Opinion ID: 3048618
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: statutes preclude judicial review; or

Text: (2) agency action is committed to agency discretion by law.” 5 U.S.C. § 701. When § 701 does not preclude judicial review, § 706 of the APA gives courts the power to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed,” and the power to “hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions.” 5 U.S.C. § 706. In this section we undertake a § 701 analysis, not full judicial review under § 706. See Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 829 (1985). 5380 SERRATO v. CLARK In Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182 (1993), the Indian Health Service (“IHS”), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, discontinued a pilot program called the Indian Children’s Program that provided services to physically and mentally handicapped Indian children in the Southwest region of the United States. In a memorandum to its offices and referral sources, the agency stated it was terminating the program as part of an effort to provide a program national in scope. Id. at 188. Indian children so handicapped, and eligible to receive services through the Program, sued for declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming the agency’s decision to terminate the program violated, inter alia, the APA. Id. at 189. The district court held IHS’s decision was subject to judicial review and ordered the program reinstated. Id. (citing Vigil v. Rhoades, 746 F. Supp. 1471 (D.N.M. 1990)). The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. Id. (citing Vigil v. Rhoades, 953 F.2d 1225 (10th Cir. 1992)). A unanimous Supreme Court reversed, holding the decision to discontinue the program was an allocation of funds from a lumpsum appropriation for permissible statutory objectives and therefore committed to agency discretion and proof from judicial review as to the exercise of that discretion under the APA. Id. at 193-94. The Court held “the very point of a lumpsum appropriation is to give an agency the capacity to adapt to changing circumstances and meet its statutory responsibilities in what it sees as the most effective or desirable way.” Id. at 192. The Court continued: [A]n agency’s allocation of funds from a lump-sum appropriation requires a complicated balancing of a number of factors which are peculiarly within its expertise: whether its resources are best spent on one program or another; whether it is likely to succeed in fulfilling its statutory mandate; whether a particular program best fits the agency’s overall policies; and, indeed, whether the agency has enough resources to fund a program at all. SERRATO v. CLARK 5381 Id. at 193 (quoting Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831 (1985)) (internal quotation marks omitted). [5] The Lincoln Court stated a test that we here find applicable: “[A]s long as the agency allocates funds from a lumpsum appropriation to meet permissible statutory objectives, § 701(a)(2) gives the courts no leave to intrude. ‘[T]o [that] extent,’ the decision to allocate funds ‘is committed to agency discretion by law.’ ” Id. (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2)). Accordingly, the Court held in Lincoln that the IHS’s decision to terminate the Indian Children’s Program was committed to agency discretion and therefore not subject to judicial review because “[t]he reallocation of agency resources to assist handicapped Indian children nationwide clearly falls within the Service’s statutory mandate to provide health care to Indian people . . . .” Id. Here, as in Lincoln, the agency program at issue is funded from lump-sum funds in an appropriation from Congress that does not specify how much money should be used for the program. Lincoln also provides a framework for us to apply to determine whether the agency has “allocate[d] funds from a lumpsum appropriation to meet permissible statutory objectives” and has therefore rendered a decision that is not subject to judicial review. Lincoln, 508 U.S. at 193. In Lincoln, the Supreme Court considered Congress’s statutory mandate to the IHS, which included the requirements that it “expend such moneys as Congress may from time to time appropriate, for the benefit, care, and assistance of the Indians, for the relief of distress and conservation of health,” 508 U.S. at 185 (quoting 25 U.S.C. § 13) (internal quotation marks omitted); and make “expenditures for, inter alia, Indian mental-health care, and specifically for therapeutic and residential treatment centers,” id. (quoting 25 U.S.C. § 1621(a)(4)(D)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court held IHS’s “reallocation of agency resources to assist handicapped Indian children nationwide clearly falls within the Service’s statutory mandate to provide health care to Indian people. . . . The decision 5382 SERRATO v. CLARK to terminate the Program was committed to the Service’s discretion.” Id. [6] Similarly, following the approach in Lincoln, we find BOP discontinued boot camp to meet permissible statutory objectives, and that its decision is therefore unreviewable. Congress’s statutory mandate to BOP includes the following: The Bureau of Prisons, under the direction of the Attorney General, shall — (1) have charge of the management and regulation of all Federal penal and correc- tional institutions;