Government Transparency
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRAMER. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in offering support for improving the way our government runs. What we are doing is we are fighting for a government that is led in an open, transparent way by elected leaders--elected leaders--who are accountable to the people who elect us.
Reining in a bureaucracy that has run rampant has been a top priority of mine ever since coming to Congress. In fact, last year when I outlined my vision for serving in the Senate in my maiden speech, I vowed to take on the bureaucracy. Since coming to Washington, it has become abundantly clear to me that the bureaucracy has evolved into an unelected, unaccountable creature.
When constituents back home reach out to my office for help, there is a good chance it has to do with an intransigent, unresponsive, or even an aggressive--an aggressive--confrontational bureaucrat who has forgotten that a public servant is actually supposed to serve the public; that is, the public made up of people--people who elect officials.
In many cases, the Federal Government has codified the corruption, transforming from a group of civil servants carrying out our laws into a rogue body consumed with defending and in many cases expanding their power. This bureaucracy has turned internal guidance documents into infallible law, placing the creation and implementation of their policies and processes above the American people's needs--in fact, in many cases, changing the actual laws they are supposed to be enforcing. This is something I look to address at every given opportunity because it is a problem I discover in almost every issue we seek to solve.
I am going to start by talking a little bit about the Army Corps of Engineers. My efforts to take on this bureaucracy began almost immediately when I came to the Senate. President Trump, in fulfilling his promise to secure our border and keep America safe, declared a national emergency in order to expedite the construction of physical barriers along our southern border. Unfortunately, the agency charged with executing the building of this wall--that is, the Army Corps of Engineers--is not known for expediency or responsiveness.
As a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Environment and Public Works Committee, both of which have direct jurisdiction over the Corps of Engineers, I exercised my congressional oversight responsibilities and role by conducting a study of the Army Corps' procurement process: how it awards contracts, how those companies have performed since being selected, what they are paid for in their bidding or RFP process. My findings, simply, were horrifying.
In a letter to President Trump, I detailed how the Corps' procurement process fails to foster competition--particularly when it comes to price and schedule--and disfavors new entrants and innovators into their process.
As I was conducting the investigation that led to these findings, I was met with bureaucratic obstruction at almost every step, from bad- faith promises, to empty vows of cooperation, to bureaucrats actually leaking my personal--my personal--emails to the media. Army Corps bureaucrats failed to meet even the most basic standards of good faith and cooperation in dealing with a Senator who sits on the committees that oversee them, as though their agency runs us instead of our having oversight over them. The correspondence they leaked was not even salacious or informative, really. It said nothing that I wasn't already saying out loud. But I think that was what bothered them the most, is that I was saying it out loud. This was a coordinated attempt to discourage me from continuing to dig into the bureaucracy. As I told them then, if you are counting on 99 out of 100 people to walk away exasperated because of your delays, consider me the other 1.
Such intimidation and such a breakdown in proper government action should be infuriating and horrifying to any civically minded person who believes in checks and balances and the ability to hold the bureaucracy accountable.
It is not my first encounter with bureaucratic overreach, with an executive agency dipping its foot into the water of activism. During my time in the House of Representatives under the previous administration, the conservation advocacy group Ducks Unlimited was providing staff to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, embedded right in their offices. This meant that taxpayer funds were supporting the work of advocacy staffers campaigning for a State ballot measure to establish a slush fund that would benefit their organization. The Federal Government was funding political activists while those activists worked to pass a measure that would give them further funding. If that is not corruption, then nothing is, whether or not it is intended. If not for our efforts to shine light on such obvious corruption, their abuse would have gone unchecked, and their power would have only grown.
Somehow, the issue with the Natural Resources Conservation Services is not the most obvious example of bureaucratic abuse that North Dakotans have experienced. Over the years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has increasingly encroached on the rights of landowners who have perpetual wetland easements on their property.
One particularly egregious case is the story of Mike Johansen, a farmer from Hope, ND. After a heavy rainfall year, the land flooded, leaving him unable to harvest and seed for the next planting season. He asked the Service for help, but due to poor guidance and enforcement, the Service offered him nothing. In fact, after he dug a drain, the Service cited him and dragged him to court. The legal fees and fines caused by these vague regulations written without clarity, oversight, or an appeals process forced Mike to quit farming, sell his equipment, and borrow money just to get the funds he needed to defend himself in court against his government. Thankfully, he won in court. He proved his case against the government. But the cost was bankruptcy-- bankruptcy.
I had the privilege of hosting Interior Secretary Bernhardt so he could meet with Mike and North Dakota landowners who have experienced similar abuse. Since then, the Interior Department has begun issuing updated guidance to give our landowners clarity and a right to appeal overzealous bureaucratic action.
I appreciate the Secretary's timely action and his emphasis on being a better neighbor, but this will only be successful if Fish and Wildlife Service employees follow the spirit of the Secretary's actions to actually work with landowners versus ruling over them. We are working closely with the Department to make sure these regulations work for our constituents, and I am hopeful this example concludes with a positive ending. But after every election, there is a new set of leaders.
Frankly, I have been appalled at the reaction the bureaucracy has had to the Trump administration's moving of the Bureau of Land Management from Washington, DC, to Grand Junction, CO, or a couple of USDA agencies moving from Washington, DC, to Kansas City, only so they can be closer to the resources they manage and the people they are supposed to be serving. The backlash has been incredible; the outcry, unbelievable. It is as though the bureaucracy is entitled to whatever they think is important as opposed to the people they work for being entitled to good service.
Sadly, there is one glaring example to me that is far from reaching a conclusion or a positive ending anytime soon, although I will never give up. I will never give up.
Over 50 years ago, during the Vietnam war, the USS Frank E. Evans battleship collided with an allied aircraft carrier and sank, killing 74 deployed sailors. The USS Frank E. Evans had served multiple tours off the Vietnam coast and was scheduled to return after completing this exercise about 100 miles outside of the official combat zone. They were exercising with other American ships, as well as other allied ships, during the Vietnam war. Because of a geographic technicality, the names of those ``Lost 74'' sailors are not memorialized on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall, as if they didn't die in the service of our Nation's effort in Vietnam. The honor and gratitude owed to them is long overdue, but the only objections I have ever heard--remember, this was just about 51 years ago now--the only objections I have ever heard are from the people whose job it would be to add their names to the wall. In other words, I can't find anybody who opposes adding the 74 names to the wall except the people whose job it would be to carry out this task. We are working on sending a man to Mars, but somehow it is too much to add 74 heroes' names to the Vietnam Memorial wall.
It is inexplicable to me that bureaucrats in Washington could determine that these sailors' ultimate sacrifice is unworthy of being memorialized simply because they were on the wrong side of an arbitrary line. The exclusion of these veterans is a disservice to those who gave their lives for our country. A technicality is not an excuse for inaction, a previously issued memo is not a reason to express disapproval, and an objection from Washington's bureaucracy should not stop us from honoring these heroes, these veterans.
Last year, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced a bill to force the bureaucracy to make this a reality. Yet it remains stuck here in the Senate. Let me repeat that. The bureaucracy's excuses have found welcoming ears here, and the bill remains stuck, with no explanation or reasoning. It has equal bipartisan support. Yet it remains stuck in the bureaucracy of this body.
If we do not see movement soon, I am going to return to the Senate floor to attempt to pass the bill by unanimous consent. I have spoken to the chairmen of the two committees of jurisdiction. They see no objection. Yet, somewhere in this big place, objection clearly exists.
I hope that between now and then, we are able to see real progress on this important issue. The people fighting to have these fallen soldiers memorialized are also heroes. They are their shipmates. They are the survivors, the spouses, and the children of these heroes. I am not going to join the bureaucracy by standing in the way, and I hope none of my colleagues do either.
These are just a few of the many examples of what I call bureaucratic abuse, obstruction, and overreach that I have witnessed since coming to Congress just 7 years ago, and I think we should call them out. The opinion of Federal career staff is not sacrosanct; it is advice. It is counsel, but it is not a decision.
Without further action, complacency will only empower the bureaucracy. People elected us to have their power, the people's power. So now is the time to remind this city who holds that constitutional responsibility and authority. The people hold it. Our constituents elected us, the President, and every elected official, but they have no say in the bureaucracy except through us. That is our job as elected officials--to give the people we work for their voice in the bureaucracy. We must dedicate ourselves to doing so, so that we can define this era as a time that we, the elected representatives, stood up to the bureaucracy and reclaimed the true power of the Federal Government for the people, not the bureaucracy.
With that, I yield my time.
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