WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) issued the following statement on the Senate voting to confirm the nomination of William Barr as Attorney General and on the nominations process:
“I voted for William Barr because he’s an accomplished attorney with decades of public service who is ready to take on the bureaucracy within the Department of Justice. When I met Mr. Barr, I expressed concerns about the consolidation of litigation authority at the DOJ and how this has empowered bureaucrats to fight states’ rights and constitutional principles. Mr. Barr assured me he would take the DOJ in a more federalist direction by reforming the department’s culture, and I look forward to working with him to ensure that happens.
“As always, Mr. Barr’s confirmation presents an opportunity to highlight the need to reform the nominations process. In this case, Democrats- for no reason- delayed his committee vote by one week. Mr. Barr’s nomination is yet another example of one side unnecessarily holding up a qualified nominee, who is inevitably confirmed anyway, only because of political posturing. The current system does not work. It’s time for both sides to come together to reform the way we handle nominations.”
Background:
Senator Cramer met with Mr. Barr on February 6th. During the meeting, Senator Cramer and Mr. Barr discussed two cases that exemplify the bureaucracy at the DOJ. The cases are outlined below:
North Dakota v. United States, Case No. 1:12-cv-125-DLH-CSM
Since 2000, North Dakota has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to secure ND’s rightful authority to construct roads along section lines on Forest Service lands. In 2012, after 12 years of negotiations, it had become apparent that the federal government was not operating in good faith, and ND sued. The USDA/DOJ argued against the state, asserting that the state had exceeded the 12-year statute of limitations on federal land quiet title claims. Unfortunately, the district court agreed and the suit was dismissed in 2017. The entire ND delegation (including Senator Cramer during his time in the House) then went to work to solve this issue. However, this matter has not been resolved as the agencies continually pass the buck off to each other: USDA has continually sent the delegation to the DOJ, and the DOJ then refers them back to USDA. DOJ has litigation authority on this matter and it is critical that they stop passing the buck onto other agencies and work to fight on behalf of—not against—the rights of states.
Environmental Integrity Project v. Pruitt, Case No. 1:16-cv-00842
In 2016, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to mandate that the EPA issue new regulations under Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). ND filed suit to intervene, arguing that they had standing to intervene because Congress explicitly embedded cooperative federalism in RCRA Subtitle D, and the regulations in question had a direct effect on the state. The DOJ, however, took the position that ND had no recognizable interest and the district court subsequently decided ND did not have standing. ND appealed this decision in 2017 and the DOJ again argued against ND and shortly thereafter settled with EIP. This happened just a few months after EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had written a memo asserting he would end the practice of “sue and settle.” During the meeting, Mr. Barr agreed that, particularly in cases where cooperative federalism is mandated by Congress, states by given standing to intervene. Additionally, he understood that it was important for the DOJ to follow the direction of the secretaries of the agencies that they represent.
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