Sierra Club v. Trump

• Decision Date: 03 July 2019
• Docket Number: No. 19-16102,19-16300,19-16102
• Citation: 929 F.3d 670
• Parties: SIERRA CLUB; Southern Border Communities Coalition, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Donald J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States; Mark T. Esper, in his official capacity as Acting Secretary of the Defense; Kevin K. McAleenan, in his official capacity as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security; Steven Terner Mnuchin, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

929 F.3d 670

SIERRA CLUB; Southern Border Communities Coalition, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.Donald J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States; Mark T. Esper, in his official capacity as Acting Secretary of the Defense; Kevin K. McAleenan, in his official capacity as Acting Secretary of Homeland Security; Steven Terner Mnuchin, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of the Treasury, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 19-16102

19-16300

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Filed July 3, 2019

ORDER

CLIFTON and FRIEDLAND, Circuit Judges:

This emergency proceeding arises from a challenge to a decision by the President and certain of his cabinet members (collectively, "Defendants")¹ to "reprogram" funds appropriated by Congress to the Department of Defense ("DoD") for Army personnel needs and to redirect those funds toward building a barrier along portions of our country’s southern border.

This reprogramming decision was made after President Trump had repeatedly sought appropriations from Congress for the construction of a border barrier. Although Congress provided some funding for those purposes, it consistently refused to pass any measures that met the President’s desired funding level, creating a standoff that led to a 35-day partial government shutdown. The President signed the budget legislation that ended the shutdown, but he then declared a national emergency and pursued other means to get additional funding for border barrier construction beyond what Congress had appropriated. One of those means, and the one at issue in this emergency request for a stay, was a reprogramming of funds by DoD in response to a request by the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS").

Specifically, DoD relied on section 8005 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2019 and related provisions to reprogram approximately $2.5 billion, moving the funds from DoD to DHS, for the purpose of building border barriers in certain locations within Arizona, California, and New Mexico. Section 8005 authorizes the Secretary of Defense to transfer funds for military purposes if the Secretary determines that the transfer is "for higher priority items, based on unforeseen military requirements" and "the item for which funds are requested has [not] been denied by the Congress." Pub. L. No. 115-245, § 8005, 132 Stat. 2981, 2999 (2018) (hereinafter "section 8005").

The Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition (collectively, "Plaintiffs") sued Defendants to enjoin the reprogramming and the funds’ expenditure. They argued that the requirements of section 8005 had not been satisfied and that the use of the funds to build a border barrier was accordingly unsupported by any congressional appropriation and thus unconstitutional. A federal district court agreed with Plaintiffs and enjoined Defendants from using reprogrammed funds to construct a border barrier. Defendants now move for an emergency stay of the district court’s injunction.

To rule on Defendants’ motion, we consider several factors, including whether Defendants have shown that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their appeal, the degree of hardship to each side that would result from a stay or its denial, and the public interest in granting or denying a stay.

We conclude, first, that Defendants are not likely to succeed on the merits of their appeal. The Appropriations Clause of the Constitution provides that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." U.S. Const. art I., § 9, cl. 7. Defendants assert that, through section 8005, Congress authorized DoD to reprogram the funds at issue. We agree with Plaintiffs, however, that the requirements of section 8005 have not been met. Specifically, the need for which the funds were reprogrammed was not "unforeseen," and it was an item for which funds were previously "denied by the Congress." Defendants do not argue that their contrary interpretation of section 8005 is entitled to any form of administrative deference, and we hold that no such deference would be appropriate in any event.

Because section 8005 did not authorize DoD to reprogram the funds—and Defendants do not and cannot argue that any other statutory or constitutional provision authorized the reprogramming—the use of those funds violates the constitutional requirement that the Executive Branch not spend money absent an appropriation from Congress.

Defendants contend that these Plaintiffs are unlikely to prevail because they lack a cause of action through which to challenge the reprogramming. We disagree. Plaintiffs either have an equitable cause of action to enjoin a constitutional violation, or they can proceed on their constitutional claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, or both. To the extent any zone of interests test were to apply to Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims, we hold that it would be satisfied here.

Considering the remaining factors relevant to Defendants’ request for a stay—the degree of hardship that may result from a stay or its denial, and the public interest at stake—we are not persuaded that a stay should be entered. There is a strong likelihood that Plaintiffs will prevail in this litigation, and Defendants have a correspondingly low likelihood of success on appeal. As for the public interest, we conclude that it is best served by respecting the Constitution’s assignment of the power of the purse to Congress, and by deferring to Congress’s understanding of the public interest as reflected in its repeated denial of more funding for border barrier construction. We therefore hold that a stay of the district court’s order granting Plaintiffs an injunction is not warranted.

I. Factual & Procedural Background

President Trump has made numerous requests to Congress for funding for construction of a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border. In his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2018, for example, the President requested $2.6 billion for border security, including "funding to plan, design, and construct a physical wall along the southern border." Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Exec. Office of the President, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2018 , at 18 (2017). Congress partially obliged, allocating in the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act $1.571 billion for border fencing, "border barrier planning and design," and the "acquisition and deployment of border security technology." Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-141, div. F, tit. II, § 230(a), 132 Stat. 348, 616 (2018). Throughout 2018, House and Senate lawmakers introduced numerous bills that would have authorized or appropriated additional billions for border barrier construction. Specifically, Congress considered and rejected the Securing America’s Future Act of 2018, H.R. 4760, 115th Cong. § 1111 (2018) (instructing the Secretary of Homeland Security to take necessary actions to build a physical barrier on the southern border); the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018, H.R. 6136, 115th Cong. § 5101 (2018) (appropriating $16.625 billion for a border wall); the American Border Act, H.R. 6415, 115th Cong. § 4101 (2018) (same); the Fund and Complete the Border Wall Act, H.R. 6657, 115th Cong. § 2 (2018) (creating a "Secure the Southern Border Fund" for appropriations for border barrier construction); the Build the Wall, Enforce the Law Act of 2018, H.R. 7059, 115th Cong. § 9 (2018) (again, appropriating $16.625 billion for a "border wall system"); the 50 Votes for the Wall Act, H.R. 7073, 115th Cong. § 2 (2018) (establishing a "Border Wall and Security Trust Fund" of up to $25 billion to "construct a wall (including physical barriers and associated detection technology, roads, and lighting)" along the U.S.-Mexico border); and the WALL Act of 2018, S. 3713, 115th Cong. § 2 (2018) (appropriating $25 billion for the construction of a border wall). Lawmakers spent countless hours considering these various proposals, but none ultimately passed.

The situation reached an impasse in December 2018. During negotiations with Congress over an appropriations bill to fund various parts of the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year, the President announced his unequivocal position that "any measure that funds the government must include border security." C-SPAN, Farm Bill Signing (Dec. 20, 2018), https://www.c-span.org/video/?456189-1/president-government-funding-bill-include-money-border-wall. He declared that he would not sign any funding bill that did not allocate substantial funding for a physical barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border. Erica Werner et al., Trump Says He Won’t Sign Senate Deal to Avert Shutdown, Demands Funds for Border Security , Wash. Post (Dec. 21, 2018), https://wapo.st/2EIpkHu?tid=ss_tw & utm_term=.6e7c259f6857 ("Werner et al."). The President also stated that he was willing to declare a national emergency and use other mechanisms to get the money he desired if Congress refused to allocate it. Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker-Designate Nancy Pelosi , The White House (Dec. 11, 2018, 11:40 A.M.), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-senate-minority-leader-chuck-schumer-house-speaker-designate-nancy-pelosi/. On December 20, 2018, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution that allocated $5.7 billion in border barrier funding. H.R. 695, 115th Cong. § 141 (2018) ("[T]here is appropriated for ‘U.S. Customs and Border Protection—Procurement, Construction, and Improvements’ $5,710,357,000 for fiscal year 2019."). But the Senate rejected the bill. The President could not reach an agreement with lawmakers on whether the spending bill would include border barrier funding, triggering what would become the nation’s longest partial government shutdown. Werner et al., supra ; Mihir Zaveri et al., The Government Shutdown Was the...