Page:Biden v. Nebraska.pdf/69

22 suspension could no more meet the majority’s pivotal definition of “modify”—as make a “minor change[]”—than could the forgiveness plan. 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.” 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 discharge. 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.” Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, 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