Today, the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held an oversight hearing examining how environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs) abuse the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Subcommittee Chair Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) issued the following statement in response:

“The Equal Access to Justice Act was created to help ordinary Americans challenge federal overreach—not to bankroll ideological lawfare campaigns. Yet powerful, well-funded NGOs have turned the EAJA into a taxpayer-financed ATM to pursue political litigation that has little to do with justice and everything to do with advancing their agenda. This abuse diverts resources away from the very individuals the law was intended to protect and forces hardworking taxpayers to subsidize endless lawsuits designed to obstruct lawful federal actions, particularly in areas like energy, land management, and border security. It is time to restore integrity to the EAJA, end the cycle of taxpayer-financed activism, and ensure that this law once again serves citizens—not special-interest groups gaming the system for profit and politics.”

Background

The EAJA was designed to combat federal overreach and wrongdoing by allowing reimbursement of legal fees. The original intent of EAJA was primarily to aid veterans, Social Security recipients, and small businesses in ensuring they would not be overly burdened by attorneys’ fees when contemplating action against the United States government. However, over the years, environmental NGOs have utilized EAJA to fund their lawfare campaigns with taxpayer dollars.

Extensive legal actions by NGOs force federal land management agencies to waste significant amounts of their budgets and time on litigation and decision reversals. This detracts from their responsibilities to manage and protect our natural resources, pivoting the EAJA from its original intent.