Attorney General Eric Holder speaks at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Monday, May 19, 2014. Holder announced that a U.S. grand jury has charged five Chinese hackers with economic espionage and trade secret theft, the first-of-its-kind criminal charges against Chinese military officials in an international cyber-espionage case. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is formally backing a proposal being considered by the U.S. Sentencing Commission that would shorten the amount of time that federal drug offenders currently behind bars would have to spend in prison.

The proposal would apply only to nonviolent drug offenders and would be expected to save taxpayers $2.4 billion. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which already approved a proposal to lower certain drug sentencing guidelines, will vote next month on whether to make those changes retroactive.

“Under the department’s proposal, if your offense was nonviolent, did not involve a weapon, and you do not have a significant criminal history, then you would be eligible to apply for a reduced sentence in accordance with the new rules approved by the Commission in April,” Attorney General Eric Holder, who has made criminal justice reform a priority in the second term of the Obama administration, said in a statement.