CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-CASE IN CONTROVERSY-STANDING-LOAN REPAYMENT PROGRAM

Dep’t of Educ. v. Brown, 2023 U.S. LEXIS 2792 (S. Ct. June 30, 2023) (Alito, J.) In August 2022, the Secretary of Education announced a large-scale student-loan forgiveness program. He pledged to discharge hundreds of billions of dollars in student-loan debt owed by millions of borrowers. According to the Secretary, the discharge was necessary to alleviate hardship caused by the impending resumption of loan repayments, which had been suspended during the multi-year coronavirus pandemic, and he therefore invoked authority that he claimed he enjoyed under the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). 117 Stat. 904, codified at 20 U. S. C. §1070 et seq. The following month, the Secretary directed that specific actions be taken to implement the loan-forgiveness plan (Plan). The amount of relief available to a borrower under the Plan depends on various criteria, including the borrower’s income and the type of loan the borrower holds. Before the Plan took effect, however, various plaintiffs—including respondents here—sued to enjoin it. Respondents are two individual borrowers who, for different reasons, do not qualify for the maximum relief available under the Plan. They argue that the Department of Education promulgated the Plan without following mandatory procedures known as (1) negotiated rulemaking and (2) notice and comment. The District Court held in favor of respondents, and we granted certiorari before judgment to consider this case alongside Biden v. Nebraska, No. 22-506, 2023 U.S. LEXIS 2793, which presents a similar challenge to the Plan. Ultimately, however, we do not resolve respondents’ procedural claim because we conclude that they lack standing to bring it. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and remand with instructions to dismiss. We simultaneously deny as moot the Department’s application for a stay pending appeal. Brown and Taylor failed to establish that any injury they suffered from not having their loans forgiven is fairly traceable to the Plan. Injury is claimed because the government has adopted a lawful benefits program under which plaintiffs would quality for assistance. But the same could be said of anyone who might benefit from a benefits program that the government has not chosen to adopt. Since respondents cannot meaningfully connect the absence of loan relief to adoption of the Plan, they have failed to show that their injury is fairly traceable to the Plan. The plaintiffs, here respondents, do not want loan forgiveness under the statute authorizing their forgiveness, The Heroes Act, but rather they want debt forgiveness under another statute. Nothing the Secretary has done deprives them of a “chance” to seek that result.