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Policy and Research, LLC v. Department of Health and Human Services

In 2010, Congress created the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program (TPPP) to fund a wide range of evidence-based programs to prevent teen pregnancy. In 2015, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded 81 five-year TPPP grants that were designed to continue through June 2020. In May 2017, HHS announced that it wanted to terminate the TPPP in the next fiscal year. In July 2017, HHS informed all of the grantees that their grants would be terminated effective June 2018—two years early.

Represented by Public Citizen, four TPPP grantees filed suit seeking a declaration that the terminations were unlawful and a court order enjoining HHS to reinstate the grants for the awarded five-year period. The complaint alleges that HHS’s failure to provide a reasoned basis for the termination of plaintiffs’ grants and its termination of the grants in a manner contrary to HHS regulations constitute final agency action that is arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with law under the Administrative Procedure Act. Moreover, HHS’s termination of the TPPP grants despite continued appropriations violates the Continuing Appropriation Acts, 2018, the Impoundment Control Act, and the Anti-Deficiency Act.

On April 19, 2018, the district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied HHS’s cross-motion for summary judgment. The Court held that HHS’s termination of the plaintiffs’ grants violated agency regulations.