A federal appeals court voted Wednesday to reverse a lower court’s ruling that halted the Trump administration from cutting billions of dollars in funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Two groups of nonprofit grant recipients sued the administration in February, arguing the order to cancel funding was unconstitutional because it concerned money already appropriated by Congress. But the federal appeals court for the District of Columbia ruled 2-1 on Wednesday that the plaintiffs lacked standing to have their claim heard.
“The district court erred in granting that relief because the grantees lack a cause of action to press their claims. They may not bring a freestanding constitutional claim if the underlying alleged violation and claimed authority are statutory,” U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote for the majority.
Wednesday’s decision overturns a previous ruling from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in February. He sided with the nonprofits and issued a temporary restraining order blocking the cuts from taking effect.
Joined by U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, Wednesday’s ruling determined that only the Comptroller General, the head of the Government Accountability Office, has the authority to sue under the Impoundment Control Act.
U.S. Circuit Judge Florence Pan, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, was the lone dissenter.
“Today, a President defies laws enacted by Congress without any legal basis, and the court holds that he has merely violated a statute, that the Constitution is not even implicated, and that there is no judicially enforceable cause of action to challenge his conduct,” Pan wrote in her dissent. “By failing to rein in a President who ran roughshod over clear statutory mandates, the court evades its constitutional responsibility to delineate the obligations and powers of each branch of our government.”
Halting foreign aid funding, and later shuttering USAID, was one of the Trump administration’s first moves after taking over in January. Shortly after taking office the president issued a directive cancelling $2 billion in previously approved funds for the agency.
USAID was a primary target for Elon Musk and his brainchild, the Department of Government Efficiency, early in his tenure at the White House — and well before his dramatic falling out with the president. Musk posted to his social platform X in February that USAID was a “criminal organization” that “needs to die.”
An analysis reported in the medical journal The Lancet in late June found that 65% of USAID’s funding went toward HIV and AIDS prevention, and unless the funding cuts were reversed more than 14 million people could die from preventable causes over the next five years.
Lauren Bateman, an attorney at Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group representing the plaintiffs, said Wednesday’s ruling was “a significant setback for the rule of law and risks further erosion of basic separation of powers principles.”
“We will seek further review from the court,” Bateman continued in a release. “In the meantime, countless people will suffer disease, starvation, and death from the Administration’s unconscionable decision to withhold life-saving aid from the world’s most vulnerable people.”