By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
Last week’s column explained how animal rights and environmental groups get their hands on federal tax dollars. Through the Judgment Fund and Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), these groups flood the system with lawsuits in a shotgun approach and grab the winnings in the form of payouts for their legal cleverness. The system, that was designed to protect the environment and endangered species, has been co-opted into a brazen cash grab that actually hurts beneficial wildlife management.
When frivolous lawsuits are filed, government agencies don’t have the resources available to handle the barrage of enviro-litigation. Groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) understand this all too well. Their staff of some 20 lawyers count on the failure of the government to lose on issues of mandated response times, etc. and feed their never-ending thirst for taxpayers’ dollars. The net effect is that federal wildlife budgets are drained by paying for these lawsuits and therefore cannot be used to benefit game and non-game animal species, as designed. Hunter access to public land is curtailed for the same reason.
Public accountability and Congressional oversight have been forbidden by virtue of the Federal Reports Elimination and Sunset Act.in 1995. Nobody knows just how many millions of taxpayer dollars have gone to throngs of extremist lawyers, but the madness could be coming to an end. Thanks to Wyoming Representative Cynthia Lummis (R) an amendment to the House’s continuing resolution passed in February would impose a six-month moratorium on payments to individuals and groups that bring successful lawsuits on the federal government.
After the amendment passed, Lummis said, “”I’m pleased that members of Congress recognized the need for a moratorium on these payments just so we can take a deep breath and learn where the money is going. We need to find out whether the law is being abused,” she said. “In the spirit of good government and transparency, we hope to learn if this fund is functioning how it originally was intended when it was passed in 1980.” It’s apparent that the EAJA has become a vehicle for manipulation by environmental groups that sue in the name of animal welfare and block various uses of public lands such as grazing and oil and gas leasing.
“It’s very important to the people of Wyoming and I think the people of this country as well,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R) of Wyoming. He also indicated he would promote such a provision through his chamber when it takes up the spending bill. Certainly, a moratorium won’t make everyone happy any more than cutting taxpayers’ expenses in Wisconsin will. Kieran Suckling, executive director of CBD, one of the groups benefitting immensely from the payments, points out that the perception that environmental groups are the only ones benefitting from EAJA payments calls into question the fact that environmental lawsuits make up a tiny portion of EAJA recipients.
While that may be true, conspicuously absent from her retort is any mention of how much cash CBD has grabbed from hunters, fishermen, and any other taxpayer who do not agree with its tactics, let alone its principles.
“The Equal Access to Justice Act is probably the most important democratic tool that allows private citizens and non-corporations access to justice in America,” Suckling said, citing a minimum wage U.S. Postal Service worker who is able under EAJA to sue for sexual harassment as one theoretical example.
Theoretical examples are most likely how this waste of taxpayer money got started but until the government gets a grip on reality, shutting down the gravy train makes a lot of sense. I would think that the provision in the current EAJA to allow deep-pocket organizations the same shot at the “lottery” as the poor postal worker described above may need reconsideration too, because it’s hard to draw a meaningful parallel between the two.
The moratorium won’t solve any abuse issues; it’s a punt. But, if the government wants to be fair, as Ms. Suckling has lobbied for the poor, how about “loser pays?” When one of her group’s frivolous suits fails, it could be reclassified as payback time. At least there’d be some funds left for the postal worker.
Next week: A look at how the big-money animal rights non-profits spend all that money.
