Attempts to block President Biden’s student debt relief programs were dealt dual setbacks yesterday, as a federal judge in Missouri and Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected challenges to the sweeping measure, one that could cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars, the New York Times reported. Judge Henry E. Autrey of the Federal District Court in St. Louis dismissed the more prominent of the two lawsuits, one brought by six Republican-led states. The suit accused Mr. Biden of overstepping his authority under a 2003 federal law that allows the education secretary to modify financial assistance programs for students “in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.” The plan cancels $10,000 in debt for those earning less than $125,000 per year, or $250,000 per household, and $20,000 for those who received Pell grants for low-income families. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last month that it estimated the plan’s price tag at $400 billion, and the Education Department followed a few days later with a similar estimate of $379 billion over the life of the program. Judge Autrey, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, did not rule on the larger issue in the lawsuit, which was brought by Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina. Instead, he said the states had not suffered injuries of the sort that gave them standing to sue. “While plaintiffs present important and significant challenges to the debt relief plan,” the judge wrote, “the current plaintiffs are unable to proceed to the resolution of these challenges.” The states’ case was viewed as the most significant threat to Mr. Biden’s plan, and Judge Autrey’s ruling allowed the government to start discharging loans as soon as Sunday. More than 12 million people have applied for debt cancellation since the application portal opened late last week.
