Abuse of the Equal Access to Justice Act by Environmental NGOs
Fisheries Conservation, Wildlife, and Oceans
2025-12-10
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Source: Congress.gov
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The subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on abuse of the equal access to justice or EJA by environmental NGOs. Under committee rule 4f any oral opening statement at the hearing are limited to the chairman and the ranking member. I therefore ask unanimous consent that all other members statements be made part of the hearing record if they are submitted in accordance with Committee Rule 3-0. Without objection, so ordered. I ask the unanimous consent for the following members to be allowed to sit and participate in today's hearing. The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Stauber.
The gentleman from Montana, Mr. Downing. Without objection, so ordered. I now recognize myself for my opening statement. Good morning, everyone. I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Traveling at this time of year to Washington, D.C. is probably not everybody's dream position. We're here to talk about the abuses of the Equal Access to Justice Act by the environmental NGOs. House Committee on Natural Resources Republicans have been working to root out fraud, waste, and abuse in our federal agencies. This hearing today will examine the Equal Access to Justice Act, or EJA, a law Congress enacted in 1980 to combat federal overreach by shifting the cost of litigation away from veterans, Social Security recipients, and small businesses. While well-intentioned, EJA has enabled well-funded radical environmental nonprofits to engage in lawfare campaigns against federal agencies and to recoup some of their litigation costs from the government. Loopholes and exemptions in the law allow 501 organizations to evade award caps for attorneys' fees and incentivize them to turn weak procedural cases into fee award settlements. Without reform to EJA, these NGOs will continue to function as law firms funded by taxpayer dollars, spending most of their time suing federal agencies, blocking and delaying federal actions. Between the fiscal years of 2019 and 2024, federal agencies, including the Department of the Interior and Energy and the Forest Service, paid out approximately $24.8 million in EGIA awards. About 76% of these awards, $18.8 million, went to environmental nonprofits. Awards in the vast majority of these lawsuits go to a handful of groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club, and Wild Earth Guardians. Their lawyers have been reimbursed at rates as high as $500 per hour, paid for by American taxpayers. EJA considers plaintiffs who achieve a partial victory over procedural settlements on prevailing parties, making them eligible for fee awards.
Additionally, the federal government can reduce litigation costs by simply settling, perpetuating, and incentivizing the cycle of endless sue and settle schemes. This committee has a responsibility to practice oversight over EJA awards to radical environmental nonprofit groups and to ensure responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. In March 2019, Congress passed the Dingell Act, which included new annual reporting requirements on EJA awards to provide more transparency and accountability. To fulfill the reporting requirements, the Administrative Conference of the US publishes a database of EJA awards in both adversarial adjudications and federal court cases. The same repeat offenders are being listed as plaintiffs in EJA cases over and over and over again, indicating a capability for targeted lawfare by environmental NGOs that violates the intent of EJA's fee awards framework. As a result of many of the EJA lawsuits, agencies must conduct secondary or repetitive environmental reviews and studies, costing them even more money, time, and resources. And that should be spent managing our nation's natural resources instead. A 2024 study by the Breakthrough Institute, which reviewed NEPA-related litigation from 2013 to 2022, found that environmental reviews are rarely changed as a result of these litigations. These lawsuits are effectively a delay tactic with no meaningful impact on environmental reviews, blocking essential forest management and energy development activities that promote responsible and effective use of our public lands. Despite current reporting requirements, the comprehensive budgetary impact of EGA awards payouts on agencies is unclear, as the database does not always reflect all fees paid out to nonprofits by federal governments. More thorough transparency is required for Congress and the American public to understand the full impacts of this environmental lawfare.
Now, while the Dingell Act was a great first step, it does not provide a full accounting of the funds currently being expended land management agencies on these land lawsuits, nor the long-term impacts. For example, one of the most dangerous effects of these lawsuits is to lock up our forests for proper management. In my home state of Arizona, I have seen firsthand how wildfires can grow in an area where eight federal agencies were prevented from conducting activities to improve wildfire resiliency and forest health. By suing to block these essential activities, an NGO can effectively pave the way for the destruction of the public lands they claim to be preserving. Prominent well-funded environmental NGOs are taking advantage of the EJA's current framework. They have developed strategies to exploit the law, suing the government to block federal actions, and then collecting attorneys' fees when they prevail or settle in court.
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