“TU’s Policy Initiatives & Conservation Objectives”

Guest Speaker – Lindsay Slater

April 15, 2026

For our April speaker, we are pleased to welcome Trout Unlimited’s Vice President for Government Affairs Lindsay Slater to provide us with insight into his work to advance TU’s national policy initiatives and broader conservation objectives.

Lindsay began working on Capitol Hill in 1997 and joined TU in April 2023 after 23 years as U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson’s (R-ID) chief of staff. During the last five years of his tenure with Rep. Simpson, Lindsay worked tirelessly on the Columbia Basin Initiative to remove the four lower Snake River dams and permit sustainable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to access high-elevation spawning grounds in Idaho and northeast Oregon. This project simultaneously protected the interests and livelihoods of local communities dependent on agriculture, reliable energy, transportation, and a recreation economy.

When Lindsay joined TU, Representative Simpson extolled Lindsay’s previous work, saying “Lindsay’s fingerprints are all over the major legislative victories I have had during my time in Congress. He played a crucial role in crafting the original LAND Act, which eventually became the Great American Outdoors Act, a widely supported and bipartisan recreation and public lands bill. He was instrumental in crafting and passing legislation to fix the wildfire suppression budget, ending the practice of fire borrowing and restoring the funding intended for those important land management projects that make our forests healthier and more resistant to fire. Not to mention ending long-time controversy in the Boulder-White Clouds by creating a comprehensive solution to the challenges that ranchers, recreationists, conservationists, and local leaders faced for many years. He will be an asset to the great organization Trout Unlimited and their CEO Chris Wood.”

Lindsay grew up on a fifth-generation ranch near the town of Wallowa, Oregon (pop. 800) with three trout streams flowing through the property. He graduated from Oregon State University and the Southwestern University School of Law in Los Angeles, California. Lindsay lives on Capitol Hill with his wife and two children. I have the pleasure of knowing him because our children attended elementary school together on the Hill.

– Scott Cernich

   Credit Trout Unlimited’s April 3, 2023 press release for the bio and Trout Unlimited for the photo on home page.