The season finale of Schmidt Show PDX is live! We have a very special guest co-host who truly knows Portland politics. We also interview Bethany Cotton from @cascadiawildlands.bsky.social for a dive into an urgent issue facing Oregon and the west: the threat in Congress to sell off public lands.

After a huge public outcry, the public lands selloff has been scrapped from Trump's mega-bill. But in many other ways, the administration and congressional representatives beholden to the fossil fuel industry are still trying to auction off our public lands to the highest bidder.

“It would have been far less expensive [for EWEB] to have complied with the Endangered Species Act,” Cascadia Wildlands Conservation Director Bethany Cotton said.

👏clearcuts 👏 happen on 👏 public lands 👏 all the time!! … it’s not okay… !!! 📸 from the Bureau of Land Management’s Blue & Gold logging project. #WeLikeItWild #CascadiaWildlands

“It’s not perfect, but it gives imperiled species like the marbled murrelet and northern spotted owl a real shot at survival — and that’s something worth celebrating,” said Bethany Cotton, conservation director with Cascadia Wildlands. www.opb.org/article/2025...

This Wednesday! Join us in a conversation with Chuck Sams, former Director of the National Park Service and the first Indigenous person to lead the agency, and Kristen Brengel, Vice President of Government Affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. oregonwild.org/event/public...

Well folks, the timber industry is suing to remove protections for Northern Spotted Owls across 3.5 MILLION acres of forest... and we're gearing up to defend critical habitat from private interests. It's an environmental tale as old as time, but we never get tired of fighting for a better story.