The Supreme Court on Tuesday will take up two challenges to President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program – an initiative aimed at providing targeted debt relief to millions of student-loan borrowers – that has so far been stalled by legal challenges.
Republican-led states and conservatives challenging the program say it amounts to an unlawful attempt to erase an estimated $430 billion of federal student loan debt under the guise of the pandemic.
At the heart of the case is the Department of Education’s authority to forgive the loans. Several of the conservative justices have signaled in recent years that agencies – with no direct accountability to the public – have become too powerful, upsetting the separation of powers. They have moved to cut back on the so-called administrative state.
In 2021, for instance, the court invalidated the Biden administration’s Covid-19-related eviction moratorium issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention holding that such a program needs to be specifically authorized by Congress. In 2022, the court blocked a nationwide vaccine or testing mandate for large businesses, sending a clear message that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration had overstepped its authority.
Tuesday’s cases will also highlight an important threshold question that could block the court from reaching the merits of the dispute: whether the parties behind the challenge have the legal right, or “standing,” necessary to bring suit.
In 2020, as the Covid pandemic began, the Department of Education paused payments and interest in accrual on student loans to help those struggling financially. As the pandemic progressed, both the Trump and the Biden administrations further extended the protections.
By 2022, however, the Biden administration’s secretary of Education, Miguel…
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