.

On Tuesday night, attorneys for the Trump administration sought emergency intervention from the Supreme Court to permit it to block billions of dollars in foreign aid that Congress had already approved. The appeal, filed on the last business day before the government’s fiscal year ends next Friday, would once again send a case over USAID funding to the high court for the second time in six months.

Lawyers for the Trump administration have once again asked the Supreme Court to let them block billions in foreign aid.

The question is whether Congress’s recent vote to fund a federal aid package for 2020 gave the Trump administration the green light to delay the bulk of $12 billion in previously approved USAID grants — or whether the president must release the money as scheduled in accordance with Congress’s express intentions.

Trump, who returned to office from his recent trip to Europe earlier on Tuesday, moved quickly. On his first full day back, Trump signed an executive order telling the federal government to stop nearly all foreign aid spending. The White House billed the move as a crackdown on “waste, fraud, and abuse,” and part of a larger effort to end inefficiency in overseas spending.

The order was quickly put on hold by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C. In February, Ali ruled that the White House had to release the funds that Congress had already authorized it to dole out for projects that had already been approved, returning the Trump administration to a payment schedule for USAID grants in the billions of dollars.

The Trump administration has objected every step of the way. On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia and its agencies, agreed to take up the case again and, two days later, issued a 2-1 ruling in the Trump administration’s favor, vacating Judge Ali’s injunction. The judges on the appeals court panel all agreed on Judge Ali’s legal reasoning, but the Trump administration argued that the plaintiffs in the case, foreign aid groups seeking to have their grants restored, did not have the right to sue in the first place.

In a ruling early this month, a federal appeals court vacated a district court ruling that required the Trump administration to make payments on USAID grants.

Judge Karen L. Henderson, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush and penned the majority opinion in the appeals court’s decision, wrote that the plaintiff foreign aid groups and their attorneys “do not articulate a cause of action.” The term “cause of action” is a legal doctrine known as the doctrine of impoundment.

By all appearances, the appeals court’s decision, while a huge victory for Trump, is not yet over, as the court has yet to issue what is known as a “mandate” that would formally put its ruling into effect. That gap has left Ali’s order in place, including the schedule for payments, for the moment.

As a result, the administration now faces an all-out sprint against the clock to avoid an order that would require the administration to release the full $12 billion before the end of the fiscal year at the end of September. Ali previously set a schedule for Trump to meet to make the USAID payments. That schedule called for roughly $6 billion to be disbursed in July and another $4 billion to be disbursed by the end of September.

But legal action in the case continued. On Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court. In it, Sauer argued that the justices need to step in before time runs out on the fiscal year. Failing to do so, Sauer claimed, would force the federal government to “rapidly obligate” $12 billion in foreign aid, with courts left to clean up the mess.

“Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits,” Sauer wrote in the request. “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, a collection of foreign aid groups whose work is dependent on USAID grants, have a different view. Their argument is simple: that the president cannot just rescind money that Congress has already appropriated. For their part, the plaintiffs point to the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), a 1970s-era law that imposed restraints on executive branch authority over the federal budget, and the Administrative Procedure Act as the primary legal underpinnings of their argument.

It’s important to note that the high court has already decided a version of this case. Just months ago, in a narrow 5-4 ruling, the justices weighed in on a nearly identical dispute. With another Friday deadline fast approaching and billions of dollars in the balance, the Supreme Court is once again being asked to wade into the fray.

It’s also worth noting that the question of the legal reach of the executive over the federal budget is only one part of a larger ideological push on the part of Trump and his allies in the administration. For foreign aid groups that have projects at stake, the future of billions of dollars of planned spending on already-approved programs is on the line.