Enough really is enough
"Enough.”
That was the message the U.S. House of
Representatives delivered this week to
environmental groups and others bent on using the
court system to impose their will on natural
resource managers across the nation.
By passing the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act —
HR4571 — on a 229-174 vote, the House took an
important step toward returning resource decisions
to professional managers, many of whom are now
under siege by environmental groups’ lawsuits.
It’s not just a siege; it’s an all-out assault. An
assistant attorney general in the Justice
Department estimated that there are 7,100 active
environmental lawsuits in the nation, according to
a story in the Casper, Wyo., Star Tribune. During
the past two years, the Capital Press alone has
run 636 stories either about or referring to
lawsuits, many of them environmental in nature.
These lawsuits target the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the
Environmental Protection Agency and anyone caught
in the crossfire. Irrigation districts, grazing
associations and other groups of farmers and
ranchers must spend time — and money — to protect
their interests as the environmental groups attack
resource managers.
It must be said that some of the lawsuits are
legitimate and focus on legitimate resource
concerns. That is as it should be.
Others, however, seem to be aimed at stopping,
swaying or delaying resource decisions until the
legal questions are rendered moot. Witness
lawsuits aimed at stopping salvage logging of
burned timber in national forests. If the logging
is delayed, the timber’s value eventually
diminishes so much that it is not economically
viable to log it.
Ironically, as the number of lawsuits grows, the
managers’ ability to do their jobs shrinks — the
exact opposite of what environmental groups say
they want. U.S. Forest Service, EPA and other
agencies’ personnel who could and should be
developing plans for managing resources instead
spend some or all of their time working with
lawyers to defend against lawsuits.
And here’s the kicker: Taxpayers often must
reimburse environmental groups that sue the
government — even if the lawsuit is tossed out as
baseless. According to the Sacramento Bee
newspaper, taxpayers sent $31.6 million in checks
to environmental groups that had sued the
government during the 1990s.
“Frivolous lawsuits filed under the guise of
environmentalism actually hurt the environment and
hinder economic growth at the same time,” said
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo,
R-Calif. “Because the environmental organizations
that file these suits are entitled to recover
taxpayer-funded attorneys’ fees and court awards —
win or lose — environmental litigation has become
a big business in America.”
What HR4571 would do is restore mandatory
sanctions against filing frivolous lawsuits. Any
group filing a frivolous lawsuit would have to
reimburse the government for its expenses. The
rule would also apply to state cases in which the
judge finds interstate commerce was affected.
Some might argue that HR4571 would hurt citizens’
rights to a day in court and that environmental
groups and consumer advocates and others would be
afraid to pursue legal remedies for their
concerns.
Not so. Lawsuits that have legal basis would and
should continue to be heard. Only the ones that
are aimed at tying managers’ hands long enough to
win by default or to bully farmers, ranchers,
businesses and other private parties would be
threatened.
The Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act now heads for the
U.S. Senate, where it will hopefully be passed.
But don’t hold your breath that it will ever see
the light of day — 59 of the Senate’s 100 members
are lawyers.
