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Attorneys for the Trump administration filed an emergency petition to the Supreme Court on Tuesday night, asking the justices to permit it to prevent billions in congressionally approved foreign aid spending. The move returns the case on U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funding to the justices for the second time in less than six months.

The nearly $12 billion in aid at issue is set aside for USAID and is required to be spent by Congress before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. President Donald Trump acted quickly after returning to office in January, signing an executive order on his first day back directing the federal government to block nearly all foreign aid payments. The president at the time characterized the move as the first step in a campaign to root out “waste, fraud, and abuse” in foreign spending.

The order was met with immediate legal challenges and, in February, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C., barred the administration from blocking the payments. Judge Ali concluded the White House was required to continue to release funding for any projects Congress had already approved. Ali’s decision ordered the Trump administration to resume payments on billions of dollars of USAID grants.

The Trump administration has pushed back against that ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit revisited the case earlier this month, with the three-judge appeals court ruling 2-1 to vacate Judge Ali’s injunction. Judge Karen L. Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote in the majority opinion that the plaintiffs — foreign aid groups which are seeking to resume their grant payments — did not have the legal standing to sue the administration. Henderson wrote that the plaintiffs did not have an appropriate “cause of action” under what is known as the doctrine of impoundment.

The appeals court’s ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration, but the court has yet to formally mandate the ruling. That fact has left Judge Ali’s earlier order — and the schedule of payments the judge put in place — technically in place. The administration is now on the clock to try and prevent a potential order requiring it to disburse the full $12 billion before the end of the fiscal year at the end of September.

Appeals, legal arguments, and the ticking clock

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who filed the emergency request with the Supreme Court on Tuesday, warned in his filing that unless the justices take up the case, the government will be forced to “rapidly obligate some $12 billion in foreign-aid funds” by September 30. He argued the federal courts are the wrong place to settle the dispute.

“Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits,” Sauer wrote in the filing. He added: “Any lingering dispute about the proper disposition of funds that the President seeks to rescind shortly before they expire should be left to the political branches, not effectively prejudged by the district court.”

The plaintiffs in the case — a group of foreign aid organizations that need USAID funds for their projects — disagree. They argue the president does not have the ability to block the spending of money Congress already approved. The plaintiff’s argument centers around the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), a 1970s law designed to rein in executive overreach on federal spending, as well as the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Supreme Court has previously weighed in on a similar dispute, issuing a narrow 5-4 ruling in the case in favor of the administration earlier this year. With the September 30 fiscal deadline fast approaching and billions of dollars at stake, the Supreme Court has once again been asked to weigh in on the bitter fight.

The legal challenge for the Trump administration is an extension of a larger project to reshape how the U.S. spends its money and to take greater control over foreign assistance programs. For the foreign aid groups whose projects and clients could benefit from the USAID grants, the stakes could not be higher: if the promised aid is not delivered, projects that are already in the field and in operation worldwide could face funding shortfalls or closures.