AFRC President Calls for EAJA Reform in Testimony Before House Natural Resources Subcommittee

American Forest Resource Council (AFRC) President Travis Joseph testified today before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Natural Resources Committee calling on Congress to modernize the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Joseph said EAJA has strayed far from its original purpose and now subsidizes litigation that delays essential forest management, wildfire reduction work, and public safety projects on federal lands.

Joseph explained that EAJA was enacted in 1980 to help individuals, small businesses, and veterans challenge federal overreach by allowing them to recover attorney fees when they prevailed in court. He told lawmakers that today large tax-exempt advocacy groups routinely use EAJA to fund serial litigation against forest health projects even when they lose most of their claims. These lawsuits often delay projects for years while taxpayers pay the legal bills.

"The unfortunate reality is that a small number of well-organized groups use litigation to stall or stop science-based projects on federal lands, and taxpayers are helping fund those lawsuits through EAJA awards," Joseph said. "Every time federal agencies are forced to divert their time and money into litigation instead of on the ground stewardship, the public loses. Communities and forests pay the price."

Joseph noted that the Forest Service is now the most litigated agency in the federal government. He pointed to recent agency budget documents showing more than a million dollars spent each year on EAJA payments, including $1.5 million in Fiscal Year 2026. Those costs do not account for staff time, Department of Justice resources, or the loss of capacity to advance priority restoration and recreation work.

To demonstrate the real world impact, Joseph highlighted the Walton Lake case on the Ochoco National Forest in central Oregon. The Forest Service identified a clear public safety hazard when diseased fir trees infected with laminated root rot began falling without warning at the forest's most heavily used recreation site. The agency proposed a straightforward project to remove the dangerous trees and replant the site with more resilient species, a treatment supported by science and by administrations of both parties.

Despite the urgency, litigation stopped the work for nearly a decade. A nonprofit organization was awarded more than two hundred thousand dollars in EAJA attorney fees, an amount greater than the cost of the actual safety project. After repeated analysis and court challenges, the Forest Service finally began implementing the project in 2023 while closures and safety risks persisted for years.

"Walton Lake should have been a simple project," Joseph said. "Instead, it became a decade long example of how EAJA subsidizes litigation that delays public safety work and forces taxpayers to pay at least twice. This is not about stopping government overreach. It is about stopping agencies from doing the basic stewardship work that Congress funds and communities need."

Joseph urged lawmakers to pursue targeted bipartisan reforms to restore EAJA to its original purpose. He called for stronger transparency so the public can see which groups receive EAJA payments and how much they collect each year. He encouraged Congress to align nonprofit eligibility with the net worth standards applied to individuals and businesses and ensure that organizations without a direct personal stake in a case do not qualify for EAJA awards. He also urged Congress to reaffirm statutory limits on attorney rates to prevent inflated specialty fees and to consider bonding or accountability measures to discourage frivolous lawsuits intended only to delay.

"EAJA is an important and well-intended law," Joseph said. "But it must be modernized to end abuse by nonprofit anti-forestry groups and protect the taxpayer. At a time when wildfire, smoke, and forest loss affect every region of the country, we cannot afford a system that pays groups to delay the very projects that reduce these risks. Updating EAJA will help federal agencies do the work Congress expects them to do and the public depends on."