Early in December, Steve Kline, 40, attended his final Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership board meeting.
The organization’s lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for the past decade-plus recently took a position with the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, near his home in Centreville, Md. Kline’s first position with TRCP was as its farm bill director.
All told, Kline spent nearly 20 years in Washington as a Capitol Hill advocate for our nation’s natural resources, focusing mostly on issues related to hunting and fishing and fish and wildlife habitat. Kline for many years has been an Outdoor News source for conservation-related information originating in the halls of Congress – things such as the U.S. farm bill, funding from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, Clean Water Act matters, chronic wasting disease, and many others. He’s provided a clear voice that’s enabled our writers to bring complex matters to our readers in an understandable fashion.
Kline is married and has twin 8-year-olds. He hunts for waterfowl, deer, and more. He’s also president of the Centreville (Maryland) Town Council, and has advised candidates at all levels of government on natural resources issues.
ON: You’ve been with TRCP for more than a decade now. Are there significant events or conservation wins that stand out during that time?
Kline: My thing, recently, was the Great American Outdoors Act. We spent a lot of time on that, on the public lands maintenance backlog piece. We saw a lot of investment potentially being made in acquisition, but not in ways that the public could enjoy (more public lands).
It was an enormous win, a five-year fund with mandatory dollars. I think it would make sense to make it permanent.
(According to the National Park Service, the landmark conservation legislation – signed by former President Donald Trump in August 2020 – will use revenues from energy development to provide up to $1.9 billion a year for five years to provide needed maintenance for critical facilities and infrastructure in our national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, recreation areas, and American Indian schools.)
Probably one of the things I worked the hardest on was linking crop insurance with conservation compliance (in the nation’s farm bill). That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of, and it was probably the heaviest lift. It’s something that needs to be addressed in every farm bill.
ON: The next farm bill will be considered soon. How do you envision it coming together?
Kline: I’m not sure what the 2023 farm bill process will look like. There’s a pretty stiff political wind (in Congress) that’s going to blow on the next farm bill. There’s such a partisan divide – nobody is working with anybody else.
ON: Is conservation in the United States going in the right direction?
Kline: We have had historic wins in the past five years (modernizing the Pittman-Robertson Act; ACE, the America’s Conservation Enhancement Act; the recent infrastructure bill). I think we are very much in a good place.
Climate is a big question mark for me. I don’t see Congress taking a leadership role on climate. It’s coming from the private sector. Congress needs to take action.
Also, with all these investments we’ve made in conservation in the last five years, I think there will be tremendous pressure to cut those investments. And there will be a lot of pressure if we can’t get inflation under control. We have to make sure we don’t lose the gains we’ve made in the last five years.
ON: How do we convince the average person that his or her voice matters in Washington, when Congress seems worlds away from our everyday lives?
Kline: People everywhere, from Baltimore to Brainerd, look at things as political these days. But that’s oversimplistic. They need to know that there are a handful of organizations – Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, the TRCP, Delta Waterfowl – that are constantly in the room, making the needs of sportsmen and women clear to lawmakers. These organizations have to exist in the political realm that exists.
I’m paid to get good results for fish and wildlife irrespective of the vehicle (or party) from which it came. We gotta get what we can get where we can get it.
People across the countryside need to set aside partisanship when they look at what (the groups) are doing.
We’re gonna be on the menu if we’re not at the table.
ON: We sometimes lament in our states a lack of greater conservation leadership among local officials. Are there still leaders in Congress who hunters and anglers and conservationists can count on?
Kline: At the top of the list is absolutely Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-New Mexico).
There are probably 20 members (of the Senate) who hunt and fish and do it on their own. But for Martin, it’s a large part of his life.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Michigan) has always been a supporter of conservation and understands what it means to her state.
On the House side, Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan) has picked up the torch from her late husband, John (an original sponsor of the Dingell-Johnson Act), and Ron Kind (D-Wisconsin) has also been a champion for conservation. Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) has been a stout voice for fish and wildlife and is willing to listen to sportsmen and women.