On June 1, 2022, WLF asked the Seventh Circuit to reverse a federal trial-court ruling that seizes on a statute’s silence alongside its “overarching purpose” to grant the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) broad gap-filling authority that Congress never gave it. The appeal arises from a suit by prescription-drug manufacturer Eli Lilly against HRSA challenging the agency’s recent enforcement action under the 340B Program. While it overturned HRSA’s violation letter as arbitrary and capricious under the APA, the district court nonetheless ratified HRSA’s expansive statutory interpretation. That error, WLF contends in its amicus brief, warrants reversal. As WLF shows, the district court’s statutory construction, if allowed to stand, would allow HRSA to unilaterally transform the 340B Program from a sensible cost-saving measure into a constitutionally dubious wealth-transfer scheme. This it cannot do.
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