The Biden administration asserts that it had the authority to “waive or modify” loan provisions under a 2003 law known as the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, to shield borrowers who were impacted by “a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
More than forty million borrowers would be impacted by the program, which is expected to cost $400 billion.
There are serious concerns that the program, which would allow qualified borrowers to cancel up to $20,000 in debt, would ever be implemented. It has been stalled since the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals imposed a temporary hold in October.
Whether any of the challengers have the right to sue in the first place is a crucial threshold question. Many analysts believe that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will surely conclude that Biden’s plan is illegal if it decides that the challengers had legal standing to file their lawsuit.
According to the Biden administration, the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act, or HEROES Act, passed in 2003 permits debt forgiveness. According to the law, when there is a “national emergency,” the government may aid borrowers of student loans to prevent people from being placed in “a worse situation financially” because of the crisis.
During the arguments on Tuesday, government attorneys were pushed to use that expansive interpretation of the legislation. Chief Justice John Roberts asked lawyer Elizabeth Prelogar, “We’re talking about half a trillion dollars and 43 million Americans. How does that fit under the normal understanding of modified?”
Only Justice Amy Coney Barrett regularly queried the legal standing of challengers out of the six conservative justices. The Biden administration may have targeted Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh as possible votes against standing, but they both centered their inquiries on the major questions doctrine. That might mean they think the challengers have a case.
The Supreme Court has lately endorsed a legal theory put forth by the challengers known as the “major questions doctrine,” which the justices could use to decide the case. According to that notion, large new policies with a significant economic impact cannot be started by federal agencies without explicit congressional approval.
In accordance with the White House’s plan, about 90% of the nation’s student loan borrowers will be eligible for relief, and about twenty-six million people have already applied for forgiveness. As a result of legal challenges to the proposal, however, relief is on hold.
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President Biden comments on March job reports, says U.S. economy ‘on the move’
