Moment of Silence in Remembrance of Members of Armed Forces and Their Families

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I rise in strong support of this legislation offered by my good friend from Wyoming.

It would be one thing if what the gentleman from Virginia says were the case in reality. It's not the case in reality. I think that's the reason that this law was passed, so that those people, the powerless, less wealthy individuals that the gentleman referred to, would have access to the courts. And the last thing we want to do is deny citizens their right to have a say in how, in this case, our public lands are managed.

But it has become, frankly, a cottage industry: suing the Federal Government, which is suing the people, and then asking the people to pay for your legal fees to do so. The Equal Access to Justice will allow those suing the Federal Government to be reimbursed for their legal costs even if they don't prevail on a majority of the counts. The implication that the gentleman just gave is that you have to win. They can be reimbursed even if they don't prevail on a majority of the counts.

The law has been abused by several interest groups who have turned this into, as I said, a cottage industry and now sue the government on a regular basis. They fund their organization through this and that's a problem. If somehow we could get it back to what the gentleman said it was, that would be one thing. So far we haven't been able to do that. And, in fact, we had language in our last appropriations bill that didn't make it to the floor, along with the other appropriations bill, that would have at least said why don't we find out who's getting this money. If I'm a farmer out there and I get payments under the farm program, every citizen in this country has the right and ability to look it up and see who's getting those farm payments. You know what, that doesn't happen with who's getting these fees, who's being reimbursed by the Federal Government.

They're supposed to keep track of that, but they don't do that; but, in fact, when we asked the Secretary, does this come out of your budget or does it come out of the justice fund, who pays for this? Nobody really knew. And if it doesn't come out of their own budget, what's their incentive to do things the right way?

Quite frankly, many of these lawsuits prevent the management of Federal lands for the benefit of the people. For example, holding up important forest-thinning projects and wildfire prevention projects. This, as I said, has become a cottage industry and needs to be reformed. This would prevent these fees from being paid during the term of this CR the next 7 months or however long it takes.

Mr. MORAN. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to my friend from Virginia.

Mr. MORAN. I thank my very good friend from Idaho.

Is it not the case that you only get fees on that part of the suit that you brought where you actually win? That you do have to prevail in order to get something in order to get reimbursed. And it's only on where you prevail that you get any fee reimbursement.

Mr. SIMPSON. That's accurate. But you don't have to prevail in the overall case. You could actually lose the case for what you are trying to do. It is the problem that good intentions have gone awry. And I will tell you that there are groups all across this country who have seen this as a way to fund their organizations, and we need to put a halt to it. Because what we're doing is asking the people of this country to fund people to sue them. I don't know who else does that. But on the other hand, I agree with the gentleman that we want those people that don't have the ability or the resources to have a say in how public lands are managed, to have a say in that. But it has gone awry, and we need to put an end to it, and we need to reform the process.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source