The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) is urging the U.S. Senate to act quickly in confirming Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
AFBF sent the U.S. Senate a letter of support for Gorsuch, a Supreme Court nominee. AFBF general counsel Ellen Steen says the national organization is urging a swift confirmation to allow the Supreme Court to move forward.
“We have had a vacancy on the Supreme Court for more than a year now since Justice Scalia died. And we have a fantastically qualified nominee who’s been put forward by the president and we need this seat filled,” Steen said to AFBF’s Newsline. “There’s important work that needs to happen in the Supreme Court, work that matters to farmers and ranchers and all Americans, and that work needs to move forward.”
Steen says future considerations by the Supreme Court important to American agriculture include issues related to the Waters of the U.S. rule and critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.
“We have one very important case that’s already been accepted by the court, by the Supreme Court, and that will come up for argument in the fall that Judge Gorsuch would get to take part in. It deals with which court is the proper court to hear challenges like the Waters of the U.S. challenge that we have pending,” Steen said. “There’s also another very important issue that came up in a very negative fifth circuit opinion dealing with the designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act that we really need to get before the court. In that one, there hasn’t been a petition filed yet, but we hope and expect that it will be, and we need a full court.”
She says these upcoming cases prove that there is a strong need to fill the bench with a well-qualified candidate.
“Many important issues that concern farmers and ranchers ultimately wind up being decided in the Supreme Court and we need somebody who’s going to interpret the law as Congress wrote it and not allow the agencies to run roughshod as they sometimes do over those laws,” Steen said. “So, I just hope people will get engaged and tell their senators that this needs to happen.”