine he’s a pretty good shot. I don’t know if he’s any good or not.

Evans: There is a rumor—around our office, anyway—that you keep copies of Field & Stream on Air Force One.

President Bush: Fishing! You know, I spend more time looking at the fishing stories than the hunting stories.

I think you’ve got some constructive articles on good public policy, which I appreciate. I think that the [sporting] magazines do the country a service by taking on a conservation bent. I would hope that people recognize what works and what doesn’t work with good policy. I think the federal government needs to listen to groups like the Gulf Coast conservation group that helped bring back the redfish—the federal government couldn’t have fixed it, frankly. Ducks Unlimited is fantastically effective at helping to restore habitats.

You know, one of the things you need to do, if I could tell you how to run your magazine, is to look into the Farm Bill, and encourage farmers to take advantage of the conservation title in the bill, about $40 billion over 10 years to encourage people to restore properties.

Evans: The fishing community—one of the things they’ve been concerned with is mercury pollution of rivers, lakes, and streams. How do you plan to address that?

President Bush: Well, I think the Clear Skies Initiative is going to have a substantial reduction—I know the Clear Skies Initiative will have a substantial reduction in mercury. And…

President Bush: Yeah, I agree with them. They’re right. And one reason it’s not moving fast enough is because Congress gets too political. So I’m putting this out through executive order. It’s not as complete as I’d like. In other words, the national cap-and-trade system is going to be hard to implement without legislation. But people need to know cap-and-trade works. And all I did was ask them to look at the acid rain issue before cap-and-trade, before my dad signed the Clean Air Act in the early ’90s—and the effect afterward. And what I’d like to do is have a cap-and-trade system involved with soxes, noxes, and mercury. And by the way, the reduction of soxes and noxes a lot of people think will lead to substantial reductions in mercury as well. But Washington can and should move faster.

And so you say, well the president said implement it. Well, how come it isn’t implemented? Well, because there’s also all kinds of rules and bureaucracies you have to stumble through to get things implemented. But this is a substantial…this is a very good piece of legislation. Or a very good piece of public policy. Because Congress hasn’t acted, it’s difficult when you have to deal with each individual state, which doesn’t create the seamless system we’d like, but nevertheless it will have a pretty good impact when Congress does act.

Evans: As you know, the number of hunters has decreased somewhat in the last decade, and there is a lot of concern out there about the future of the sport, because of shrinking habitat and a lot of other reasons. Do you have a message for the next generation of sportsmen?

President Bush: Yeah, I do. My message begins with the parents. I think you become a sportsman because your parents teach you the love of the outdoors. They teach you the joy of hunting and fishing. I think moms and dads ought to take time out of their busy lives with their children and spend time with them outdoors.

President Bush: They do—not nearly as much as I’d like them to. You know, they don’t hunt, but they fish. But not really. I mean, they’d rather be listening to a record.

I used to love to take them fishing. We have this wonderful place in East Texas. The bass fishing in East Texas is spectacular, by the way. The bottoms of these lakes are sandy soils, and the aquatics are great. And it was a joyous moment when one of my little twin daughters caught her first fish, her little arms kind of cranking at the bait. She pulled in about a 3-1/2-pound fish—that’s a pretty good-size fish for a little 13-year-old girl. They really don’t like to fish like I do. But they understand the joys of being outdoors.

But anyway to answer your question. I think people who like to hunt and fish should share that with their children. I mean, most do. I bet if you did a survey of your readership that said, “Why did you learn to hunt and fish?” they’d say, “Because a relative taught me how to.”

Shrinking habitat is an issue, but there’s still a lot of habitat if we’re wise about it.

Evans: I know that your father has gone on to do quite a bit of fishing [since he finished his term as president]. Are you looking forward to doing a lot more once you’re through with politics?

President Bush: Yeah, I am. I think there are some neat things to do, some great places to fish around the world that I’ve never had a chance to do. You know, I hope that five years from now he and I will be able to go fishing together. There’s nothing better. He was recently in England flyfishing for trout. I’d love to go down to the Patagonia area. Maybe I’ll get you to come with me and we’ll do an article down there. That would be neat. If I’m healthy enough, I think the ideal thing would be to pack up a fly rod and head up into a remote region on a bike, a mountain bike. So you could exercise, fish, and exercise coming back. That would be the ideal trip.

On Being a Sportsman: I love to quail hunt. I’m not a very good shot—I’d be the first to admit it. But I like to be outdoors. I like the exercise. I love to watch the dogs work.

On Conservation: The best conservation policy recognizes that we are in a transition period between how we have used resources in the past and how we are going to use them in the future.

On Guns: I think we ought to keep the [assault weapons] ban. I’ve said that the ban ought to be extended but not expanded.

On Wednesday, April 21, Senator John Kerry, already assured of the Democratic presidential nomination, was barnstorming through battleground states on a mission to introduce himself to voters. I caught up with him by phone as he was about to board a plane bound for Louisiana, where he would stop at Shell Beach for an informal lunch with anglers to discuss environmental issues. During our 30-minute conversation, Kerry answered questions about his views on conservation, guns, and other issues that concern sportsmen.

Senator Kerry: I think sportsmen should vote for me because I understand the ethic of sportsmen. I hunt and fish and climb mountains—I’ve been an outdoors person all my life and have an enormous respect for our relationship to the balance that’s necessary to preserve that enjoyment. It takes conservation, it takes effort. There are a lot of things that aren’t being funded that threaten the long-term enjoyment of sportsmen—whether it’s hunting or fishing.

I’ve long been a champion of dealing with conservation measures. I’ll give you an example. As chairman of the Oceans subcommittee in the Senate, I’ve helped protect sportsmen’s rights with respect to tuna. Keeping a balance between commercial fishermen and sportsmen is something I’ve been working on for years. And I’ve rewritten our fishery laws on several occasions, trying to preserve the stocks intelligently, to be able to maintain the passion we all have to go out and enjoy these kinds of things. They’re threatened. The oceans are threatened, the wetlands are threatened. We’ve got huge mercury levels in our fish. Forty-four percent of America’s rivers, lakes, and streams are unfishable and unswimmable. I think that’s unacceptable. But my opponent in this race doesn’t seem to care about it.

Senator Kerry: Well, I’ve mostly done saltwater fishing. I’ve done a little flyfishing in Idaho, but mostly I’ve fished for bluefish and stripers, and I did a lot of freshwater fishing as a kid—catfish, pickerel, things like that. But in the latter years it’s been bluefish or stripers, mostly in Massachusetts. When I was a kid I used to hunt woodchuck, predators on the farm. I started with a BB gun, moved up to a .22, then a .30/30, and a shotgun. And I’ve shot birds off and on through my life, some game, rabbits, deer—I’ve been on Massachusetts deer hunts.

Senator Kerry: My cousin, on a farm up in Massachusetts. His name is Fred Winthrop. He was a great hunter. My uncle was a great hunter, too. And the first time I went hunting, I went out on the farm. We used to go out woodchuck hunting in the afternoon and the evening. It was just kids enjoying going out. And then I did some bird hunting down in South Carolina.

Senator Kerry: Oh, I don’t know. Probably an 8-pointer, something like that. Nothing terribly big. But I once had an incredible encounter with the most enormous buck—I don’t know, 16 points or something. It was just huge. And I failed to pull the trigger at the right moment. I was hunting down in Massachusetts, on the Cape.

Marshall: The NRA has given you an “F” rating throughout your Senate career…

Senator Kerry: Yeah, because the NRA has a silly kind of methodology that doesn’t make any sense. I’m a gun owner. I’m a hunter—I’ve been a hunter all my life. But I vote for reasonable things. I mean, I just think the Brady Bill is reasonable. They [the NRA] score that a zero. Having assault weapons reasonably regulated is intelligent. I mean, I’ve never thought about going hunting with an assault weapon of war. If you want to wield one of those, then go join the military.

I think you can protect the rights of sportsmen, protect the rights of people to bear arms. I believe in the Second Amendment. You know, we’ve had these laws on the books for 10 years or more: Nobody has ever tried to take anyone’s guns away. It’s just phoniness, an absolute phoniness to the arguments they make.

I have the complete intention of protecting the rights of sportsmen. In fact, I think I’m better for the rights of sportsmen than George Bush.

Senator Kerry: Because if you don’t protect the environment, if you don’t fight for access to hunting land, if you don’t fund things like the Open Fields Bill that I’m a sponsor of—to get more land online and provide access to hunters—if you don’t encourage the farmers to preserve certain areas for pheasant or quail, you lose the ability of people to enjoy these sports. And I think I do a better job of fighting for those protections and, in fact, enhancing the rights of sportsmen than George Bush does.

And I’m never going to vote to take away guns. I never have. I never sponsored anything to suggest that. But at the same time, with the right to own a gun comes responsibility. Everybody who owns a gun knows that. You don’t want them falling into the hands of kids; you don’t want them falling into the hands of criminals.

Every law enforcement agency in the country supported restraints on assault weapons. The NRA, in fact, stands against the law enforcement entities of our country. And I think there is something completely out of whack when that becomes the measurement and you, quote, “get an F” from people fighting law enforcement and who called the ATF jack-booted thugs. I just can’t understand that. George Herbert Walker Bush resigned from the NRA because of that comment about jack-booted thugs.

So I think there is a level of reasonableness here that we have to assert. I am better for sportsmen because I will preserve the environment, I will preserve the roadless rule, I’ll have more thoughtful preservation of wildlife and fishing than George Bush would ever have. He’s busy destroying wetlands critical to spawning grounds. When you start running through the list of things, I’ll tell you, I think my record is much stronger.

Marshall: You refer to “common sense gun laws” on your website. By that do you mean what you just referred to, such as the Brady Bill, the gun show loophole...

Senator Kerry: Yeah, just close the gun show [loophole]. I don’t have any broad-based agenda to move beyond the preservation of what we have today.

Marshall: When you hire a Secretary of the Interior, what will your instructions be to that person?

Senator Kerry: To be balanced. To be thoughtful. I would not want to find someone with an ideological agenda. What I want is somebody who is thoughtful about the balance of development. I’m pro-development, but I’m for thoughtful and intelligent and sensitive development. I think we need to be smart in how we approach land use and preservation. I’d like to fund the Conservation Trust Fund, for instance. We need to develop natural gas and oil reserves—I think that’s important. But you’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t put fish and wildlife unnecessarily in harm’s way. And I think we have to be thoughtful about how we balance that.

I want land management agencies to take the multiple-use mandate seriously. And I want to assure that fish and wildlife are not sacrificed to irresponsible processes. I’ve watched and seen how you can balance that. Lands are better used for hunting and fishing and camping and other things if you have that balance.

Likewise, forest management is too often driven by politics rather than common sense. I think you need to have legitimate thinning projects to reduce the risk of fire around communities and create a habitat itself in the forest. I think that’s a balance that’s very important.

We need to protect wild places and provide hunters and anglers and hikers with the ability to still find the solitary experience of the wilderness. I think it’s important to do that. I would expand the Farm Bill conservation program. That’s important; very, very important.

Senator Kerry: Well, the conservation security fund that’s in there now has not been [fully] funded. I remember when I was out in Iowa in the primaries, I found $104 million in backed-up requests by farmers to engage in conservation practices, so they couldn’t do it. And you’ve got a lot of farmlands that are being threatened by the current distribution of the subsidies, which I think are unfair.

For instance, there is a lot of farmland you could encourage people to open up to public hunting on a commercial basis if you would provide incentives to help do that. And I think that would be important.

So I want to find somebody who is thoughtful and balanced. I don’t want an extreme to either side. I want somebody who is really going to bring people together at the table and work thoughtfully through how we balance the interests that we have.

Marshall: Do you think President Bush went far enough with his recent promise to maintain “no net loss” of wetlands?

Senator Kerry: Absolutely not. I think wetlands loss has been going on daily, and [we’re] losing tens of thousands of [acres of] wetlands habitat in this country every year. We’re threatening the future of waterfowl as well as water quality. Despite that, they’ve rolled back the protections of wetlands, and they’ve made the problem worse.

Marshall: Many sportsmen are alarmed at the increase of mercury pollution in our rivers, lakes, and streams. President Bush and the EPA have just unveiled a plan to reduce mercury emissions by 70 percent by the year 2018. What, if anything, would you do differently?

Senator Kerry: Bush’s plan is a phony one because he pushes the date backward and he lowers the percentage of reduction. And the message to the people is “We’re not serious.” And the result is that by pushing the date back, nothing happens now. Everybody feels the pressure is off.

I was just talking with Carol Browner [EPA Administrator during the Clinton administration] yesterday about exactly that. And it has had a very negative impact on any efforts to have mercury reduction. The mercury levels are truly alarming today. Fish consumption advisories are in effect in 45 states, and in 28 states in America—more than half of the states in our country—parents can’t take their kids fishing and eat the fish. That’s disgraceful. And the level of mercury is increasing even offshore. You find it in swordfish and tuna. I think it is unbelievably disturbing.

Senator Kerry: Well you’ve got to enforce the emission standards. And you’ve got to fight with other countries to hold them accountable, too. That was the flaw with the Kyoto Treaty—the less developed countries were left out. And what goes up into the atmosphere in Asia can have an impact on a Montana, Wyoming, Oregon, or Washington lake just as much as anything else.

So we have to have global leadership on this issue. I was in Rio at the Rio Earth Summit. I was in Buenos Aires. I was in Kyoto, and I was in the Hague [at international conferences on pollution] and have been part of all these discussions. And I’ve met with less developed nations’ delegations. I’m convinced there is a way to bring them into the fold.

But you can’t do it if you’re not even going to the table. George Bush has refused to go to the table. And obviously I want to do this in a way that is sensible for our businesses in the country, but you cannot continue to have this level of mercury pollution and particulate pollution that is taking place.

And Bush promised—this is another broken promise from George Bush—when he ran for the office of president, he promised a four-pollutant bill [nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, mercury, and carbon dioxide]. Not only has he not pushed the four-pollutant bill, but he has eliminated carbon dioxide [from the list of pollutants]. So he’s moved backward just as he has on the mercury levels.

I’m going to issue a rule that will achieve the maximum levels of mercury reduction as rapidly as we can to try to eliminate this contamination problem.

Senator Kerry: To get the maximum we could achieve as rapidly as possible. That means balancing the requests of business, balancing the costs with what we achieve. And if we have to provide federal assistance in order to mitigate [implementation] then we ought to do that.

Marshall: Many Western sportsmen have expressed concern about oil and gas development on public lands in the Rockies. How do you plan to protect those public lands and maintain energy development?

Senator Kerry: Again, it’s a balance. We’re going to be drilling, obviously, for a long time in this country, and I acknowledge that. But we have to do it in the right places. We have to drill smart. And again, that’s just making common-sense decisions of what the impact on the land is where you choose to drill. You’ve got to have an ethic that says you’re not going to drill everywhere, you’re not going to drill in preserves, national monuments. You’re going to preserve national parks, you’re going to preserve forests and so forth. I think it’s critical to have that balance.

But you know, we still have 95 percent of the Alaska oil shelf open to drilling. The Clinton administration issued the largest lease in history, which has yet to be exploited. We also have offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which is lease-permitted, all environmental impact studied. It’s ready to go—the only thing holding it back is that the price is not high enough to make it worthwhile for people to do it. But it’s the largest unexploited offshore field in the world. So we’ve got places to drill. We’ve just got to be smart about how we do it.

Marshall: President Bush reportedly keeps copies of Field & Stream on Air Force One. Will you?

Senator Kerry: [laughs] Well, he ought to read them and listen to them. The copies must be in the back of the plane with the press.

On Being a Sportsman: I’ve done a little flyfishing in Idaho, but mostly I’ve fished for bluefish and stripers in Massachusetts.... I’ve been a hunter all my life.

On Conservation: I want land agencies to take the multiple-use mandate seriously. And I want to assure that fish and wildlife are not sacrificed to irresponsible processes.

On Guns: I’m never going to vote to take away guns. I never have. But at the same time, with the right to own a gun comes responsibility. Everybody who owns a gun knows that.

NOTE: Use of the above materials must be properly sourced to the October 2004 issue of Field & Stream. For additional information, artwork, or to arrange an interview with a Field & Stream editor, contact Amanda McNally, Time4 Media, 212-779-5527 or amanda.mcnally@time4.com

"Senator Kerry: Well, I’ve mostly done saltwater fishing. I’ve done a little flyfishing in Idaho, but mostly I’ve fished for bluefish and stripers, and I did a lot of freshwater fishing as a kid—catfish, pickerel, things like that. But in the latter years it’s been bluefish or stripers, mostly in Massachusetts. When I was a kid I used to hunt woodchuck, predators on the farm. I started with a BB gun, moved up to a .22, then a .30/30, and a shotgun. And I’ve shot birds off and on through my life, some game, rabbits, deer—I’ve been on Massachusetts deer hunts."

I'd hate to be the woodchuck that gets turned into a fine red mist, by a ".30/30".

Kerry: I’m a hunter—I’ve been a hunter all my life

Yeah, he's a hunter. Of already wounded vietnamese teenagers and wealthy women.

Kerry speaks as if the 2nd amendment is only for "Sportsmen", hunters only!! Dumb Ass, I should be able to own any gun I want for self defense - the 2nd amendment speaks of an all inclusive "bearers of arms", all gun owners, not just hunters or phony "sportsmen" like Kerry.

I've been hunting white tail here in NH since I was 14 (1952} Kerry says he shot 8 pointers and missed 16 pointers. Who in the hell has time to count when deer are moving. They just don't sit there and wait for you to shoot. If you have time to count the points then Bambi should be in your frying pan with butter and onions and a schooner of beer waiting.

Kerry: When I was a kid I used to hunt woodchuck, predators on the farm. I started with a BB gun, moved up to a .22, then a .30/30, and a shotgun; and then 50 caliber machine guns in free fire zones...oh, wait. I lost my train of thought."

I’m never going to vote to take away guns.

That's right, because YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO GET ELECTED AGAIN!

I feel much better now.

"Marshall: What’s the biggest deer you ever killed?

Senator Kerry: Oh, I don’t know. Probably an 8-pointer, something like that. Nothing terribly big. But I once had an incredible encounter with the most enormous buck—I don’t know, 16 points or something. It was just huge. And I failed to pull the trigger at the right moment"

'Probably an 8 pointer'? He doesn't know?

An encounter with a '16 points or something'? I think this guy is the biggest liar I've ever heard and that includes clinton.

Maybe kerry and blather should go hunting together. They could bag a few stuffed animals.

"Nobody has ever tried to take anyone’s guns away"?? Does he not know what the people of Washington D.C. and Chicago have gone through? Would he work to extend the 2d Amendment to them? I think not. He isn't fooling anyone with this nonsense. Also, he acts as though the NRA gives an F to every member who disagrees with them on any point. There are a lot of members of Congress that have a better grade than an F and I consider them anti-gun.

He can't very well tell the people what it's really all about, that would make him a king sized Hypocrite... oh, wait

Side by side interviews. Eliminate the names. Which one strikes you as the more family oriented person? Which one speaks of cherished memories while enjoying the fruits of nature? Which one speaks of teaching and encouraging children to nature?

now which one is so generic it could be substituted for any politician?

Side by side interviews. Eliminate the names. Which one strikes you as the more family oriented person?

The first one?

"There are a lot of things that aren’t being funded that threaten the long-term enjoyment of sportsmen—whether it’s hunting or fishing."

Kerry said that. WTH does that supposed to mean??

As soon as I read that comment I became convinced he has never deer hunted; in fact, I am not convinced he has ever seen a deer in the wild (well, maybe a mulie near his wife's Idaho home but no 16 point whitetail.)

OK, since we have sportsmen on this thread I want to ask a question. I'm not a tree hugger, I'm not a PETA person, but I want to understand one thing. WHY IS IT A THRILL TO LIE IN WAIT IN A FIELD AND KILL A DEER WITH A SHOTGUN? I don't get it. I almost understand bow and arrow hunting, it's more of a fair fight. I just don't get it. When they have shows on OLN and I see these guys in camaflouge talking in hushed tones it literally makes me ill. That's all.

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