Columbus, OH – On Wednesday, The Buckeye Institute filed its amicus brief calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Kansas Natural Resource Coalition v. United States Department of the Interior and recognize the authority of courts to hear claims from private citizens seeking to enforce the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA)—an act which preserves the U.S. Constitution’s essential system of checks and balances.

“The Congressional Review Act was adopted to ensure that federal regulatory agencies follow the rules that Congress put into place,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute. “Unfortunately, the Tenth Circuit’s decision effectively allows regulatory agencies to ignore the CRA’s requirements without consequence. The Buckeye Institute asks the high court to hold that regulatory agencies are not above the law and to utilize the power of judicial review to re-assert much-needed checks and balances into an otherwise broken system.”

In 2003, the Fish and Wildlife Service established the Policy for Evaluating Conservation Efforts (PECE Rule) to encourage state and local governments and private citizens to participate in conservation efforts. Unfortunately, the agency failed to comply with the Congressional Review Act process, thereby endangering successful private conservation efforts led by the Kansas Natural Resource Coalition. Pacific Legal Foundation filed Kansas Natural Resource Coalition v. U.S. Department of the Interior arguing that Fish and Wildlife violated the CRA and demanding that the agency submit the PECE Rule to Congress for approval so that it can “legally take effect and allow good conservation work to continue.”

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UPDATE: June 7, 2021, cert was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States.