Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of my amendment, which seeks to crack down on the practice commonly known as sue and settle.

When Federal agencies settle lawsuits with outside advocacy groups behind closed doors, the outcome is pretty much what you would expect: costly new regulatory burdens with taxpayers picking up the tab.

That is exactly how sue and settle works. Federal agencies accept lawsuits from outside advocacy organizations and, rather than defend themselves, proceed to settle that lawsuit in a closed-door agreement, resulting in new and more costly regulations.

It is bad enough that the taxpayer ultimately pays for these regulations, but under current law, it is the taxpayer footing the bill for attorneys' fees for these outside organizations. That is absurd.

My amendment prevents American taxpayer dollars from being used to pay the legal fees of outside advocacy groups for settlements under the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Organizations can still sue whomever they want, but they cannot do it on the backs of taxpayers.

Fortunately, we are making progress to end this practice. In the House, we have passed this amendment several times before, and the Trump administration has taken notice of our efforts. The Trump administration sees this practice for what it is: an abuse of our regulator process that must be reined in.

The EPA announced last fall that it will no longer pay attorneys' fees as part of the settlement process and will ensure stakeholders have input and a more transparent settlement process. This amendment will help bolster the administration's efforts to stop this abusive practice.

The Trump administration realizes that nowhere is the cost of these settlements more painful than in the environmental regulatory context. The result of these lawsuits is hundreds of new regulations and tens of millions--even billions--of dollars in compliance costs.

If that isn't bad enough, as part of the agreements, agencies are often required to reprioritize their agendas, allocating limited resources to the priorities of these interest groups rather than priorities designated by Congress or ones that have received public and stakeholder input.

The American people are tired of our unaccountable Federal Government, and we have the opportunity to do something about it. This is a necessary step to rein in overregulation and bring transparency back to the regulatory process.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. I support the Trump administration, but I also support our duty under the Constitution to make sure we tell the executive what to do.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Gianforte).

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Calvert), who is the subcommittee chairman.

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Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Chairman, the sue-and-settle practice cuts stakeholders and the public out of the regulatory process. It undermines the Article I authority we hold here in Congress.

By restricting the payment of legal fees, we take away the incentive for these environmental advocacy groups to sue the Federal Government, and we protect public input in the rulemaking process.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``yes'' vote on my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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