NIH v. APHA S.Ct.

Under Lincoln v. Vigil, the government argues that terminating NIH research grants (including those for HIV prevention, vaccine research, and chronic disease programs) represents agency discretion in reallocating appropriated funds, action presumptively "committed to agency discretion by law" and unreviewable under § 701(a)(2). However, if Congress appropriated funds specifically for these named programs with statutory terms protecting the grants, the terminations would violate statutory particulars and thus fall within the Lincoln exception, rendering them subject to APA review. The lower courts' preliminary injunctions suggest they found Congress's appropriations and the grants' established terms sufficiently specific to overcome the committed-to-discretion presumption, permitting judicial review of the agency's compliance with statutory directives and grant obligations. Whether the agency's broad authority to reallocate research funding extends to terminating grants for congressionally named programs thus becomes the crux of the application.