[And that means the Court, by deciding this case, exercises
authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution. . . . [T]he
majority overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and
Executive Branches. . . . I respectfully dissent . . .]
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JUSTICE KAGAN’S DISSENT IN STUDENT LOAN CASE  
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June 30, 2023
Supreme Court
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_ And that means the Court, by deciding this case, exercises
authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution. . . . [T]he
majority overrides the combined judgment of the Legislative and
Executive Branches. . . . I respectfully dissent . . . _

In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper, limited role in
our Nation’s governance. ,

 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., PETITIONERS
_v._

NEBRASKA, ET AL.

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

[June 30, 2023]

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR and

JUSTICE JACKSON join, dissenting.

In every respect, the Court today exceeds its proper, limited role in
our Nation’s governance.

Some 20 years ago, Congress enacted legislation, called the HEROES
Act, authorizing the Secretary of Education to provide relief to
student-loan borrowers when a national emergency struck. The
Secretary’s authority was bounded: He could do only what was
“necessary” to alleviate the emergency’s impact on affected
borrowers’ ability to repay their student loans. 20 U. S. C.
§1098bb(a)(2). But within that bounded area, Congress gave discretion
to the Secretary. He could “waive or modify any statutory or
regulatory provision” applying to federal student-loan programs,
including provisions relating to loan repayment and forgiveness. And
in so doing, he could replace the old provisions with new “terms and
conditions.” §§1098bb(a)(1), (b)(2). The Secretary, that is, could
give the relief that was needed, in the form he deemed most
appropriate, to counteract the effects of a national emergency on
borrowers’ capacity to repay. That may have been a good idea, or it
may have been a bad idea. Either way, it was what Congress said.

When COVID hit, two Secretaries serving two different Presidents
decided to use their HEROES Act authority. The first suspended loan
repayments and interest accrual for all federally held student loans.
The second continued that policy for a time, and then replaced it with
the loan forgiveness plan at issue here, granting most low- and
middle-income borrowers up to $10,000 in debt relief. Both re- lied on
the HEROES Act language cited above. In establishing the loan
forgiveness plan, the current Secretary scratched the pre-existing
conditions for loan discharge, and specified different conditions,
opening loan forgiveness to more borrowers. So he “waive[d]” and
“modif[ied]” statutory and regulatory provisions and applied other
“terms and conditions” in their stead. That may have been a good
idea, or it may have been a bad idea. Either way, the Secretary did
only what Congress had told him he could.

The Court’s first overreach in this case is deciding it at all.
Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff must have standing
to challenge a government action. And that requires a personal
stake—an injury in fact. We do not al- low plaintiffs to bring suit
just because they oppose a policy. Neither do we allow plaintiffs to
rely on injuries suffered by others. Those rules may sound technical,
but they enforce “fundamental limits on federal judicial power.”
_Allen _v. _Wright_, 468 U. S. 737, 750 (1984). They keep courts
acting like courts. Or stated the other way around, they prevent
courts from acting like this Court does today. The plaintiffs in this
case are six States that have no personal stake in the Secretary’s
loan forgiveness plan. They are classic ideological plaintiffs: They
think the plan a very bad idea, but they are no worse off because the
Secretary differs. In giving those States a forum—in adjudicating
their complaint— the Court forgets its proper role. The Court acts
as though it is an arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather
than of cases and controversies.

And the Court’s role confusion persists when it takes up the merits.
For years, this Court has insisted that the way to keep judges’
policy views and preferences out of judicial decisionmaking is to hew
to a statute’s text. The HEROES Act’s text settles the legality of
the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan. The statute provides the
Secretary with broad authority to give emergency relief to
student-loan borrowers, including by altering usual discharge rules.
What the Secretary did fits comfortably within that delegation. But
the Court forbids him to proceed. As in other re- cent cases, the
rules of the game change when Congress en- acts broad delegations
allowing agencies to take substantial regulatory measures. See,
_e.g._, _West Virginia _v. _EPA_, 597 U. S.    (2022). Then, as in
this case, the Court reads statutes unnaturally, seeking to cabin
their evident scope. And the Court applies heightened-specificity
requirements, thwarting Congress’s efforts to ensure adequate
responses to unforeseen events. The result here is that the Court
substitutes itself for Congress and the Executive Branch in making
national policy about student-loan forgiveness. Congress authorized
the forgiveness plan (among many other actions); the Secretary put it
in place; and the President would have been accountable for its
success or failure. But this Court today decides that some 40 million
Americans will not receive the benefits the plan provides, because (so
says the Court) that assistance is too “significan[t].” _Ante_, at
20–21. With all respect, I dissent.

I

“No principle is more fundamental to the judiciary’s proper role
in our system of government than the constitutional limitation of
federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases or controversies.” _Simon
_v. _Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization_, 426 U. S. 26, 37
(1976). In our system, “[f]ederal courts do not possess a roving
commission to publicly opine on every legal question.” _TransUnion
LLC _v. _Ramirez_, 594 U. S.   ,    (2021) (slip op., at 8). Nor
do they “exercise general legal oversight of the Legislative and

Executive Branches.” _Ibid. _A court may address the legality of a
government action only if the person challenging it has
standing—which requires that the person have suffered a “concrete
and particularized injury.” _Ibid. _It is not enough for the
plaintiff to assert a “generalized grievance[]” about government
policy. _Gill _v. _Whitford_, 585 U. S.   ,

  (2018) (slip op., at 13). And critically here, the plaintiff
cannot rest its claim on a third party’s rights and interests. See
_Warth _v. _Seldin_, 422 U. S. 490, 499 (1975). The plaintiff needs
its own stake—a “personal stake”—in the outcome of the
litigation. _TransUnion_, 594 U. S., at    (slip op., at 7). If the
plaintiff has no such stake, a court must stop in its tracks. To
decide the case is to exceed the permissible boundaries of the
judicial role.

That is what the Court does today. The plaintiffs here are six States:
Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina. They
oppose the Secretary’s loan cancellation plan on varied policy and
legal grounds. But as everyone agrees, those objections are just
general grievances; they do not show the particularized injury needed
to bring suit. And the States have no straightforward way of making
that showing—of explaining how _they _are harmed by a plan that
reduces individual borrowers’ federal student-loan debt. So the
States have thrown no fewer than four different theories of injury
against the wall, hoping that a court anxious to get to the merits
will say that one of them sticks. The most that can be said of the
theory the majority selects, proffered solely by Missouri, is that it
is less risible than the others. It still contravenes a bedrock
principle of standing law—that a plaintiff cannot ride on someone
else’s injury. Missouri is doing just that in relying on injuries to
the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), a legally and
financially independent public corporation. And that means the Court,
by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have. It
violates the Constitution.

A

Missouri’s theory of standing, as accepted by the majority, goes as
follows. MOHELA is a state-created corporation participating in the
student-loan market. As part of that activity, it has contracted with
the Department of Education to service federally held
loans—essentially, to handle billing and collect payments for the
Federal Government. Under that contract, MOHELA receives an
administrative fee for each loan serviced. When a loan is canceled,
MOHELA will not get a fee; so the Secretary’s plan will cost MOHELA
money. And if MOHELA is harmed, Missouri must be harmed, because the
corporation is a “public instrumentality” and, as such, “part of
Missouri’s government.” Brief for Respondents 16–17; see _ante_,
at 8–9.

Up to the last step, the theory is unexceptionable—except that it
points to MOHELA as the proper plaintiff. Financial harm is a classic
injury in fact. MOHELA plausibly alleges that it will suffer that harm
as a result of the Secretary’s plan. So MOHELA can sue the
Secretary, as the Government readily concedes. See Tr. of Oral Arg.
18. But not even Missouri, and not even the majority, claims that
MOHELA’s revenue loss gets passed through to the State. As further
discussed below, MOHELA is financially independent from Missouri—as
corporations typically are, the better to insulate their creators from
financial loss. See _infra_, at 6. So MOHELA’s revenue decline—the
injury in fact claimed to justify this suit—is not in fact
Missouri’s. The State’s treasury will not be out one penny because
of the Secretary’s plan. The revenue loss allegedly grounding this
case is MOHELA’s alone.

Which leads to an obvious question: Where’s MOHELA? The answer is:
As far from this suit as it can manage. MOHELA could have brought this
suit. It possesses the power under Missouri law to “sue and be
sued” in its own name. Mo. Rev. Stat. §173.385.1(3) (2016). But
MOHELA

is not a party here. Nor is it an _amicus_. Nor is it even a rooting
bystander. MOHELA was “not involved with the decision of the
Missouri Attorney General’s Office” to file this suit. Letter from
Appellees in No. 22–3179 (CA8), p. 3 (Nov. 1, 2022). And MOHELA did
not cooperate with the Attorney General’s efforts. When the AG
wanted documents relating to MOHELA’s loan-servicing contract, to
aid him in putting forward the State’s standing theory, he had to
file formal “sunshine law” demands on the entity. See _id._, at
3–4. MOHELA had no interest in assisting voluntarily.

If all that makes you suspect that MOHELA is distinct from the State,
you would be right. And that is so as a mat- ter of law and financing
alike. Yes, MOHELA is a creature of state statute, a public
instrumentality established to serve a public function. §173.360. But
the law sets up MOHELA as a corporation—a so-called “body
corporate”— with a “[s]eparate legal personality.” _Ibid._;
_First Nat. City Bank _v. _Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba_,
462 U. S. 611, 625 (1983) (_Bancec_). Or said a bit differently,
MOHELA is—like the lion’s share of corporations, whether public or
private—a “separate legal [entity] with distinct le- gal rights
and obligations” from those belonging to its crea- tor. _Agency for
Int’l Development _v. _Alliance for Open Soci- ety Int’l Inc._,
591 U. S.  ,   (2020) (slip op., at 5). MOHELA, for example, has
the power to contract with other entities, which is how it entered
into a loan-servicing contract with the Department of Education.  
See

§173.385.1(15). MOHELA’s assets, including the fees gained from
that contract, are not “part of the revenue of the [S]tate” and
cannot be “used for the payment of debt incurred by the [S]tate.”
§§173.386, 173.425. On the other side of the ledger, MOHELA’s
debts are MOHELA’s alone; Missouri cannot be liable for them.
§173.410. And as noted earlier, MOHELA has the power to “sue and be
sued” independent of Missouri, so it can both “prosecute and
defend” all its varied interests. §173.385.1(3); see _supra_, at 5.
In- deed, before this case, Missouri had never tried to appear in
court on MOHELA’s behalf. That is no surprise. In the statutory
scheme, independence is everywhere: State law created MOHELA, but in
so doing set it apart.

The Missouri Supreme Court itself recognized as much in addressing a
near-carbon-copy state instrumentality. MOHEFA (note the one-letter
difference) issues bonds to support various health and educational
institutions in the State. Like MOHELA, MOHEFA is understood as a
“public instrumentality” serving a “public function.” _Menorah
Medical Center _v. _Health and Ed. Facilities Auth._, 584 S. W. 2d 73,
76 (Mo. 1979). And like MOHELA, MOHEFA has a board appointed by the
Governor and sends annual reports to a state department.  See Mo.
Rev. Stat. §§360.020,

360.140 (1978); _ante_, at 9 (suggesting those features mat- ter). But
the State Supreme Court, when confronted with a claim that MOHEFA’s
undertakings should be ascribed to the State, could hardly have been
more dismissive. The court thought it beyond dispute that MOHEFA “is
not the [S]tate,” and that its activities are not state activities.
_Me- norah_, 584 S. W. 2d, at 78. Citing MOHEFA’s financial and
legal independence, the court explained that “[s]imilar bodies have
been adjudged as ‘separate entities’ from” Missouri. _Ibid.
_MOHELA is no different.

Under our usual standing rules, that separation would matter—indeed,
would decide this case. A plaintiff, this Court has held time and
again, cannot rest its claim to judicial relief on the “legal rights
and interests” of third par- ties. _Warth_, 422 U. S., at 499. And
MOHELA qualifies as such a party, for all the reasons just given. That
MOHELA is publicly created makes not a whit of difference: When a
“government instrumentalit[y]” is “established as [a] jurid-
ical entit[y] distinct and independent from [its] sovereign,” the
law—including the law of standing—is supposed to treat it that
way. _Bancec_, 462 U. S., at 626–627; see _Sloan __Shipyards Corp.
_v. _United States Shipping Bd. Emergency Fleet Corporation_, 258 U.
S. 549, 567 (1922). So this case should have been open-and-shut.
Missouri and MOHELA are legally, and also financially, “separate
entities.” _Meno- rah_, 584 S. W. 2d, at 78. MOHELA is fully capable
of rep- resenting its own interests, and always has done so before.
The injury to MOHELA thus does not entitle Missouri—under our normal
standing rules—to go to court.

And those normal rules are more than just rules: They are, as this
case shows, guarantors of our constitutional order. The requirement
that the proper party—the party actually affected—challenge an
action ensures that courts do not overstep their proper bounds. See
_Clapper _v. _Amnesty Int’l USA_, 568 U. S. 398, 408–409 (2013)
(“Relaxation of standing [rules] is directly related to the
expansion of judicial power”). Without that requirement, courts
become “forums for the ventilation of public grievances”—for
settlement of ideological and political disputes. _Valley Forge
Christian College _v. _Americans United for Separation of Church and
State_, _Inc._, 454 U. S. 464, 473 (1982). The kind of forum this
Court has become today. Is there a person in America who thinks
Missouri is here because it is worried about MOHELA’s loss of
loan-servicing fees? I would like to meet him. Missouri is here
because it thinks the Secretary’s loan cancellation plan makes for
terrible, inequitable, wasteful policy. And so too for Arkansas, Iowa,
Kansas, Nebraska, and South Carolina. And maybe all of them are right.
But that question is not what this Court sits to decide. That question
is “more appropriately addressed in the representative branches,”
and by the broader public. _Allen_, 468 U. S., at 751. Our third-party
standing rules, like the rest of our standing doctrine, exist to
separate powers in that way—to send political issues to political
institutions, and retain only legal controversies, brought by
plaintiffs who have suffered real legal injury. If MOHELA had brought
this suit, we would have had to resolve it, however hot or divisive.
But Missouri? In adjudicating Missouri’s claim, the majority reaches
out to decide a matter it has no business deciding. It blows through a
constitutional guard- rail intended to keep courts acting like courts.

B

The majority does not over-expend itself in defending that action. It
recites the State’s assertion that a “harm to MOHELA is also a
harm to Missouri” because the former is the latter’s
instrumentality. _Ante_, at 8. But in doing so, the majority barely
addresses MOHELA’s separate corporate identity, its financial
independence, and its distinct legal rights. In other words, the
majority glides swiftly over all the attributes of MOHELA ensuring
that its economic losses (1) are not passed on to the State and (2)
can be rectified (if there is legal wrong) without the State’s help.
The majority is left to argue from a couple of prior decisions and a
single idea, the latter relating to the State’s desire to “aid
Missouri college students.” _Ante_, at 9. But the decisions do not
stand for what the majority claims. And the idea collides with another
core precept of standing law. All in all, the majority’s
justifications turn standing law from a pillar of a restrained
judiciary into nothing more than “a lawyer’s game.”
_Massachusetts _v. _EPA_, 549 U. S. 497, 548 (2007) (ROBERTS, C. J.,
dissenting).

The majority mainly relies on _Arkansas _v. _Texas_, 346 U. S. 368
(1953), but that case shows only that not all public instrumentalities
are the same. The Court there held that Arkansas could bring suit on
behalf of a state university. But it did so because the school _lacked
_the financial and le- gal separateness MOHELA has. Arkansas, we
observed, “owns all the property used by the University.” _Id._,
at 370. And the suit, if successful, would have enhanced that
property: The litigation sought to stop Texas from interfering with a
contract to build a medical facility on campus. For the same reason,
the Court found that “any injury under the contract to the
University is an injury to Arkansas”: The State was the principal
beneficiary of the contract to im- prove its own property. _Ibid. _So
Arkansas had the sort of direct financial interest not present here.
And there is more: The University, the Court thought, could not sue on
its own. See _ibid. _The majority suggests otherwise, citing a
state-court decision holding that corporations usually have the power
to bring and defend legal actions. See _ante_, at 11–12. But the
_Arkansas _Court referenced a different state-court decision—one
holding that another state school was “not authorized” to “sue
and be sued.” _Allen Eng. Co. _v. _Kays_, 106 Ark. 174, 177, 152 S.
W. 992, 993 (1913); see _Arkansas_, 346 U. S., at 370, and n. 9. That
decision led this Court to conclude that Arkansas law treated “a
suit against the University” as “a suit against the State.”
_Id._, at 370. But if state law had not done so—as it does not in
Missouri for MOHELA? See _supra_, at 6–7. The Court made clear that
a State cannot stand in for an independent entity. The State, the
Court said, “must, of course, represent an inter- est of her own and
not merely that of her citizens or corporations.” _Ibid._

The majority’s second case—_Lebron _v. _National Railroad
Passenger Corporation_, 513 U. S. 374 (1995)—is yet further afield.
The issue there was whether Amtrak, a public corporation similar to
MOHELA, had to comply with the First Amendment. The Court held that it
did, labeling Amtrak a state actor for that purpose. On the opposite
view, we rea- soned, a government could “evade the most solemn
obligations imposed in the Constitution by simply resorting to the
corporate form.” _Id._, at 397; see _ibid. _(noting that _Plessy
_could then be “resurrected by the simple device” of creating a
public corporation to run trains). But that did not mean Amtrak was
equivalent to the Government for all purposes. Over and over, we
cabined our holding that Amtrak was a state actor by adding a phrase
like “for purposes of the First Amendment” or other constitutional
rights. _Id._, at 400; see _id._, at 383 (Amtrak “must be regarded
as a Government entity for First Amendment purposes”); _id._, at 392
(Amtrak is “a Government entity for purposes of determining the
constitutional rights of citizens”); _id._, at 394 (Amtrak is an
“instrumentality of the United States for the purpose of individual
rights guaranteed against the Government”); _id._, at 397, 399, 400
(similar, similar, and similar). But for other purposes, a different
rule might, or would, obtain. Our holding, we said, did not mean
Amtrak had sovereign im- munity. See _id._, at 392. And most relevant
here, we reaf- firmed that “[t]he State does not, by becoming a
corporator, identify itself with the corporation” for purposes of
litigation. _Id._, at 398. Or said again, the Government is “not a
party to suits brought by or against” its corporation. _Id._, at

399. So what _Lebron _tells us about MOHELA is that it must comply
with the Constitution. _Lebron _offers no sup- port (more like the
opposite) for the different view that MOHELA and Missouri are
interchangeable parties in litigation.1

——————

1 The same goes for the majority’s other case about Amtrak, which
just “reiterate[s]” _Lebron_’s reasoning. _Ante_, at 11; see
_Department of Transportation _v. _Association of American Railroads_,
575 U. S. 43 (2015). There too we held that Amtrak was a
“governmental entity” for purposes of the “requirements of the
Constitution”—specifically, the nondelegation doctrine. _Id._, at
54. And there too we kept our holding as limited as possible,
repeatedly stating that we were treating Amtrak as the Government for
that purpose alone. See, _e.g._, _id._, at 51 (“for purposes of
separation-of-powers analysis under the Constitution”); _id._, at 54
(“for purposes of the Constitution’s separation of powers
provisions”); _id._, at 55 (“for purposes of determining the
constitutional issues presented in this case”). As for any other
purpose? Not a word to suggest the same result. And as even the
majority concedes, “a public corporation can count as part of the
State for some but not other purposes.” _Ante_, at 12,

n. 3 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Amtrak decisions, to
continue borrowing the majority’s language, “said nothing about,
and had no reason to address, whether an injury to [a] public
corporation is a harm to the [Government].” _Ibid._

Remaining is the majority’s unsupported—and insupportable—idea
that the Secretary’s plan “necessarily” hurts Missouri because
it “impair[s]” MOHELA’s “efforts to aid [the State’s]
college students.” _Ante_, at 9. To begin with, it seems unlikely
that the reduction in MOHELA’s revenues resulting from the discharge
would make it harder for stu- dents to “access student loans,” as
the majority contends. _Ante_, at 8. MOHELA is not a lender; it
services loans others have made. Which is probably why even Missouri
has never tried to show that the Secretary’s plan will so
detrimentally affect the State’s borrowers. In any event—and more
important—such a harm to citizens cannot provide an escape hatch out
of MOHELA’s legal and financial independence. That is because of
another canonical limit on a State’s ability to ride on third
parties: A State may never sue the Federal Government based on its
citizens’ rights and interests. See _Alfred L. Snapp & Son_, _Inc.
_v. _Puerto Rico ex rel. Barez_, 458 U. S. 592, 610, n. 16 (1982);
_Haaland _v. _Brackeen_, 599

U. S.   ,   , and n. 11 (2023) (slip op., at 32, and n. 11). Or
said more technically, a “State does not have standing as
_parenpatriae _to bring an action against the Federal Government.”
_Ibid._; see _Massachusetts _v. _Mellon_, 262 U. S. 447, 485–486
(1923). So Missouri cannot get standing by asserting that a harm to
MOHELA will harm the State’s citizens. Missouri needs to show that
the harm to MOHELA produces harm to the State itself. And because, as
explained above, MOHELA was set up (as corporations typically are) to
insulate its creator from such derivative harm, Missouri is incapable
of making that showing. See _supra_, at 6. The separateness, both
financial and legal, be- tween MOHELA and Missouri makes MOHELA alone
the proper party.

The author of today’s opinion once wrote that a 1970s-era standing
decision “became emblematic” of “how utterly manipulable” this
Court’s standing law is “if not taken seriously as a matter of
judicial self-restraint.” _Massachusetts_, 549 U. S., at 548
(ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting). After today, no one will have to go back
50 years for the classic case of the Court manipulating standing
doctrine, rather than obeying the edict to stay in its lane. The
majority and I differ, as I’ll soon address, on whether the
Executive Branch exceeded its authority in issuing the loan
cancellation plan. But assuming the Executive Branch did so, that does
not license this Court to exceed its own role. Courts must still
“function as courts,” this one no less than others. _Ibid. _And in
our system, that means refusing to decide cases that are not really
cases because the plaintiffs have not suffered concrete injuries. The
Court ignores that principle in allowing Missouri to piggy-back on the
“legal rights and interests” of an independent entity. _Warth_,
422 U. S., at 499. If MOHELA wanted to, it could have brought this
suit. It declined to do so. Under the non-manipulable, serious version
of standing law, that would have been the end of the mat-
ter—regardless how much Missouri, or this Court, objects to the
Secretary’s plan.

II

The majority finds no firmer ground when it reaches the merits. The
statute Congress enacted gives the Secretary broad authority to
respond to national emergencies. That authority kicks in only under
exceptional conditions. But when it kicks in, the Secretary can take
exceptional measures. He can “waive or modify any statutory or
regulatory provision” applying to the student-loan program.

§1098bb(a)(1). And as part of that power, he can “appl[y]” new
“terms and conditions” “in lieu of ” the former ones.

§1098bb(b)(2). That means when an emergency strikes, the Secretary
can alter, so as to cover more people, pre-existing provisions
enabling loan discharges. Which is exactly what the Secretary did in
establishing his loan forgiveness plan. The majority’s contrary
conclusion rests first on stilted textual analysis. The majority picks
the statute apart piece by piece in an attempt to escape the meaning
of the whole. But the whole—the expansive delegation—is so
apparent that the majority has no choice but to justify its holding on
extra- statutory grounds. So the majority resorts, as is becoming the
norm, to its so-called major-questions doctrine. And the majority
again reveals that doctrine for what it is—a way for this Court to
negate broad delegations Congress has ap- proved, because they will
have significant regulatory im- pacts. Thus the Court once again
substitutes itself for Congress and the Executive Branch—and the
hundreds of millions of people they represent—in making this
Nation’s most important, as well as most contested, policy
decisions.

A

A bit of background first, to give a sense of where the HEROES Act
came from. In 1991 and again in 2002, Congress authorized the
Secretary to grant student-loan relief to borrowers affected by a
specified war or emergency. The first statute came out of the Persian
Gulf Conflict. It gave the Secretary power to “waive or modify any
statutory or regulatory provision” relating to student-loan programs
in order to assist “the men and women serving on active duty in
connection with Operation Desert Storm.” §§372(a)(1), (b), 105
Stat. 93. The next iteration responded to the im- pacts of the
September 11 terrorist attacks. It too gave the Secretary power to
“waive or modify” any student-loan pro- vision, but this time to
help borrowers affected by the “national emergency” created by
September 11. §2(a)(1), 115 Stat. 2386.

With those one-off statutes in its short-term memory, Congress decided
there was a need for a broader and more durable emergency
authorization. So in 2003, it passed the HEROES Act. Instead of
specifying a particular crisis, that statute enables the Secretary to
act “as [he] deems necessary” in connection with any military
operation or “national emergency.” §1098bb(a)(1). But the
statute’s greater coverage came with no sacrifice of potency. When
the law’s emergency conditions are satisfied, the Secretary again
has the power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory
provision” relating to federal student-loan programs. _Ibid. _Before
turning to the scope of that power, note the stringency of the
triggering conditions. Putting aside military applications, the
Secretary can act only when the President has declared a national
emergency. See §1098ee(4). Further, the Secretary may provide
benefits only to “affected individuals”—defined as anyone who
“resides or is employed in an area that is declared a disaster area
. . . in connection with a national emergency” or who has
“suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a . . .
national emergency.” §§1098ee(2)(C)–(D). And the Secretary can
do only what he determines to be “necessary” to ensure that those
individuals “are not placed in a worse position financially in
relation to” their loans “because of ” the emergency.

§1098bb(a)(2). That last condition, said more simply, requires the
Secretary to show that the relief he awards does not go beyond
alleviating the economic effects of an emergency on affected
borrowers’ ability to repay their loans.

But if those conditions are met, the Secretary’s delegated authority
is capacious. As in the prior statutes, the Secretary has the linked
power to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision”
applying to the student-loan pro- grams. §1098bb(a)(1). To start with
the phrase after the verbs, “the word ‘any’ has an expansive
meaning.” _United States _v. _Gonzales_, 520 U. S. 1, 5 (1997).
“Any” of the referenced provisions means, well, any of those
provisions. And those provisions include several relating to
student-loan cancellation—more precisely, specifying conditions in
which the Secretary can discharge loan principal.  See §§1087,
1087dd(g); 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212 (2022). Now go back to the
twin verbs: “waive or modify.” To “waive” means to “abandon,
renounce, or surrender”—so here, to eliminate a regulatory
requirement or condition. Black’s Law Dictionary 1894 (11th ed.
2019). To “modify” means “[t]o make somewhat different” or
“to reduce in degree or extent”—so here, to lessen rather than
eliminate such a requirement. _Id._, at 1203. Then put the words
together, as they appear in the statute: To “waive or modify” a
requirement means to lessen its effect, from the slightest adjustment
up to eliminating it altogether. Of course, making such changes may
leave gaps to fill. So the statute says what is anyway obvious: that
the Secretary’s waiver/modification power includes the ability to
specify “the terms and conditions to be applied in lieu of such
[modified or waived] statutory and regulatory provisions.”
§1098bb(b)(2). Finally, attach the “waive or modify” power to all
the provisions relating to loan cancellation: The Secretary may amend,
all the way up to discarding, those provisions and fill the holes that
action creates with new terms designed to counteract an emergency’s
effects on borrowers.

Before reviewing how that statutory scheme operated here, consider how
it might work for a hypothetical emergency that the enacting Congress
had in the front of its mind. As noted above, a precursor to the
HEROES Act was a statute authorizing the Secretary to assist
student-loan borrowers affected by September 11. See _supra_, at 14.
The HEROES Act, as Congress designed it, would give him the identical
power to address similar terrorist attacks in the future. So imagine
the horrific. A terrorist organization sets off a dirty bomb in
Chicago. Beyond causing deaths, the incident leads millions of
residents (including many with student loans) to flee the city to
escape the radiation. They must find new housing, probably new jobs.
And still their student-loan bills are coming due every month. To
prevent widespread loan delinquencies and defaults, the Secretary
wants to discharge $10,000 for the class of affected borrowers. Is
that legal? Of course it is; it is exactly what Congress provided for.
The statutory preconditions are met: The President has declared a
national emergency; the Secretary’s proposed relief extends only to
“affected individuals”; and the Secretary has deemed the action
“necessary to ensure” that the attack does not place those
borrowers  “in  a  worse  position”  to  repay  their 
loans.

§1098bb(a). And the statutory powers of waiver and modification give
the Secretary the means to offer the needed assistance. He can, for
purposes of this special loan forgiveness program, scratch the
pre-existing conditions for discharge and specify different conditions
met by the affected borrowers. That is what the congressionally dele-
gated powers are _for_. If the Secretary did not use them, Congress
would be appalled.

The HEROES Act applies to the COVID loan forgiveness program in just
the same way. Of course, Congress did not know COVID was coming; and
maybe it wasn’t even think- ing about pandemics generally. But that
is immaterial, be- cause Congress delegated broadly, for all national
emergencies. It is true, too, that the Secretary’s use of the HEROES
Act delegation has proved politically controversial, in a way that
assistance to terrorism victims presumably would not. But again, that
fact is irrelevant to the lawfulness of the program. If the
hypothetical plan just discussed is legal, so too is this real one.
Once more, the statutory preconditions have been met. The President
declared the COVID pandemic a “national emergency.” §1098ee(4);
see 87 Fed. Reg. 10289 (2022). The eligible borrowers all fall within
the law’s definition of “affected individual[s].” §1098ee(2);
see _supra_, at 15. And the Secretary “deem[ed]” relief
“necessary to ensure” that the pandemic did not put low- and
middle-income borrowers “in a worse position” to repay their
loans. §§1098bb(a)(1)–(2).2 With those boxes checked, the
Secretary’s waiver/modification powers kick in.

——————

2 More specifically, the Secretary determined that without a loan dis-
charge, borrowers making less than $125,000 are likely to experience
higher delinquency and default rates because of the pandemic’s
economic effects. See App. 234–242, 257–259. In a puzzling
footnote, the majority

And the Secretary used them just as described in the hypothetical
above. For purposes of the COVID program, he scratched the conditions
for loan discharge contained in several provisions. See App. 261–262
(citing §§1087, 1087dd(g); 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212). He then
altered those provisions by specifying different conditions, which
opened up loan forgiveness to more borrowers. So he “waive[d]” and
“modif[ied]” pre-existing law and, in so doing, applied new
“terms and conditions” “in lieu of ” the old.

§§1098bb(a)(1), (b)(2); see 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. As in the prior
hypothetical, then, he used his statutory emergency powers in the
manner Congress designed.

How does the majority avoid this conclusion? By picking the statute
apart, and addressing each segment of Congress’s authorization as if
it had nothing to do with the others. For the first several
pages—really, the heart—of its analysis, the majority proceeds as
though the statute contains only the word “modify.” See _ante_, at
13–15. It eventually gets around to the word “waive,” but
similarly spends most of its time treating that word alone. See
_ante_, at 15–16. Only when that discussion is over does the
majority inform the reader that the statute also contemplates the
Secretary’s addition of new terms and conditions. See _ante_, at
17–18. But once again the majority treats that authority in
isolation, and thus as insignificant. Each aspect of the Secretary’s
authority—waiver, modification, replacement—is kept sealed in a
vacuum-packed container. The way they connect and reinforce each other
is generally ignored. “Di- vide to conquer” is the watchword. So
there cannot possibly emerge “a fair construction of the whole
instrument.” _McCulloch _v. _Maryland_, 4 Wheat. 316, 406 (1819).
The majority fails to read the statutory authorization right because
it fails to read it whole. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The
Interpretation of Legal Texts 167–169 (2012) (dis- cussing the
importance of the whole-text—here, really, the
whole-sentence—canon).

——————

expresses doubt about that finding, though says that its skepticism
plays no role in its decision. See _ante_, at 18–19, n. 6. Far
better if the majority had ruled on that alternative ground. Then, the
Court’s invalidation of the Secretary’s plan would not have
neutered the statute for all future uses. But in any event, the
skepticism is unwarranted. All the majority says to support it is that
the current “paus[e]” on “interest accrual and loan
repayments” could achieve the same end. _Ibid. _But the majority
gives no reason for concluding that the pause would work just as well
to ensure that borrowers are not “placed in a worse position
financially in relation to” their loans because of  the COVID 
emergency.

§1098bb(a)(2)(A). How could it possibly know? And in any event, the
majority’s view of the statute would also make the pause unlawful,
as later discussed. See _infra_, at 21. So the availability of the
pause can hardly provide a basis for the majority’s questioning of
the Secretary’s finding that cancellation is necessary.

The majority’s cardinal error is reading “modify” as if it were
the only word in the statutory delegation. Taken alone, this Court
once stated, the word connotes “increment” and means “to change
moderately or in minor fashion.” _MCI Telecommunications Corp. _v.
_American Tele- phone & Telegraph Co._, 512 U. S. 218, 225 (1994). But
no sooner did the Court say that much than it noted the im- portance
of “contextual indications.” _Id._, at 226; see Scalia & Garner
167 (“Context is a primary determinant of meaning”). And in the
HEROES Act, the dominant piece of con- text is that “modify” does
not stand alone. It is one part of a couplet: “waive or modify.”
The first verb, as discussed above, means eliminate—usually the most
substantial kind of change. See _supra_, at 15; accord, _ante_, at 16.
So the question becomes: Would Congress have given the Secretary power
to wholly eliminate a requirement, as well as to relax it just a
little bit, but nothing in between? The majority says yes. But the
answer is no, because Congress would not have written so insane a law.
The phrase “waive or modify” instead says to the Secretary:
“Feel free to get rid of a requirement or, short of that, to alter
it to the extentyou think appropriate.” Otherwise said, the phrase
extends from minor changes all the way up to major ones.

The majority fares no better in claiming that the phrase “waive or
modify” somehow limits the Secretary’s ability “to _add _to
existing law.” _Ante_, at 18 (emphasis in original). The
majority’s explanation of that idea oscillates a fair bit. At times
the majority tries to convey that “additions” as a class are
somehow suspect. See _ante_, at 17–18 (looking askance at
“add[ing] new terms,” “adding back in,” “filling the empty
space,” “augment[ing],” and “draft[ing] new” language). But
that is mistaken. Change often (usually?) involves or necessitates
replacements. So when the Secretary uses his statutory power to remove
some conditions on loan cancellation, he can under that same power
replace them with others. The majority itself must ultimately concede
that point. See _ante_, at 13, 17–18. So it falls back on arguing
that the “additions” allowed cannot be “substantial[ ]” be-
cause the statute uses the word “modify.” _Ante_, at 16; see
_ante_, at 17–18. But that just doubles down on the majority’s
most basic error: extracting “modify” from the “waive or
modify” phrase in order to confine the Secretary to making minor
changes. As just shown, the phrase as a whole says the
opposite—tells the Secretary that he can make changes along a
spectrum, from modest to substantial. See _supra_, at 19. And so he
can make additions along that spectrum as well. In particular, if he
entirely removes existing conditions on loan discharge, he can
substitute new ones; he does not have to leave gaping holes.

Indeed, other language in the statute makes that substitution
authority perfectly clear. As noted earlier, the stat- ute refers
expressly to “the terms and conditions to be ap- plied in lieu of
such [modified or waived] statutory and regulatory provisions.”
§1098bb(b)(2); see _supra_, at 16. In other words, the statute
expects the Secretary’s waivers and modifications to involve
replacing the usual provisions with different ones. The majority
rejoins that the “in lieu of ” language is a “wafer-thin
reed” for the Secretary to rely on because it appears in a
“humdrum reporting requirement.” _Ante_, at 17. But the adjectives
are by far the best part of that response. It is perfectly true that
the language instructs the Secretary to “include” his new “terms
and conditions” when he provides notice of his “waivers or
modifications.” §1098bb(b)(2). But that is because the statute
contemplates that there will be new terms and conditions to report. In
other words, the statute proceeds on the premise that the usual waiver
or modification will, contra the majority, involve adding “new
substantive” provisions. _Ante_, at 17. The humdrum reporting
requirement thus con- firms the expansive extent of the Secretary’s
waiver/modification authority.

The majority’s opposing construction makes the Act in-
consequential. The Secretary emerges with no ability to respond to
large-scale emergencies in commensurate ways. The creation of any
“novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program” is
off the table. _Ante_, at 14. So, for example, the Secretary could not
cancel student loans held by victims of the hypothetical terrorist
attack described above. See _supra_, at 16–17. That too would
involve “the introduction of a whole new regime” by way of
“draft[ing] new substantive” conditions for discharging loans.
_Ante_, at 17–18. And under the majority’s analysis, new loan
_forbearance _policies are similarly out of bounds. When COVID struck,
Secretary DeVos immediately suspended loan re- payments and interest
accrual for all federally held student loans. See _ante_, at 5. The
majority claims it is not deciding whether that action was lawful.
_Ante_, at 18, n. 5. Which is all well and good, except that under the
majority’s reasoning, how could it not be? The suspension too
offered a significant new benefit, and to an even greater number of
borrowers. (Indeed, for many borrowers, it was worth much more than
the current plan’s $10,000 discharge.)  So the suspension could no
more meet the majority’s pivotal definition of “modify”—as
make a “minor change[ ]”—than could the forgiveness plan.
_Ante_, at 13. On the majority’s telling, Congress thought that in
the event of a national emergency financially harming
borrowers—under a statute gearing potential relief to the measure of
that harm, so that affected borrowers end up no less able to repay
their loans— the Secretary can do no more than fiddle. He can, the
majority says, “reduc[e] the number of tax forms borrowers are
required to file.” _Ibid. _Or he can “waive[] the requirement that
a student provide a written request for a leave of absence.” _Ante_,
at 15. But he can do nothing that would ameliorate an emergency’s
economic impact on student-loan borrowers.

That is not the statute Congress wrote. The HEROES Act was designed to
deal with national emergencies—typically major in scope, often
unpredictable in nature. It gave the Secretary discretionary authority
to relieve borrowers of the adverse impacts of many possible
crises—as “necessary” to ensure that those individuals are not
“in a worse position financially” to make repayment.
§1098bb(a)(2). If all the Act’s triggers are met, the Secretary can
waive or modify the usual provisions relating to student loans, and
substitute new terms and conditions. That power extends to the varied
provisions governing loan repayment and dis- charge. Those provisions
are, indeed, the most obvious candidates for alteration under a
statute drafted to leave borrowers no worse off, in relation to their
loans, than before an emergency struck. But the majority will not
accept the statute’s meaning. At every pass, it “impos[es] limits
on an agency’s discretion that are not supported by the text.”
_Lit- tle Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home _v. _Penn-
sylvania_, 591 U. S.   ,    (2020) (slip op., at 16). It refuses
to apply the Act in accordance with its terms. Explains the majority:
“However broad the meaning of ‘waive or modify’ ”—meaning
however much power Congress gave the Secretary—this program is just
too large. _Ante_, at 18.

B

The tell comes in the last part of the majority’s opinion. When a
court is confident in its interpretation of a statute’s text, it
spells out its reading and hits the send button. Not this Court, not
today. This Court needs a whole other chapter to explain why it is
striking down the Secretary’s plan. And that chapter is not about
the statute Congress passed and the President signed, in their
representation of many millions of citizens. It instead expresses the
Court’s own “concerns over the exercise of administrative
power.” _Ante_, at 19. Congress may have wanted the Secretary to
have wide discretion during emergencies to offer relief to
student-loan borrowers. Congress in fact drafted a statute saying as
much. And the Secretary acted under that statute in a way that
subjects the President he serves to political accountability—the
judgment of voters. But none of that is enough. This Court objects to
Congress’s permitting the Secretary (and other agency officials) to
answer so-called major questions. Or at least it objects when the
answers given are not to the Court’s satisfaction. So the Court puts
its own heavyweight thumb on the scales. It insists that “[h]owever
broad” Congress’s delegation to the Secretary, it (the Court) will
not allow him to use that general authorization to resolve important
issues. The question, the majority helpfully tells us, is “who has
the authority” to make such significant calls. _Ibid. _The answer,
as is now becoming commonplace, is this Court. See, _e.g._, _West
Virginia_, 597 U. S.  ; _Alabama Assn. of Realtors _v. _Department of
Health and Human Servs._, 594 U. S.   (2021); see also _Sackett _v.
_EPA_, 598 U. S.   (2023) (using a similar judicially manufactured
tool to negate statutory text enabling regulation).

The majority’s stance, as I explained last Term, prevents Congress
from doing its policy-making job in the way it thinks best. See _West
Virginia_, 597 U. S., at   –  ,   –    (dissenting
opinion) (slip op., at 13–19, 28–33). The new major-questions
doctrine works not to better understand— but instead to trump—the
scope of a legislative delegation. See _id._, at    (slip op., at
32). Here is a fact of the matter: Congress delegates to agencies
often and broadly. And it usually does so for sound reasons. Because
agencies have expertise Congress lacks. Because times and circum-
stances change, and agencies are better able to keep up and respond.
Because Congress knows that if it had to do everything, many desirable
and even necessary things wouldn’t get done. In wielding the
major-questions sword, last Term and this one, this Court overrules
those legislative judgments. The doctrine forces Congress to delegate
in highly specific terms—respecting, say, loan forgiveness of
certain amounts for borrowers of certain incomes during pandemics of
certain magnitudes. Of course Congress sometimes delegates in that
way. But also often not. Be- cause if Congress authorizes loan
forgiveness, then what of loan forbearance? And what of the other 10
or 20 or 50 knowable and unknowable things the Secretary could do? And
should the measure taken—whether forgiveness or forbearance or
anything else—always be of the same size? Or go to the same classes
of people? Doesn’t it depend on the nature and scope of the
pandemic, and on a host of other foreseeable and unforeseeable
factors? You can see the problem. It is hard to identify and enumerate
every possible application of a statute to every possible condition
years in the future. So, again, Congress delegates broadly. Except
that this Court now won’t let it reap the benefits of that choice.

And that is a major problem not just for governance, but for democracy
too. Congress is of course a democratic institution; it responds, even
if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency
officials, though not themselves elected, serve a President with the
broadest of all political constituencies. But this Court? It is, by
design, as detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the
Court is supposed to stick to its business—to decide only cases and
controversies (but see _supra_, at 3–13), and to stay away from
making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan relief.
The policy judgments, under our separation of powers, are supposed to
come from Congress and the President. But they don’t when the Court
refuses to respect the full scope of the delegations that Congress
makes to the Executive Branch. When that happens, the Court becomes
the arbiter—indeed, the maker—of national policy. See _West
Virginia_, 597 U. S., at    (KAGAN, J., dissenting) (slip op., at
32) (“The Court, rather than Congress, will decide how much
regulation is too much”). That is no proper role for a court. And it
is a danger to a democratic order.

The HEROES Act is a delegation both purposive and clear. Recall that
Congress enacted the statute after pass- ing two similar laws
responding to specific crises. See _su- pra_, at 14. Congress knew
that national emergencies would continue to arise. And Congress
decided that when they did, the Secretary should have the power to
offer relief with- out waiting for another, incident-specific round of
legislation. Emergencies, after all, are emergencies, where speed is
of the essence. For similar reasons, Congress replicated its prior
(two-time) choice to leave the scope and nature of the loan relief to
the Secretary, so that he could respond to varied conditions. As the
House Report noted, Congress provided “the authority to implement
waivers” that were “not yet contemplated” but might become
necessary to deal with “any unforeseen issues that may arise.” H.
R. Rep. No. 108–122, pp. 8–9 (2003). That delegation is at the
statute’s very center, in its “waive or modify” language. And
the authority it grants goes only to the Secretary—the official
Congress knew to hold the responsibility for administering the
Government’s student-loan portfolio and pro- grams. See §1082.
Student loans are in the Secretary’s wheelhouse. And so too,
Congress decided, relief from those loan obligations in case of
emergency. That delegation was the entire point of the HEROES Act.
Indeed, the statute accomplishes nothing else.

The majority is therefore wrong to say that the “indicators from our
previous major questions cases are present here.” _Ante_, at 23
(internal quotation marks omitted). Compare the HEROES Act to other
statutes containing broad delegations that the same majority has found
to raise major-questions problems. Last Term, for example, the
majority thought the trouble with the Clean Power Plan lay in the
EPA’s use of a “long-extant” and “ancillary” provision
addressed to other matters. _West Virginia_, 597 U. S., at    (slip
op., at 20). Before that, the majority invalidated the CDC’s
eviction moratorium because the agency had asserted authority far
outside its “particular domain.” _Alabama Assn. of Realtors_, 594
U. S., at   (slip op., at 6). I thought both those decisions wrong.
But assume the opposite; there is, even on that view, nothing like
those circumstances here. (Or, to quote the majority quoting me, those
“case[s are] distinguishable from this one.” _Ante_, at 23.) In
this case, the Secretary responsible for carrying out the student-loan
programs forgave student loans in a national emergency under the core
provision of a recently enacted statute empowering him to provide
student-loan relief in national emergencies.3  Today’s decision
thus moves the goalposts for triggering the major-questions doctrine.


——————

3 The nature of the delegation here poses a particular challenge for
JUSTICE BARRETT, given her distinctive understanding of the major-
questions doctrine. In her thoughtful concurrence, she notes the
“im- portance of _context _when a court interprets a delegation to
an adminis- trative agency.” _Ante_, at 2 (emphasis in original). I
agree, and have said so; there are, indeed, some significant overlaps
between my and JUSTICE

Who knows—by next year, the Secretary of Health and Human Services
may be found unable to implement the Medicare program under a broad
delegation because of his actions’ (enormous) “economic impact.”
_Ante_, at 21.

To justify _this _use of its heightened-specificity requirement, the
majority relies largely on history: “[P]ast waivers and
modifications,” the majority argues, “have been ex- tremely
modest.” _Ante_, at 20. But first, it depends what you think is
“past.” One prior action, nowhere counted by the majority, is the
suspension of loan payments and interest accrual begun in COVID’s
first days. That action cost the Federal Government over $100 billion,
and benefited many more borrowers than the forgiveness plan at issue.
See _supra_, at 21. And second, it’s all relative. Past actions were
more modest because the precipitating emergencies were more modest.
(The COVID emergency generated, all told, over $5 _trillion _in
Government relief spending.) In providing more significant relief for
a more significant emergency—or call it unprecedented relief for an
unprecedented emergency—the Secretary did what the HEROES Act
contemplates. Imagine asking the enacting Congress: Can the Secretary
use his powers to give borrowers more relief when an emergency has
inflicted greater harm? 

——————

BARRETT’s views on properly contextual interpretation of delegation
pro- visions. See _West Virginia_, 597 U. S., at   –  (dissenting
opinion) (slip op., at 14–19). But then consider two of the
contextual factors JUSTICE BARRETT views as “telltale sign[s]” of
whether an agency has ex- ceeded the scope of a delegation. _Ante_, at
12. First, she asks, is there a “mismatch[ ]” between a
“backwater provision” or “subtle device” and an agency’s
exercise of power? _Ibid. _And second, is the agency official op-
erating within or “outside [his] wheelhouse”? _Ante_, at 12–13.
Here, for the reasons stated above, there is no mismatch: The broadly
worded “waive or modify” delegation IS the HEROES Act, not some
tucked away ancillary provision. And as JUSTICE BARRETT agrees,
“this is not a case where the agency is operating entirely outside
its usual domain.” _Ante_, at 15. So I could practically rest my
case on JUSTICE BARRETT’s reasoning.

I can’t believe the majority really thinks Congress would have
answered “no.” In any event, the statute Congress passed does not
say “no.” Delegations like the HEROES Act are designed to enable
agencies to “adapt their rules and policies to the demands of
changing circumstances.” _FDA _v. _Brown & Williamson Tobacco
Corp._, 529 U. S. 120, 157 (2000). Congress allows, and indeed
expects, agencies to take more serious measures in response to more
serious problems.

Similarly unavailing is the majority’s reliance on the controversy
surrounding the program. Student-loan cancellation, the majority says,
“raises questions that are personal and emotionally charged,”
precipitating “profound debate across the country.” _Ante_, at 22.
I have no quarrel with that description. Student-loan forgiveness, and
responses to COVID generally, have joined the list of issues on which
this Nation is divided. But that provides yet more reason for the
Court to adhere to its properly limited role. There are two paths
here. One is to respect the political branches’ judgments. On that
path, the Court recognizes the breadth of Congress’s delegation to
the Secretary, and declines to interfere with his use of that granted
authority. Maybe Congress was wrong to give the Secretary so much
discretion; or maybe he, and the President he serves, did not make
good use of it. But if so, there are political remedies—
accountability for all the actors, up to the President, who the public
thinks have made mistakes. So a political controversy is resolved by
political means, as our Constitution requires. That is one path. Now
here is the other, the one the Court takes. Wielding its judicially
manufactured heightened-specificity requirement, the Court refuses to
acknowledge the plain words of the HEROES Act. It de- clines to
respect Congress’s decision to give broad emergency powers to the
Secretary. It strikes down his lawful use of that authority to provide
student-loan assistance. It does not let the political system, with
its mechanisms of ac- countability, operate as normal. It makes itself
the decisionmaker on, of all things, federal student-loan policy. And
then, perchance, it wonders why it has only com- pounded the “sharp
debates” in the country? _Ibid.I_II

From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the
demands of judicial restraint. At the behest of a party that has
suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy
issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and
the people they represent. In saying so, and saying so strongly, I do
not at all “disparage[]” those who disagree. _Ante_, at 26. The
majority is right to make that point, as well as to say that
“[r]easonable minds” are found on both sides of this case. _Ante_,
at 25. And there is surely nothing personal in the dispute here. But
Justices throughout history have raised the alarm when the Court has
overreached—when it has “exceed[ed] its proper, limited role in
our Nation’s governance.” _Supra_, at 1. It would have been
“disturbing,” and indeed damaging, if they had not. _Ante_, at 25.
The same is true in our own day.

The majority’s opinion begins by distorting standing doctrine to
create a case fit for judicial resolution. But there is no such case
here, by any ordinary measure. The Secretary’s plan has not injured
the plaintiff-States, however much they oppose it. And in that
respect, Missouri is no different from any of the others. Missouri
does not suffer any harm from a revenue loss to MOHELA, because the
two entities are legally and financially independent. And MOHELA has
chosen not to sue—which of course it could have. So no proper party
is before the Court. A court acting like a court would have said as
much and stopped.

The opinion ends by applying the Court’s made-up major-questions
doctrine to jettison the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan. Small
wonder the majority invokes the doc- trine. The majority’s
“normal” statutory interpretation can- not sustain its decision.
The statute, read as written, gives the Secretary broad authority to
relieve a national emergency’s effect on borrowers’ ability to
repay their student loans. The Secretary did no more than use that
lawfully delegated authority. So the majority applies a rule specially
crafted to kill significant regulatory action, by requiring Congress
to delegate not just clearly but also micro- specifically. The
question, the majority maintains, is “who has the authority” to
decide whether such a significant action should go forward. _Ante_, at
19; see _supra_, at 23. The right answer is the political branches:
Congress in broadly authorizing loan relief, the Secretary and the
President in using that authority to implement the forgiveness plan.
The majority instead says that it is theirs to decide.

So in a case not a case, the majority overrides the combined judgment
of the Legislative and Executive Branches, with the consequence of
eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million Americans. I respectfully
dissent from that decision.

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