The Supreme Court on Wednesday He rejected a request from the Biden administration to temporarily revive a new student loan program that would have eased payments for millions of borrowers.
The Justice Department's emergency appeal asked the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that is currently blocking Biden's plan while the legal battle continues.
There was no public opposition to this order.
This is not a final ruling and the legality of the plans may ultimately be referred to the High Court.
“The Court expects the Court of Appeals to rule with appropriate expediency,” reads one of two orders not to hear the case at this time.
For now, it is a hindrance to the government's ability to implement its Savings for a Valuable Education (SAVE) scheme.
The first phase began last October and increased the income protection threshold for loan repayments to 225 percent of the federal poverty line and prevented unpaid interest from accruing.
The second phase, scheduled to begin in July, will reduce monthly repayments from 10% to 5% of borrowers' disposable income and shorten the repayment period to 10 years for eligible borrowers, after which any remaining balance will be forgiven.
About 7.5 million borrowers are already enrolled in the SAVE Plan, and 150,000 people have had their debt forgiven under the new income-contingent repayment plan.
Two Republican groups of state attorneys general have challenged the plan, saying Biden lacks the legal authority to implement it and that it ignores a Supreme Court decision last year that struck down one of the president's earlier student loan relief measures.
“There's a reason the Final Rule serves as the Administration's backup plan for mass loan forgiveness: the Administration's legal arguments are even weaker than they were in Biden v. Nebraska,” one group of states wrote in a court filing, referring to the earlier lawsuit.
Another group similarly wrote, “This attempt to unilaterally cancel the debt is just as unlawful as the first 12-figure attempt rejected by this Court.”
Both cases reached the Supreme Court on an emergency docket within weeks of each other after conflicting rulings in lower courts.
Last month, the states of Alaska, South Carolina and Texas asked the justices to reinstate a district court ruling that blocked parts of the plan as the litigation proceeded. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the injunction at the Justice Department's request.
Soon after, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals effectively halted the entire plan in response to a separate challenge led by Missouri and joined by six Republican state attorneys general from Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma.
The Biden administration then sought emergency intervention from the Supreme Court to temporarily lift the order.
“The states cannot justify allowing this extraordinary injunction to continue to harm millions of borrowers while the appeals are pending,” U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger wrote in court papers.
The justices rejected that request, and the effort was pursued in a separate lawsuit brought by three Republican state attorneys general.. Both cases will now return to lower courts.
The Supreme Court also rejected an alternative proposed by all sides to consider the legality of the SAVE plan on its merits at the court's next session.
That would mimic how the court has handled past rounds of student loan debt relief cases.
But the Supreme Court, at least for now, is not planning to intervene this time.
