The Supreme Court’s conservative justices looked ready to void President Joe Biden’s targeted student loan relief plan during arguments on Tuesday, although the debt relief could live on if two conservatives side with the liberal justices and deny the plaintiffs standing to sue.
At least five of the six conservative justices appeared skeptical of arguments made by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar that the student loan relief program was legal. They questioned Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona’s authority under the HEROES Act to cancel student loan debt and implied that such an action violated the court’s so-called major questions doctrine, which forbids executive regulatory actions of “vast economic or political significance” that were not expressly authorized by Congress.
