Birdnow's Aviary

June 30, 2023

HEROES to Zeroes

Timothy Birdnow

SCOTUS has vacated the Biden scheme to forgive student loans. Biden argued he had the authority to do so under the HEROES act (Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act) but the Supreme Court disagrees:

Biden v. Nebraska (22-506)
The Secretary of Education does not have authority under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) to establish a student loan forgiveness program that will cancel roughly $430 billion in debt principal and affect nearly all borrowers. Department of Education v. Brown (22-535) Respondents lack Article III standing to assert a procedural challenge to the student-loan debt-forgivenes

s plan adopted by the Secretary of Education pursuant to Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003

But wait! There's more!

All this leads the Court to conclude that "he basic and consequential tradeoffs” inherent in a mass debt cancellation program "are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___. In such circumstances, the Court has required the Secretary to "point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ ” to justify the challenged program. Id., at ___, ___ (quoting Utility Air Regulatory
Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324). And as explained, the HEROES Act provides no authorization for the Secretary’s plan when examined using the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation—

let alone "clear congressional authorization” for such a program. Pp. 19–25.
REVERSED AND REMANDED: ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, KAVANAUGH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. BARRETT, J., filed a concurring opinion. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined.

[...]

For these reasons, respondents lack standing, and we therefore vacate the judgment of the District Court and remand the case with instructions to dismiss. By vacating the District Court’s judgment, we obviate the need to grant the interim relief the Department requests in its application in No. 22A489. We therefore deny the application as moot.

Tim adds:

I had hoped they would rule this unconstitutional. Now they may be able to bring it back in some other incarnation.

Oh well; half a win is better than no win at all.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 11:54 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 And Biden, still thinking he's greater than SCOTUS, is now going to try something else.

Posted by: Dana Mathewson at June 30, 2023 11:49 PM (Qqpeg)

2 Exactly Dana. He's just going to do it and SCOTUS be damned.

Funny; the Democrats howled about the absolute authority of Court when it was full of activist judges. Now they howl about how it has no right.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at July 01, 2023 07:27 AM (sdApd)

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