Opinion ID: 177029
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Purpose and Intent

Text: It is true that Congress adopted the EAJA to eliminate financial disincentives for those who would defend against unjustified governmental action and thereby to deter the unreasonable exercise of Government authority. Ardestani v. I.N.S., 502 U.S. 129, 138, 112 S.Ct. 515, 116 L.Ed.2d 496 (1991). Western Watersheds also correctly points out that the Administrative Conference has interpreted the exceptions to the EAJA narrowly. See Implementation Guidelines, 46 Fed.Reg. 15,895, 15,896 (Mar. 10, 1981). [3] Nonetheless, these concerns are not so compelling that they outweigh a competing presumption in favor of construing waivers of sovereign immunity narrowly, particularly when the plain meaning of the statutory text is so clear. See Ardestani, 502 U.S. at 137-38, 112 S.Ct. 515. The EAJA partially waives the sovereign immunity of the United States by creating a limited, precisely-defined class of adjudications in which an award of attorneys' fees is allowed, see 5 U.S.C. §§ 504(a)(1), 504(b)(1)(C)(i), 554, and, as with all waivers of sovereign immunity, the EAJA's waiver must be strictly construed. Accepting Western Watersheds' interpretation of the EAJA would not only complicate the implementation of the EAJA from a practical standpoint, in that it would require a reviewing court to examine the subjective intent of each individual party in filing its appeal rather than simply looking to the type of proceeding at issue to determine whether the proceeding is an adversary adjudication, it could, moreover, open a fairly straightforward loophole in the EAJA's waiver of the sovereign immunity of the United States. Though no one disputes Western Watersheds' environmental motives in the present case, one could easily imagine a scenario in which a permittee uses a third party as a proxy for making his own arguments before the Appeals Board and then seeks fees for that third partyexactly the scenario that the EAJA's license exception seeks to avoid. In affirming the lower court's interpretation of the license exception, we ensure that we do not enlarge Congress' waiver of sovereign immunity beyond what it clearly intended. Because Western Watersheds conceded before the district court that the underlying agency action at issue was a permit renewal proceeding, we also run no risk of expanding the narrow license exception of the EAJA.