A federal judge in Missouri declined to take up a lawsuit filed by six Republican-led states that sought to block President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan, though GOP state Attorney General Derek Schmidt plans to appeal.
U.S. District Judge Henry Edward Autrey, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, wrote in a 19-page decision that states did not make clear enough the type of harm that is required to have their lawsuit heard in court.
“While Plaintiffs present important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan, the current Plaintiffs are unable to proceed to the resolution of these challenges,” Autrey wrote.
Autrey made clear that his ruling was centered on the states’ lack of standing and was not a statement about the legality of Biden’s plan. Republican state attorneys general from Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina were part of the lawsuit.
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Schmidt spokesman Chris Nuelle told the Washington Examiner that his office would appeal the decision, saying, “The Biden administration’s push to cancel student loan debt will unfairly burden working-class families with even more economic woes.”
Several of the states had argued that forgiving privately held federal student loans would harm state-related organizations that are tethered to their ownership or invest in them. However, the Education Department amended the policy on Sept. 29 to no longer allow borrowers with federal loans held by private entities to qualify.
Autrey noted that the Education Department’s change had removed any “ongoing injury” in two of the states, Arkansas and Nebraska, meaning that they do not have standing to challenge the entire policy.
Hours before Autrey’s ruling, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett denied an emergency application brought by Wisconsin taxpayers to block the debt relief plan.
There remain several other lawsuits against Biden’s debt relief plan he announced in August, which will forgive $10,000 for student loan borrowers making under $125,000 annually and $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.
Biden’s early court victories over his debt relief plan come as millions have filed applications to the Education Department to become beneficiaries of the policy. Agency officials have said in court filings that they will not begin to discharge any debt before this coming Sunday.
Opponents of Biden’s plan have argued the president exceeded his authority to use the 2003 HEROES Act, which allows the education secretary to make amendments to financial assistance programs for students “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.”
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Biden has touted the COVID-19 pandemic as one of the main reasons to extend the moratorium on federal student loan payments, as well as his reasoning to forgive thousands of dollars in debt per individual borrower.
The plan to cancel outstanding student debt will cost the country roughly $400 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, while another budget model pegged the cost at nearly $1 trillion.
