Biden DOJ files Supreme Court brief defending sweeping student debt relief plan
Kaelan Deese
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The Biden administration filed a legal brief with the Supreme Court late Wednesday, defending its bid to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student debt for millions of borrowers.
Attorneys for the Justice Department and Education Department largely echoed previous defense statements of the plan, contending that challengers of the plan are parties that have failed to show harm from the policy, which is typically a requirement to establish legal standing or the ability to bring the lawsuit.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona’s “actions fall comfortably within the plain text” of the HEROES Act, the brief says, arguing the 9/11-era bill designed to prevent military service members from suffering financial hardship if they went to war should also apply to student borrowers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The brief also touches on apparent complications and confusion that borrowers have faced since lower courts blocked the program this fall.
“The lower courts’ orders have erroneously deprived the Secretary of his statutory authority to provide targeted student-loan debt relief to borrowers affected by national emergencies, leaving millions of economically vulnerable borrowers in limbo,” the Justice Department wrote.
Ultimately, the DOJ sought to make the case that the debt relief plan is the clear way forward for the Biden administration to end the unprecedented pause on student loan payments that has been in effect since March 2020.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case on President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan last month, and the justices will hear oral arguments over the matter on Feb. 28.
The total cost of the program was estimated to run between $400 billion and $1 trillion, depending on a range of variables.
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Before the Biden administration was blocked from carrying out its plan and was forced to close its online application portal, around 26 million people applied for the relief.
The Education Department has also extended the pause of federal student loan payments and interest while the Supreme Court considers the dispute. Payments could be suspended through as late as Aug. 30.