Overview

• A divided D.C. Circuit panel voted 2-1 on August 13 to reverse a preliminary injunction that had required USAID and State Department payments to resume.
• Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson and Gregory Katsas held that private grantees lack a cause of action under the Impoundment Control Act and that only the Comptroller General may enforce appropriation statutes.
• The majority explicitly declined to decide whether the administration’s refusal to spend congressionally appropriated funds infringes on the Constitution’s separation of powers.
• Roughly $4 billion for global health programs and over $6 billion for HIV/AIDS grants remain frozen for new obligations even though existing contract payments have been largely fulfilled.
• Plaintiff groups including the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Journalism Development Network plan to seek en banc or Supreme Court review and warn that frozen aid could inflict humanitarian harm.