The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling that barred the transfer of military funds to build a wall along the southern border. Judges for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals erred when they found that environmental and community groups had standing to challenge the $2.5 billion funding shift and that the transfer was a violation of Section 8005 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, the Justice Department argued in a petition docketed Friday. "At a minimum, the decisions below concern a matter of exceptional national importance," wrote acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall. Four justices must vote in favor of taking up the plea, but the court is more likely to hear a case presented by the solicitor general. The petition, Trump v. Sierra Club, follows a June ruling by the 9th Circuit in which two of the three judges sitting on the panel sided with arguments by environmental groups and states that the Trump administration could not reroute the military funds after Congress appropriated only $1.375 billion to build barriers between the U.S. and Mexico (E&E News PM, June 26).
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