- The Justice Department filed a defense of Biden's student-debt relief to SCOTUS on Wednesday night.
- It comes ahead of the Supreme Court's date to hear oral arguments on February 28.
- The Department continued to support confidence in its legality to enact broad loan forgiveness.
President Joe Biden's administration just filed its full legal defense of student-loan forgiveness before it heads to the nation's highest court next month.
On Wednesday night, the Justice Department filed a brief to the Supreme Court defending Biden's plan to cancel $20,000 in student debt for Pell Grant recipients making under $125,000 a year, and $10,000 for other federal borrowers under the same income cap.
This filing comes ahead of February 28, when the Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the two lawsuits that have blocked the implementation of the debt relief. One lawsuit, filed by six Republican-led states, argued the relief would hurt their states' tax revenues and that of student-loan company MOHELA. The other lawsuit was filed by two student-loan borrowers who sued because they did not qualify for the full $20,000 amount of relief.
Biden's administration has consistently argued that those lawsuits don't have merit and expressed confidence in the authority it used to cancel student debt under the HEROES Act of 2003, which gives the Education Secretary the ability to waive or modify student-loan balances in connection with a national emergency, like COVID-19. The Justice Department emphasized the relief's legality and how it falls "comfortably" within the law, and its efforts to ensure borrowers do not leave the pandemic worse off than when they started.
"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 filing said.
A source familiar with the legal filing told reporters on Wednesday night that the purpose of the relief is to address ongoing economic effects from the pandemic, and even if a declaration of a national emergency no longer exists when relief is implemented, it will still be legal to help borrowers recover from financial strains.
Another primary argument Biden's administration has pushed back on is the idea that the debt relief would harm MOHELA. Although the company itself previously denied involvement in the lawsuit, the GOP-led states continued to argue loan forgiveness would impact MOHELA's revenue. The Justice Department argued MOHELA is a separate entity from Missouri and should not be considered alongside harms to the state.
The plaintiffs who filed the lawsuits will have an opportunity to respond to the Justice Department's brief before the Supreme Court hears arguments, and for now, borrowers can only wait and see how the litigation will play out. The Education Department extended the student-loan payment pause 60 days after June 30, or whenever the lawsuits are resolved — whichever comes first — but even if the debt relief ultimately ends up getting struck down, payments are still expected to resume this year.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement Wednesday night that the Education Department remains "confident in our legal authority to adopt this program that will ensure the financial harms caused by the pandemic don't drive borrowers into delinquency and default."
"We are unapologetically committed to helping borrowers recover from the pandemic and providing working families with the breathing room they need to prepare for student loan payments to resume," he continued. "As previously announced, student loan payments and interests will remain paused until the Supreme Court resolves the case because it would be deeply unfair to ask borrowers to pay debt they wouldn't have to pay, were it not for meritless lawsuits."