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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) outlined recurring problems with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Waterfowl Production Area (WPA) easements with Martha Williams, nominee to be Director of the FWS, during a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing today. Yesterday, Senator Cramer met with Ms. Williams, who is currently serving as the Acting Director, to discuss the history of FWS’s heavy-handed enforcement of conservation easements and its impact on North Dakota landowners and producers.
“I’ve been through this with a Secretary, two Assistant Secretaries now, a Fish and Wildlife Service Director, and nothing has changed. Nobody has done anything about this,” said Senator Cramer. “I’m interested in doing it right and doing it a new way. That is recognizing water is water, dryland is dryland, and contracts with landowners matter. You highlighted the importance of the prairie pothole region to ducks and migratory birds, but you know who it’s really important to? The farmer that owns it. The farmer that has been making a living on it. The farmer that has been growing food for a hungry world population.”
“Our farmers have been so abused by the federal government they no longer want to enter into these easements. They no longer want to voluntarily conserve. In fact, in my state of North Dakota, many farmers are being punished because they did this before the Fish and Wildlife Service came along. I want to know why I can count on you to do something different for the landowners as well as the critters that rely on good conservation practices,” continued Senator Cramer.
Williams acknowledged this situation is a challenge and recognized its importance to Senator Cramer and North Dakotans.
“You have given me a challenge that I am looking forward to diving into and finding a more positive way forward,” responded Ms. Williams.
While there has not been a single change in any appeal, even ones under the review of the FWS Director, the new mapping and appeals process has created a beneficial administrative record for landowners and the state. Senator Cramer noted litigation may be the only solution for this situation if FWS does not change.
Background:
A September 2017 townhall hosted by Senator Cramer featured testimony from several North Dakotans upset with federal agents being armed when they came to their property to discuss the easements, a practice which was then walked back by the Trump Administration. In October 2019, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt
visited the state to hear directly about these issues, which led to FWS releasing a memorandum establishing a template for consistent enforcement and the first-ever appeals process.
A subsequent site visit and roundtable in Devils Lake, North Dakota with then-FWS Director Auriela Skipwith in August 2020 revealed the new appeals process was proving ineffective in making the meaningful changes sought by North Dakotans. Senator Cramer
outlined these problems to Assistant Secretary of Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Shannon Estenoz, during her EPW nomination hearing in May 2021. As her first official visit as Assistant Secretary, Estenoz came to North Dakota to hear about these problems
firsthand.
