Denny Rehberg: “I just want to real briefly say I was here when it was created. I was a congressional staffer. And talk about the law of…”

“I just want to real briefly say I was here when it was created. I was a congressional staffer. And talk about the law of unintended consequences. I might point out the people from the other side of the aisle fought us on the creation of the Equal Access to Justice law. It was never intended to be used for the purposes it is currently being used for. So I guess I'd better apologize to the people of America for having been a supporter of Equal Access to Justice. And, in fact, as a staffer, I helped talked my Congressman that I worked for into it. I was his small business aide; his name was Congressman Ron Marlenee of Montana. I helped talk him into it because it made sense. It was supposed to give an opportunity for small business to be able to counter the lawsuits that were going to occur against them by the government coming in oftentimes with frivolous regulations. The other side has figured how to turn it into a jobs bill for trial lawyers. They very effectively, in the Endangered Species Act and some of the other environmental acts, figured out how to use it to stop development within the United States. So, unfortunately, in about the early 90s, we, as small business advocates, were the ones that helped push this through. The only group at that time that was exempt was the IRS. We wanted everybody to be under this law, giving the small businesses an opportunity to protect themselves. It has been twisted.…”