I’ve got a new post up at Cato at Liberty about the convenient symbiosis between the EPA and advocacy groups it funds that sue it demanding that it regulate new things. “Sweetheart” or otherwise, the resulting legal actions help deploy taxpayers’ money in service of the relentless expansion of the regulatory state. More: Bader.
Chronicling the high cost of our legal system
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I am sure the. FDA is funding the groups that will sue it to ban cigarettes as well.
Yeah really, they should be hiring lobbyists and pandering Congresspeople for subsidies like the rest of the business community.
The answer is simple. Reduce EPA’s funding drastically.
The answer is simple. Simple things are hard. The easy way is mined.
Other agencies in the Obama Administration also aid the liberal groups that sue them, by collusively settling those lawsuits. The Administration will settle lawsuits for millions even when those lawsuits would ultimately be rejected by a court — such as where an appeals court has already denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that they almost certainly will not succeed in their lawsuit.
I discuss one example of the Administration settling an extremely weak case for tens of millions of dollars here:
http://www.openmarket.org/2011/07/08/obama-administration-creates-new-debts-to-pay-off-trial-lawyers-even-as-it-demands-increase-in-debt-ceiling/
My thoughts on the EPA and greenhouse gas litigation and regulation are here:
http://www.globalwarming.org/2011/07/10/epa-gives-millions-to-green-groups-that-sue-it-massive-funding-advantage-for-enviro-groups-and-green-welfare/
Walter – you want an interesting thing to look at regarding one-way attorney’s fees, check out the Department of Justice’s “Laffey Matrix” which is supposed to be used to set attorney’s fees in statute cases. Crumb-bum plaintiff’s lawyers who do more harm than good to their cases come wandering into court demanding $475 an hour for their raggedy services, citing the “Laffey Matrix”, and judges don’t even blink.
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