HUD Must Provide Hearing Prior to Recapturing NAHASDA Funds in Allocation Formula Dispute

Here are the materials in Lummi Tribe v. United States (Fed. Cl.):

DCT Order Denying US Motion to Dismiss Count 2

HUD Motion to Dismiss

Lummi Response

HUD Reply

An excerpt:

In conclusion, we read Section 405 as governing HUD’s actions and thus as precluding HUD from exercising any common law right the agency might otherwise possess under circumstances not directly addressed by the statute. We further read that section as applying only in cases that do not involve a grant recipient’s substantial noncompliance with NAHASDA (which would fall instead under Section 401). In addition, we construe Section 405’s implementing regulations as requiring the Secretary to provide notice and the opportunity for a hearing before making an adjustment to a recipient’s grant amounts and as preventing the Secretary from recapturing grant amounts already expended on affordable housing activities. To conclude otherwise would allow HUD to deny grant recipients the protections Congress has afforded them when faced with a reduction in their grant funding, would further allow the agency to circumvent a process put into place by consensus rulemaking at the direction of Congress, and would lead to the anomalous result that a grant recipient in substantial noncompliance with NAHASDA would receive greater procedural protections before experiencing a recapture of their grant funds than recipients in full compliance (a target for recapture through a fault of HUD’s rather than their own). We are unwilling to endorse such an unsatisfactory result.