Senator Cramer's Weekly Update April 11-24

Welcoming Home the Western North Dakota Honor Flight

It was wonderful to join so many community members in welcoming home our amazing veterans participating in the Western North Dakota Honor Flight!

Every one of them deserves our recognition, thanks, and honor for their service to our country.

Enes Freedom Visits North Dakota

Every freedom-loving American should hear Enes Freedom’s story. His personal testimony serves as an example of how blessed we are to live in the United States and inspires an uncommon boldness in proclaiming truth and calling out lies.

On Monday, April 18, Enes participated in a youth basketball clinic with NBA Skills Coach Mark Kinnebrew at St. Mary’s Central High School.

On Tuesday, April 19, we met with community leaders, spoke to University of Mary students, and had a discussion on freedom at the Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck.

Thank you for coming to North Dakota and sharing your message that freedom isn’t free with students and community members.

Remarks Criticize the Biden Administration 30x30 Land Grab Agenda

Last Friday, I delivered remarks at the American Stewards of Liberty “Stop 30x30 Summit” in Lincoln, Nebraska and highlighted North Dakota’s longstanding frustration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) heavy-handed enforcement of conservation easements and its impact on landowners and producers.

The 30x30 initiative is an extension of the top-down, central planning vision Washington bureaucrats hiding in federal agencies possess. DC bureaucrats believe they know what is best for rural America, all while they live in a concrete swamp completely detached from the producers who feed, fuel, and clothe our nation and the world.

During the summit, I discussed “Waters of the U.S.” and three pieces of legislation I introduced to increase transparency surrounding federal land inventory, protect private property rights, and provide a much-needed check on the Biden Administration’s overreaching agenda: the Federal Land Asset Inventory Reform Act, the 30x30 Termination Act, and the Landowner Easement Rights Act.

Space Ag Conference Keynote Address Highlights Opportunities in Production Technology

It was a privilege to join the Space Ag Conference in Grand Forks. Fostering growth at the intersection of space and agriculture is incredibly important, as understanding more about space can also help solve challenges on earth.

Space agriculture, and the technology it creates, could catalyze the development of high-yield crop production requiring less land and less energy, ultimately providing farmers with the ability to create more with less.

The intersection of space and agriculture is significant, and the challenges associated with advancing the research and development in this sector require outside-the-box thinking. North Dakota is a nexus for this sort of growth and investment.

Amicus Brief on Clean Water Act Authority Supports Landowners

I joined Environment and Public Works Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Ranking Member Sam Graves (R-MO), 44 Senators, and 154 House members on an amicus brief filed in support of the petitioners in the pending case Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Sackett case is directly related to how much authority the federal government has over states and private citizens to regulate “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act.

Congress made clear its intent in legislative text, structure, and history to establish a limited federal regulatory presence. But this intent has now been turned on its head. Through the “significant nexus” test, the EPA and Corps can instead use any ecological connection between land and nearby water as a pretext for intrusive central planning.

This case presents an opportunity for the Court to finally put the genie back in the bottle. Only then will Congress’s dual purposes of cooperative federalism and environmental protection in the CWA be fully vindicated.

Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans Call Out Army Corps for Political Review of Nationwide Permit 12

I joined Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and our Republican colleagues in sending a letter to Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Michael Connor expressing strong opposition to the United States Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to formally review Nationwide Permit 12, the Corps’ general permit for oil or natural gas pipeline activities.

The decision to single out and review NWP 12 for oil and gas pipelines is purely political, considering the recent spike in energy prices and the rapid rise of inflation economy-wide, as well as the crisis in Ukraine and demand for American energy from our allies.

America’s Newsroom Interview Discusses Inflation

I joined America's Newsroom on Fox News to discuss the highest inflation numbers in over 40 years and its impact on rural America.

I’m home in North Dakota this week during a three-day snowstorm and the price of fuel is obvious for people who are snow blowing just to get out of their driveways.

North Dakotans feel it because we drive further to get to places, deliveries come from a long way away, and the products we create and food we produce has to go further. There is no question in rural America, you’re hit the hardest.

We have the Biden Administration and a Democratic Party that just keeps pouring fuel on this. It's like Joe Biden showed up at the West Wing one day and said, “Kamala Harris – the Oval Office is on fire! Go get some gasoline quickly and we’ll try to put it out.” Everything they do is counter to solving the problem in front of them.

Fox Business Interview Discusses America First Trade and Climate Policy

I joined David Asman on Fox Business to discuss the importance of domestic energy development and Democrats’ hypocritical energy and environmental policies.

Democrats swim in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to energy and economic policy. The American people are not fooled by it because when they go to fill their car with gas or they look at their electricity bill, they see it's going up and it's going up way too much.

I also highlighted my America First approach to trade and energy production by aligning climate and national security policy. This would limit our adversaries, support our allies, produce cleaner energy, and reduce global emissions.

This would be a far better approach than just trying to choke off the supply in the United States with the hope you'll choke off the demand, which is not the case.

Legislation Preserves Small Business Access to Capital

I joined Senator John Boozman (R-AR) in introducing the Small LENDER Act in an effort to fight back against the Biden Administration’s attempt to pick small business winners and losers based on social factors.

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, but overly burdensome regulations from the Biden Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau threaten their access to credit. Our bill protects community banks and small lenders from additional costly regulations so they can meet the needs of the communities they serve.

Grants for North Dakota

UND and NDSU Awarded $800,000 in Medical Research Funding

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded two grants to the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University for medical research totaling $814,567.

UND was awarded $382,717 for allergy, immunology, and transplantation research to study the role of peripheral immune cell activity in food-allergy-induced neuroinflammation and demyelination.

NDSU was awarded $431,850 for cancer treatment research. The project is developing cancer-specific, H2O2-activatable, and O2-evolving micelles encapsulating near-IR photosensitizers for phototherapy of breast cancer.

National Science Foundation Awards $200,000 to United Tribes Technical College

The National Science Foundation awarded $199,999 to United Tribes Technical College.

The funds will be used to increase the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics instructional and research capacities of specific institutions of higher education that serve the nation's indigenous students.

Federal Aviation Administration Awards $405,000 to UND

The Federal Aviation Administration awarded $325,042 to Evaluate UAS Electromagnetic Compatibility and $80,000 to Investigate Detect and Avoid Track Classification and Filtering to the University of North Dakota.

USDA Rural Development Awards $2.8 Million to Improve North Dakota’s Water Infrastructure

U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development awarded $2,800,000 loan to the City of Richardton to complete a city-wide street and storm sewer improvement project and $30,000 grant to the City of Leeds to review the existing water system including the water source, treatment methods, storage facilities, distribution system, and especially areas of concern with low pressure and leaks.

USDA Awards $600,000 to NDSU for Animal Nutrition and Reproductive Research

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded North Dakota State University $300,000 to study the impacts of providing vitamin and mineral supplementation to beef heifers throughout gestation, compared to unsupplemented heifers and $300,000 to study and develop nutritional strategies to improve heifer development and calf performance, thereby improving production efficiency of the cow-calf industry.