Cramer, Hoeven, Fedorchak, Agriculture Commissioner Goehring, and North Dakota Farmers Host Press Conference

Follows Waterfowl Production Area Easements Roundtable in Valley City

***Click here for media resources.***

VALLEY CITY, N.D. - Landowners and farmers in North Dakota have faced longstanding frustrations with perpetual U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) wetland easements, many of which were acquired without maps delineating covered wetlands. Subsequent regulatory creep has expanded control of their farmland without any additional financial compensation, all while degrading soil quality and diminishing agricultural productivity. The FWS's trampling of private property rights and broken contract obligations has fueled disputes.

After placing procedural holds on "any and all" executive branch nominees, U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined Interior Secretary Doug Burgum for a closed-press roundtable discussion today focused on gathering information from local landowners and discussing potential solutions to landowners' concerns. The roundtable provided Secretary Burgum and Trump administration officials an opportunity to hear directly from North Dakota landowners about the challenges facing the Prairie Pothole Region and the flaws of the Biden administration's setback rule.

Following the event, Cramer and North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring, along with U.S. Senator John Hoeven (R-ND) and U.S. Representative Julie Fedorchak (R-ND), hosted a press conference with local farmers. Participants called for greater accountability and improvements from the Department of the Interior (DOI) and FWS, while seeking legal clarity and regulatory certainty for landowners with FWS easements.

"I'm convinced there are no biologists, chemists, geologists, or anyone else who can match the enormous intellectual understanding of how all this works more than the landowners, the farmers, and the generations of people who have farmed the land," said Cramer.

"The wrap-up is simply that progress is being made," Cramer continued. "I'm encouraged by it, and I hope you are as well. But I'm very interested in an outcome-not just the plan and promises-but so far, Secretary Burgum and the Interior Department, Fish and Wildlife Service, have fulfilled what they've said they would do in terms of the remapping and the pilot program. I'm looking forward to an outcome that allows me a little room to loosen up on some of the holds I have on people that the administration wants confirmed."

"We recognize that there's been some egregious behavior and that when you consider and look at the pre-'76 easements, it lacks clarity, it lacks intent, and it lacks substance and then the arbitrary actions taken by the government really have not been fair to those people that signed those contracts," said Commissioner Goehring.

North Dakota farmers shared personal experiences similar to the story of Cody Peterson reported by Agri-Pulse. Fields that were once highly productive now suffer from stunted yields because water management systems cannot be installed to manage excess water. Salinity has further hindered production, Peterson said, but installing the needed drainage could have put him in conflict with FWS.

Other North Dakota farmers affected by the FWS policy also spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Steve Hansen, a farmer in Oakes, said conservation easements have made it harder for him and other farmers to produce food and argued the restrictions ultimately hurt wildlife populations. Drew Courtney, another Oakes farmer, said the policy disregards private property rights and leaves farmers forced to "watch [their] land go backward."

"We aren't allowed to maintain these wetlands that were purchased 50, 60 years ago," said Hansen. "That's all we're asking. Let us manage them. We can help the hunters. We can help the farmland, we can help soil health, we can accomplish it all. We are providing solutions to that, and we will get it done. And I think the best part about all that is we can quantify it. We can back it up with data. And it's not just me saying it. I'll take you right to my farm. We're doing it right now. That's the message we need to get across, and I want to see that happen, and I'll do whatever it takes because it is that important to our duck hunters, to all of our hunters, and to our farmers around the state, to help them stay in North Dakota, even more than we have been already."

"Private property rights are a huge deal, especially in the state of North Dakota," said Kyle Courtney. "When we look at what these easements are impacting, you know, when there are anywhere between 4 and 6 million acres that are under these units in the state of North Dakota. When [Rep. Fedorchak] talked about the setbacks, from one of my quarters, 18 acres were purchased, and we set back to pre-'76. We're not disputing the pre-'76 acres that were purchased. But the setbacks that were referred to, they're taking control of 107 acres on that property-that's our property. That's an overstep on our personal property, right? And when you look at North Dakota, personal property rights are right at the top of the list of the things we start getting sort of worried about."

The issue has spanned multiple administrations. In 2020, the first Trump administration sought to address concerns over older wetland easements through an administrative mapping process and new guidance on drain-tile setbacks. The effort was intended to give landowners greater clarity over easement boundaries and the circumstances under which water management improvements could be made.

The Biden administration later finalized a 2024 rule establishing a process for determining drain-tile setbacks on a case-by-case basis. Cramer and other critics argued the rule did not provide landowners with sufficient certainty and instead deferred to the bureaucracy to calculate arbitrary setback distances. Prior to today's roundtable, DOI announced FWS would incorporate feedback from North Dakota farmers, ranchers, and conservation partners as it updates and expands an innovative Prairie Pothole Wetland pilot project addressing landowner concerns-particularly with wetland easements purchased prior to 1976.

Cramer has pressed agency leaders and nominees for changes to the management of wetland easements, including bringing federal officials to North Dakota to meet directly with affected landowners. Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt visited the state in 2019, then-FWS Director Aurelia Skipwith visited in 2020, and Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz visited in 2021 as officials sought to hear about the challenges facing landowners in the Prairie Pothole Region.