Congressional and Senate Western Caucuses Weekly Address

Statement

This week, Congressional Western Caucus Vice Chairman Congressman Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) delivered the Congressional and Senate Western Caucuses' weekly address. In her remarks, Congressman Lummis discussed her jobs bill, H.R. 1996, the Government Litigation Savings Act.

The legislation will would reform the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) by disallowing the reimbursement of attorney's fees and costs for large, deep-pocketed special interests who repeatedly sue the Federal Government. The legislation which was included in the recently released Western Caucus Jobs Frontier report was passed out of the Judiciary Committee this week.

"Since the beginning of this Congress, Republicans in the House have worked tirelessly to enact legislation that will help set our economy right. So far this year we have passed 21 bills that will either create jobs, or prevent the Obama Administration from destroying jobs with heavy-handed regulations. Unfortunately, the Senate has failed to act on any of these jobs bills."

"The Western Caucus Jobs Frontier Report highlights 40 pieces of legislation that could be enacted immediately to help create jobs in the west, and I'm pleased to report that 8 of those bills have already passed the House."

"In 1980, Congress passed a little-known law called the Equal Access to Justice Act. The idea of the bill was in recognition of the fact that suing the federal government is a daunting task, particularly for people or small businesses of limited means."

"For 16 years, the program has existed without any oversight at all, and there is no requirement to keep track of the money that has been spent."

"During this period of complete unaccountability, some multi-million dollar organizations discovered the Act, and began to twist it into subsidy for repeated procedural lawsuits."

"While the original intent of Congress was for the Equal Access to Justice Act to assist people with a once-in-a-lifetime need, these groups have hijacked the program into a means to perpetually fund a cottage industry based on suing the federal government over and over again."

"It [Government Litigation Savings Act] ends the tax-payer subsidy for repeated procedural lawsuits, while protecting the original intent of EAJA to serve social security recipients, veterans and small businesses."

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