North Dakota
North Dakota agriculture leaders ask Secretary of Ag Brooke Rollins to bring back certainty for the industry
FARGO / WHEATLAND, N.D. — Surrounded by a wide swath of the agriculture community on Tuesday, April 22, at NDSU’s Peltier Complex, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said she’s hit the ground running to support farmers and believes strongly in putting America first.
Rollins said President Donald Trump’s focus is to make America great again and that he realizes that Rollins’ focus is to ensure American agriculture is great again. She said it is not lost on Washington, D.C., that large parts of the ag industry have been suffering from paper-thin margins in recent years.
Rollins met with industry members from the corn, soybean, wheat, pulse, sunflower, canola, potato, sugarbeet and cattle industries along with North Dakota dignitaries. Rollins listened to the group during a roundtable in the morning before heading out to tour Grand Farm Innovation Campus in Wheatland and wrapped up the day with a visit to American Crystal Sugar in Moorhead, Minnesota.
“Listen, we are on a mission to, in our founders’ best vision of this country, to return powers to the people,” Rollins said.
The sentiment was in response to several farm groups sharing concerns related to government overregulation. Specifically, that was related to
Waters of the United States
policy and
endangered species regulations
that were adding uncertainty to farming.
“Anything that can be done administratively would be great, legislatively would be more permanent, I presume,” said Ryan Ellis, president of the North Dakota Grain Growers Association, concerning the Endangered Species Act. “The ESA to me is kind of terrifying.”
Rollins said this topic came up in the White House in the last week and she asked that specific desires for these regulations be shared with Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who helped orchestrate the gathering on Tuesday.
Trade concerns resonated with several attendees at the round table. Tony Richards, president of Northarvest Bean Growers Association, shared that the world eats dry beans, but concerns over implemented or even delayed tariffs are causing buyers to move away from the U.S.
Alyssa Goelzer / The Forum
“They are not canceling orders, but they are not making orders,” Richards said. “So we are roughly about 25% down, and that market share has gone away to Brazil and Argentina. And that, for us up here, and the United States as a whole, is a major issue, especially to our growers and processors.”
If the pain of lost markets continues, Richards said producers will need the certainty of crop insurance. As a specialty crop, dry bean growers don’t receive the same disaster assistance as corn and soybean growers. Richardson along with several others are hopeful for unilateral trade agreements that can put U.S. farmers in a strong position to trade around the world.
Leaders of sunflower and canola groups shared concerns over the Make America Healthy Again movement that puts seed oils in a bad light. John Sandbakken, executive director of the National Sunflower Association, said he was hoping that Rollins would be a strong advocate for seed oils and the healthy benefits that they bring to consumers.
The importance of Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation District staff available to farmers was illustrated by North Dakota Farmers Union government relations director Matt Perdue. He shared how the number of attendees interested in learning more about programming for these groups has jumped. He said it’s obvious that producers rely on those staff, especially as profit margins are thin for many crops.
“As we look ahead to a new farm bill, I think it’s critical that we have strong FSA staff, strong NRCS staff out there working with producers, boots on the ground,” Perdue said.
Rollins responded by noting that it was shared last week that the reduction in force efforts, which have allowed for early retirements for large swaths of federal government employees, do not apply to FSA or front-line workers for farmers.
“We need you in the office,” Rollins said of those staff.
Alyssa Goelzer / The Forum
Andrew Mauch, president of North Dakota Corn Growers Association, shared that with half of North Dakota corn going towards production of ethanol, continued support of the ethanol industry will be of utmost importance. He wants to see a permanent fix to the year round availability of E-15, a gasoline blend containing 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline. He noted that while the U.S. is just looking for availability of E-15, Brazil, a major competitor on global trade, mandates the use of E-27, a blend of gasoline with 27% anhydrous ethanol.
Rollins, who said she worked for Trump for three years during his first term in office, added that Trump is an unequivocal fighter for ethanol.
From the cattle industry, concerns over truth in labeling and mandated EID tags for animal traceability were brought up. Hoeven agreed, stating that he is for animal traceability, but opposed to making the electronic tags mandatory.
Rollins has been making stops at several states across the country and noted that Hoeven was one of the first to invite her to North Dakota soon after she was sworn in as 33rd U.S. secretary of agriculture.
Alyssa Goelzer / The Forum
North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong shared appreciation for the new administration’s responsiveness. He said he struggled to get calls back from the previous administration.
“The fact that you guys are responsive to what is going on out here, and willing to engage with us, and willing to talk to us is a huge benefit, not only to me as governor but to everybody sitting around this table, who is just looking for answers before they move onto the next thing,” Armstrong said.
New ballot measure guide to be mailed to North Dakota voters ahead of election
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BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) — A federal district court judge indicated he will nullify a nearly $28 million judgment against the federal government related to costs North Dakota incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests so the parties can reach a settlement.
North Dakota is still set to receive a payment Attorney General Drew Wrigley described as satisfactory, but attorneys would not disclose the amount during a Friday hearing.
Attorneys for the United States and North Dakota said the settlement would allow the parties to avoid litigating the case in appeals court,putting the nearly seven-year-old lawsuit to rest.
“We’re hoping we really don’t need to fight any further,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, concerns demonstrations against the construction of the crude oil pipeline, also known as DAPL, that took place in rural south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
North Dakota claims the federal government caused the protests to grow in size and intensity by unlawfully allowing demonstrators to camp on federal land. The state says it had to pay millions of dollars on policing and cleaning up the encampments as a result. The United States denies the state’s allegations.
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor in April 2025 sided with the state and ordered the executive branch to pay North Dakota the $28 million sum, a decision the U.S. Department of Justice later appealed to the 8th Circuit.
If the settlement moves forward, North Dakota would receive a “substantial monetary payment” from the United States, attorneys said Friday. As a condition of the agreement, the Department of Justice wants Traynor’s judgment and three other orders in which he ruled against the United States to be voided. That includes the court’s 120-page ruling from April 2025.
Both parties said Friday that having the rulings nullified wouldn’t have a significant negative impact on the public, since the documents could still be cited even if they no longer hold the weight of court orders.
At the same time, Guynn said the Department of Justice wants the orders vacated because it doesn’t want the legal conclusions Traynor made to influence the outcome of future lawsuits.
“The downstream consequences of keeping these on the books is troublesome for the United States,” he said during the hearing. If Traynor does not agree to axe the rulings, the United States would likely no longer be willing to settle and move forward with its appeal instead, Guynn added.
Traynor’s orders make findings about the federal government’s responsibility under the Federal Tort Claims Act — the law North Dakota filed the suit under — which the state noted previously in court filings “could have utility holding the federal government to account” in the future.
Still, attorneys for the state said they believe this trade-off is outweighed by the time and money the public would save by not going through the appeals process. North Dakota would also avoid the risk of having Traynor’s judgment overturned by higher courts.
Wrigley said the settlement will be made public once it’s finalized.
The United States’ appeal of Traynor’s decision has been on hold since last summer, when the state and federal government informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals they had started settlement negotiations and wished to pause the case.
The 8th Circuit will have to first send the case back to Traynor before he could grant the parties’ requests.
The case went to trial in Bismarck in early 2024. During the four-week trial, the court heard from witnesses including former governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple, Native activists, federal officials and law enforcement.
The Dakota Access Pipeline carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. It crosses the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which prompted the tribe to begin protesting the pipeline on the grounds that it poses a threat to its water supply and sovereignty.
North Dakota’s lawsuit originally requested $38 million in damages from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for costs it spent related to the protests.
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – North Dakota leaders unveiled an initiative aimed at getting more oil out of the Bakken, using enhanced oil recovery and CO₂.
Senator John Hoeven said the effort is getting a boost from $36 million from the Department of Energy for “Crack the Code 2.0,” a $157 million initiative with state and industry funding.
Hoeven said the goal is to use CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, calling it “an important, usable, valuable commodity” and saying, “We’re linking our coal plants with our oil and gas producing companies to do it.”
Funding will be used to develop technology to make enhanced oil recovery profitable and viable, and then implement it in North Dakota oil fields in a number of pilot projects.
Hoeven said current recovery rates in the Bakken are limited.
“We’re only producing about 10 to 12% of the oil out of that shale,” he said, “But with EOR, advanced oil recovery techniques, we can double it. We can take it from 10 to 12% up to 25% or better.”
Hoeven said the effort is also tied to electricity demand, saying North Dakota will “produce more electricity for a company that wants to do AI, that wants to do data centers, needs more and more electricity,” and that “it isn’t just about oil and gas.”
North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said the pilot projects are expected to start soon.
“We hope to see these pilots putting their technologies into the ground sometime late this year, first quarter of next year,” said Ness.
“So I would expect by this time next year, we’re going to maybe potentially begin to see what are some of the results early on,” Ness added. “And again, this is going to take multiple, multiple swings at this thing. It’s not going to just happen. If it was easy, we’d be doing it. Nobody’s done it anywhere in the world. This is where we’re going to crack the code.”
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