BISMARCK — U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water, and Wildlife, announced today he will host U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Director Aurelia Skipwith next week in Devils Lake, North Dakota, for a roundtable with landowners and producers and for a ceremony for the renaming of White Horse Hill. Senator Cramer invited Director Skipwith to visit the state during her nomination hearing last September.
“I appreciate Director Skipwith following through on her commitment to visit North Dakota and hear from our landowners and producers about their concerns,” said Senator Cramer. “I look forward to a productive conversation at the roundtable and to the honor of participating in the renaming ceremony at White Horse Hill.”
The roundtable serves as an opportunity for North Dakota’s landowners and producers to provide feedback on the efficacy of the FWS Waterfowl Production Area (WPA) Appeals Process. In January, Director Skipwith issued a Directors Order providing landowners and producers with due process, a direct result of Senator Cramer’s work with the Trump Administration and the roundtable he hosted with Secretary Bernhardt last October.
White Horse Hill is a National Game Preserve within the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation. It was previously named Sullys Hill after a Civil War and Indian Wars military officer who gained his reputation carrying out several massacres against Native Americans, including one of the worst in the history of the Dakota Territory. At the request of Spirit Lake Nation, last year Senator Cramer introduced legislation to change the name to its traditional Dakota name, White Horse Hill, which required an act of Congress. It was the Senator’s first bill to pass the Senate and became law when President Trump signed it along with last December’s appropriations package. Director Skipwith oversees National Game Preserves like White Horse Hill as director of FWS.
The open press events are as follows: