Date: 2011-02-17
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman. Members of the House. I think Mr. MARKEY has it about right. You have to kind of decide where youre going to stand. Lawsuits are brought every day that infuriate us in one way or another. depending upon where you stand and what you think about that issue or what you know about that issue. But the idea that we would take this right away from the American people to go up against the government when the government every day makes a series of decisionsnot all of them are perfect. Many of them are wrongheaded. Many of them had repercussions that they hadnt thought through when they made the decision. Those are the challenges that go on every day. whether its in OSHA or the EPA or the Department of Labor. the Department of Interior. And many decisions that are made upstream have a lot of ramifications downstream. Lets not pretend that every Forest Service sale is perfectly configured and thought about the externalities. the impacts on grazers. the impacts on farmers downstream. the impacts on the streams. the sedimentation. the impact on the fisheries. We live with that in California all the time. The salmon dont have a lawyer. But the harm to the fisheries. the harm to the small fishermen. to the small boat owners. the people who go out and brave their lives in the Pacific Ocean. When the Federal Government makes decisions about water flows and the Federal Government makes decisions about timber sales and when the Federal Government makes decisions about construction on the dam. they have a right to be heard. But this isnt true if they were Taxpayers For Justice who argue about whether or not the royalties are fair and returned to the taxpayers. whether or not the Federal Government issued the permits in the right way. You think its a right that somebody else has that maybe you dont like until you think you might want to exercise it. This is a magnificent tool. I have no problem with the gentleman from Idaho who talked in terms of disclosure and accounting and transparency. That should all be there. I dont know why the Department stopped listing this. but they should have never done it. And I would assume in other agencies. they should disclose what the payouts are because its a measure of the management. to some extent. This isnt just funding your organization to keep going to court. its also a measure of the management. You know. its like a business. If you keep paying out a lot. your insurance company says. Maybe we ought to change the operations. Maybe we ought to change the way you are thinking here. Somethings wrong when you have these payouts. You can argue that this is one of the metrics of performance of a governmental agency. If they keep losing the lawsuits. you might want to think that youve got to have somebody else running the show. [- 1450 So I would hope that we would reject this amendment and understand that its a much broader dissipation of citizens rights to confront the government when the government may very well be wrong. And again. the payout comes only when youyou have to prevail on those measures. And on those measures where the court found that the government was wrong. youre entitled to recover your costs and your expenditures. So I think this is very fair. Its worked for many. many years. and its protected a lot of citizens of this country against arbitrary and capricious actions by the Federal Government. I yield back the balance of my time.