High court conservatives question Joe Biden student loan debt relief
The Supreme Court’s six-member conservative majority appeared skeptical Tuesday that President Biden can unilaterally wipe away billions of dollars in federal student loan debt — in a closely-watched case testing the limits of the executive branch’s authority.
The conservative jurists — led by Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito — expressed sympathy for arguments by six Republican-led states and two student loan borrowers that the White House overstepped its legal bounds by announcing the plan last August without congressional approval.
“We tওake very seriously the idea of separation of powers and that power should be divided to prevent its abuse,” Roberts told Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for the Biden administration.
“I just wonder, given the posture of the case and given our historic concern about the separation of powers, you would recognize, at least, that this is a c💫ase that presents extraordinarily serious important issues about the role of Congress and about the role that we should exercise in scrutinizing that?” Roberts added.
Pointing to the estimated cost of the student loan forgiveness — $400 billion over the next three decades — the chief justice suggested to Prelogar that “if you’re talking about this in the abstract, I think most casual observers would say if you’re going to give up that much … money, if you’re going to affect the obligations of that many Americans on a subject that’s of great controversy, they would think that’s something for Congress to act on.”
Alito similarly challenged Prelogar, asking whether the case’s scope is “the sort of thing that Congress is likely to address expressly or through a contestable interpretation o🔯f some statutory language?”
But Prelogar pushed back against the justices’ line of reasoning, arguing executive agencies like the Department of Education may administer federal benefits p♏rograms like student loans.
Prelogar had argued in a brief submitted last month to the Court that Biden had “clear authorization” to cancel federal student loan debt and that his plan would “fall comfortably” within the scope of the 2003 Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act — a law originally passed to provide loan relief to American military service🅠 members at the start of the Iraq war.
The White House contends the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a similar national emergency — despite Biden declaring the outbreak “over” in a September “60 Minutes” interview and setting May 11 as the end date for two emergency declara🌳tions relat๊ed to the virus.
Nebraska Solicitor General James Campbell argued on behalf of the states bringing the suit— Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska,🦋 and South Carolina — that the Biden administration’s🌠 decision to forgive billions in student debt exceeded the 2003 law’s original intent.
Another con꧙servative justice, Brett Kavanaugh, appeared to agree with Campbell, suggesting that the Biden administration was using an “old law” to unilaterally implement a debt relief program that Con🦩gress had rejected.
“In the wake of Congress not authorizing the action, the executive nonetheless [is] doing a massive new program,” Kavanaugh said, adding that it “seems problematic.”
Some of the justices, including Trump-appointed Amy Coney Barrett and liberal Elena Kagan, asked Campbell whether the states even had standing to bring the lawsuit — questioning why the complaint wasn’t instead brought by one of the affected groups, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, which handles student loans in the Show-Me State.
Missouri had argued canceling the debt would deprive the 🦩state of reven🐻ue, while the other states claimed the plan would provide a “windfall” to the borrowers that would make them better off than before the pandemic.
A federal judge initially found that the states would not be harmed and dismissed their lawsuit before an appellate panel said in Novemberಞ the case could proceed.
Of the two individuals who sued in Texas, one has student loans that are commercially held and the other is eligible for $10,000 in debt relief, not the $20,000 maximum. They would get nothing iဣf they win their case.
The forgiveness program, a 2020 campaign 𒐪promise by Biden, would write off up to $10,000 in federal student 🐠debt for Americans earning under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for recipients of Pell Grants.
Already 26 million people have applied t𓆉o have their schoꦅol debt forgiven and 16 million have been approved.
Biden, speaking at a Black History Month event Monday at the White House, said he was confident his administration 💛has the “legal authority” to move ahead with the program.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also defended Biden’s student debt gambit, saying the “program is going to gi�💧�ve tens of millions of Americans around the country a little bit of breathing room.”
A decision is expected in the case by late June.
With Post wires
