The states argue that Biden’s program exceeds his executive authority, and also that they have the right to sue because it deprives them of future tax revenue. That’s their argument for having the standing to sue—that they have been harmed by the program. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar contested both those assertions by the states in the administration’s emergency application to the Court.
The Heroes Act of 2003, she wrote, was enacted specifically to give the secretary of education the power to halt student loan payments in the case of a national emergency. In 2003, it was intended for service members going to war, but the legislation wasn’t specifically tailored to those borrowers and that emergency. The COVID-19 crisis and the emergency declaration that’s been in effect since March 2020 under Trump qualify.
She also argued that the states don’t have standing because they haven’t suffered an injury—those supposed tax revenues they’ll be missing. The lower court, the Eight Circuit, considered just one state in blocking the program, Missouri, which might not receive payments from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, a nonprofit that services federal loans. At most, she argued, the loans serviced by that non-profit MOHELA could be excluded from the program.
The Court is going to address both of those questions: Do the Republican states have standing, and “whether the plan exceeds the Secretary’s statutory authority or is arbitrary and capricious.”
It is worth noting again what Laura Clawson surfaced back in August, when Republicans were enraged at the idea of people being forgiven loans: There wasn’t a peep out of them when it was their COVID-19 pandemic Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans. Literally their loans: More than a dozen Republican House members received tens and hundreds of thousands, and in a few cases millions, of free federal dollars. There wasn’t a peep out of any of them about giving away free money to people taking out loans. (Disclosure: Kos Media received a Paycheck Protection Program loan.)
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