Rik Dalvit/For the Capital Press

Editorial

A group of Western congressmen and senators want the Justice Department to make public how much taxpayer money is paid to environmental groups in the form of judgments and legal fees in cases involving the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws.

We think a little accountability is in order.

As we reported Oct. 16, the federal government paid out more than $4.7 billion in a five-year period to environmental groups that had won cases against various agencies.

We know this thanks to the efforts of Karen Budd-Falen, a Wyoming attorney who combed through federal records, adding up sums paid to environmental groups from the Judgment Fund under the Equal Access to Justice Act.

The Act was created to allow public interest groups, individuals and small businesses with meager resources to recoup legal expenses if they successfully mount cases against the government. That provides a reasonable counterbalance to the considerable resources the government can bring to any litigation.

When the law was enacted it required the attorney general to report annually to Congress on court-awarded judgments against the government, and the Administrative Conference of the U.S. to report agency-awarded judgments. In 1995, however, Congress defunded the Administrative Conference and repealed the requirement that the attorney general report judgments.

As a result, Budd-Falen’s effort required substantial digging on her part, and may be the only public accounting that reveals total reimbursements paid to environmental groups in nearly 15 years. Budd-Falen admits that she was able to scratch only the surface, and believes the actual figure for the five-year period she studied is probably greater than $4.7 billion.

We think it would be unfair to suggest, as others have, that the lure of big judgments has been the primary motivation for environmental lawyers to file more and more suits. Nor could we say that these payments are entirely illegitimate, as they are the result of favorable judgments in federal court.

But by their own admission, environmental groups use the fees to fund additional suits, some that are found to have merit, others that are not. Budd-Falen found that three environmental groups alone filed more than 700 cases against the federal government between 2000 and 2009.

Lest this be blamed on lax enforcement on the part of the Bush administration, we must note that environmentalists filed hundreds of suits during the Clinton years, and have continued to beat a path to the courthouse door since President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

The real rub is that in many cases working farmers and ranchers, though not actual defendants in these cases, must hire lawyers out of their own pocket to protect grazing allotments, water rights and other interests put in peril by suits against the government. No fund exists to compensate them should they prevail.

Legitimate or not, these payments have for too long escaped the scrutiny of lawmakers and the public. The taxpayers are footing the bill and should know who they’re writing the checks to.