© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the student loan forgiveness program from an auditorium on the White House campus in Washington, US, October 17, 2022. REUTERS /Leah Millis
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By John Kruzel and Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The fate of President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in student debt for some 40 million borrowers rests in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in a case that presents another important test of authority of the executive power.
The nine justices will hear arguments in the Biden administration’s appeal of two lower court rulings blocking the policy it announced last August in legal challenges brought by six conservative-leaning states and two student loan borrowers who oppose the plan eligibility requirements.
Under the Democratic president’s plan, the US government would forgive up to $10,000 in federal student debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 who took out loans to pay for college and other post-secondary education and $20,000 for Pell grant recipients. awarded to low-income students. income families.
The program fulfilled Biden’s 2020 campaign promise to cancel a portion of the nation’s $1.6 trillion federal student loan debt, but was criticized by Republicans and others as an overreach of his authority.
The policy, intended to ease the financial burden of debt-burdened borrowers, could face court scrutiny under the so-called lead questions doctrine. His 6-3 conservative majority has used this powerful judicial approach to invalidate major Biden policies seen to lack clear congressional authorization.
The Biden administration has said the plan is authorized under a 2003 federal law called the Higher Education Opportunity Relief for Students Act, or HEROES Act, which allows for student loan debt relief during times of war or national emergencies.
Many borrowers experienced financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic, a declared public health emergency. Starting in 2020, the administrations of President Donald Trump, a Republican, and President Biden, a Democrat, repeatedly paused federal student loan payments and halted interest accrual, based on the HEROES Act.
The Biden administration maintains that the challengers have not suffered the kind of legal damage necessary to give them the proper standing to pursue their claims. Challengers have said the Biden administration failed to provide an adequate legal basis for the program.
In the legal challenge filed by individual borrowers Myra Brown and Alexander Taylor, Texas-based US District Judge Mark Pittman ruled that the student loan forgiveness program lacked “clear authorization from Congress.” The New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit declined to stay Pittman’s decision pending appeal.
Missouri-based US District Judge Henry Autrey found that the states: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina lacked legal standing to sue. On appeal, the St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit found, at a minimum, that Missouri likely had a right to sue and that the court temporarily blocked the Biden program from taking effect while the case proceeded.
One theory of the legal situation advanced by the states is that Biden’s plan would harm a Missouri-based student loan servicer, a company involved in collecting payments, thus in effect harming that state. The two individual borrowers have said that the administration’s failure to allow public comment on Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan deprived them of “procedural rights” under federal law.
