THOUSANDS WATCH USA RACE TEAM WIN OVERALL 2012 TOYOTA WEAVER SEED WORLD JET BOAT MARATHON CHAMPIONSHIP

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:  KYLA SAWYER, (208) 628-4142

Record crowds ushered in a new era of jet boat river racing in north central Idaho during the 2012 Toyota Weaver Seed World Jet Boat Marathon Championship held April 13-21.

U.S.A. driver Ryan Rogers of Lewiston, Idaho and Crabtree, Oregon navigator Gary Weaver won the overall championship title completing the fastest time piloting #285 Pure Insanity for all 24 race legs on the St. Joe, Snake, Clearwater and Salmon rivers.

BOISE, ID – The “Barber Flat Bridge” that crosses the North Fork Boise River on Forest Road 376 within the Boise National Forest will be restricted to vehicles with a wheelbase of 50 inches or less effective today.

The bridge, located about 35 miles east of Boise, was recently inspected and is deemed unsafe for full sized vehicles due to the movement of a bridge pier.  The pier was damaged following the floods in 1997 and has been monitored since then.  In a recent inspection a steel truss support has weakened and the agency is concerned with its structural strength.

Two Studies Show Environmental Lawsuits Paid For By Program For Seniors, Veterans, and
Small Business ‐
Government Not Accounting for Costs
May 2, 2012
Lowell E . Baier
President Emeritus ‐ Boone and Crockett Club
4909 Cordell Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20814
301‐718‐1800 ‐ LEBaier@lawbaier.com
Jennifer Ellis
Chairman ‐ Western Legacy Alliance
208‐681‐6004
westernlegacyalliance@gmail.com
www.westernlegacyalliance.org
Studies released independently by Notre Dame Law School and the Government Accountability
Office show that environmental groups pad their claims for reimbursed legal fees using a social
program entitled the Equal Access to Justice Act, and the U.S. is not keeping track of
expenditures.
A Notre Dame law review article shows that a 1980 law intended for seniors, veterans, and
small businesses is utilized by environmental groups to get pay‐backs for their lawsuits as well.
A GAO study shows that no one really knows how much money has been spent, but the
amounts are at least several million dollars a year.
“This study made me a strong supporter of the Equal Access to Justice Act for its intended
beneficiaries,” said Lowell E. Baier, the author of the law review article and President Emeritus
of the Boone and Crockett Club. “This law is for seniors, veterans, and small businesses that
have trouble getting their legal fees reimbursed, yet many environmental lawsuits are
reimbursed without ever showing a violation of environmental law. Environmental law is clear
about which lawsuits should be repaid under environmental statutes; we should stick to that
clear direction and follow the intent of Congress.”
“Litigation has become a routine step in environmental policy because much of it is about
lobbying against decisions and forcing do‐overs,” said Jennifer Ellis, President of the Western
Legacy Alliance. “It’s not that so many environmental policies are wrong, it’s that people
disagree over them. Businesses protect themselves – especially against those who admit they
want to destroy us – and activists try to get their way instead. Whoever files that kind of
lawsuit should pay their own way.”
Western Legacy Alliance and Boone and Crockett lead a coalition of over 100 groups that
together both support H.R. 1996, the Government Litigation Savings Act, which will reform the
1980 Equal Access to Justice Act.
The bill improves legal fee reimbursements to seniors, veterans, and small businesses, enforces
attorney fee reimbursement under environmental law, and requires full accounting of
payments authorized by the Equal Access to Justice Act.
The GAO report confirms the obvious need to resume accounting, which stopped in 1995.
 GAO asked 75 bureaus and agencies at USDA and the Department of Interior for records
on payments, but only 10 of these 75 could provide data on cases and attorney fee
reimbursements. Even the records provided were incomplete and unreliable, based on
manual calculations from older files, and the memory of career employees. Moreover,
some records may overlap, so GAO is not even certain of their totals.
 Even these sparse records show that millions of dollars are going out the door. GAO
identified $4.4 million per year of EAJA payments to environmental groups during the
period of 2000‐2010 from suits against the 10 units of USDA and DOI that had any
records at all.
 GAO’s minimum numbers do not add up to totals available from public court records
and tax returns over the same period. Public federal court records from just 13 federal
courts revealed $5.2 million in legal fees per year, compared to GAO’s estimate of $4.4
million, as tabulated by legal staff for the Western Legacy Alliance. A broader analysis
including additional federal court records and public tax returns from just 20
environmental organizations showed $9.1 million reimbursed during FY2010 alone, as
demonstrated by attorneys for the Boone and Crockett Club.
“Clearly, the more you look the more money you find,” said Baier.
Ellis said, “There are two problems here: getting the money to the right people for the right
reasons, and keeping track of the money.”
The House‐Senate request for this GAO report is the 10th Congressional directive or proposal
introduced since 2010 on EAJA payments. Some of these measures address only accounting for
funds HR 1996 as reported from the House Judiciary Committee is now the latest most
comprehensive proposal on both use of and accounting for EAJA payments.

Last summer during the comment period about the preliminary draft alternatives for Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP), we either did a presentation to your group, we provided information to your group, or your group submitted a comment.  The Refuge is moving forward with the CCP process and is planning to release the draft CCP/Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in late June.  We will then be accepting comments on the draft for 60 days.  During that comment period, we are hoping to schedule presentations with, or provide information to, stakeholder organizations like yours in order to provide an overview of the draft CCP/EIS and answer any questions you and your members might have.