Amicus Briefs
Biden v. Missouri
CASE SUMMARY
NCLA urged the U.S. Supreme Court to maintain a preliminary injunction by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit stopping the Department of Education’s “SAVE” plan. The Biden Administration plan rewrites the 1993 amendments to the Higher Education Act (HEA) to transform student-loan-repayment plans Congress authorized into loan-cancellation plans Congress did not authorize at a $475 billion cost to taxpayers.
The Eighth Circuit’s preliminary injunction expanded a district court order to block all components of the SAVE plan, which exceeds the Secretary of Education’s authority under the 1993 HEA amendments. The 1993 law states that “income contingent repayment shall be based on the [borrower’s] adjusted gross income,” and would “not … exceed 25 years.” The Department claims this language allows it to enact SAVE, an income-contingent repayment plan with monthly payments so low that very little would be repaid by the end of the repayment period, at which point the substantial remaining balance would be cancelled.
Nothing in the 1993 amendments’ text or legislative history suggests Congress granted the Department discretion to design plans like SAVE that cancel loans instead of requiring their repayment. If the 1993 law did grant such power, it would unconstitutionally delegate legislative power, as it contains no intelligible principle to guide the Department’s discretion of how generous to make repayment plans.
In August 2024, the Supreme Court upheld the injunction, a victory for NCLA.
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RELEVANT MATERIALS
NCLA FILINGS
Amicus Curiae Brief of the New Civil Liberties Alliance in Opposition to Applicants’ Request to Vacate the Injunction
August 19, 2024 | Read More