Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 22–506
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. NEBRASKA, ET AL.
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
[June 30, 2023]
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court.
To ensure that Americans could keep up with increasing international competition, Congress authorized the first federal student loans in 1958—up to a total of $1,000 per student each year. National Defense Education Act of 1958, 72 Stat. 1584. Outstanding federal student loans now total $1.6 trillion extended to 43 million borrowers. Letter from Congressional Budget Office to Members of Congress, p. 3 (Sept. 26, 2022) (CBO Letter). Last year, the Secretary of Education established the first comprehensive student loan forgiveness program, invoking the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) for authority to do so. The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430 billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600. See ibid.; App. 243. Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree.
I
A
The Higher Education Act of 1965 (Education Act) was enacted to increase educational opportunities and “assist in making available the benefits of postsecondary education to eligible students … in institutions of higher education.” 20 U. S. C. §1070(a). To that end, Title IV of the Act restructured federal financial aid mechanisms and established three types of federal student loans. Direct Loans are, as the name suggests, made directly to students and funded by the federal fisc; they constitute the bulk of the Federal Government’s student lending efforts. See §1087a et seq. The Government also administers Perkins Loans—government-subsidized, low-interest loans made by schools to students with significant financial need—and Federal Family Education Loans, or FFELs—loans made by private lenders and guaranteed by the Federal Government. See §§1071 et seq., 1087aa et seq. While FFELs and Perkins Loans are no longer issued, many remain outstanding. §§1071(d), 1087aa(b).
The terms of federal loans are set by law, not the market, so they often come with benefits not offered by private lenders. Such benefits include deferment of any repayment until after graduation, loan qualification regardless of credit history, relatively low fixed interest rates, income-sensitive repayment plans, and—for undergraduate students with financial need—government payment of interest while the borrower is in school. Dept. of Ed., Federal Student Aid, Federal Versus Private Loans.
The Education Act specifies in detail the terms and conditions attached to federal loans, including applicable interest rates, loan fees, repayment plans, and consequences of default. See §§1077, 1080, 1087e, 1087dd. It also authorizes the Secretary to cancel or reduce loans, but only in certain limited circumstances and to a particular extent. Specifically, the Secretary can cancel a set amount of loans held by some public servants—including teachers, members of the Armed Forces, Peace Corps volunteers, law enforcement and corrections officers, firefighters, nurses, and librarians—who work in their professions for a minimum number of years. §§1078–10, 1087j, 1087ee. The Secretary can also forgive the loans of borrowers who have died or been “permanently and totally disabled,” such that they cannot “engage in any substantial gainful activity.” §1087(a)(1). Bankrupt borrowers may have their loans forgiven. §1087(b). And the Secretary is directed to discharge loans for borrowers falsely certified by their schools, borrowers whose schools close down, and borrowers whose schools fail to pay loan proceeds they owe to lenders. §1087(c).
Shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Congress became concerned that borrowers affected by the crisis—particularly those who served in the military—would need additional assistance. As a result, it enacted the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2001. That law provided the Secretary of Education, for a limited period of time, with “specific waiver authority to respond to conditions in the national emergency” caused by the September 11 attacks. 115 Stat. 2386. Rather than allow this grant of authority to expire by its terms at the end of September 2003, Congress passed the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). 117 Stat. 904. That Act extended the coverage of the 2001 statute to include any war or national emergency—not just the September 11 attacks. By its terms, the Secretary “may waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs under title IV of the [Education Act] as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.” 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(1).[1]
The Secretary may issue waivers or modifications only “as may be necessary to ensure” that “recipients of student financial assistance under title IV of the [Education Act] who are affected individuals are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to that financial assistance because of their status as affected individuals.” §1098bb(a)(2)(A). An “affected individual” is defined, in relevant part, as someone who “resides or is employed in an area that is declared a disaster area by any Federal, State, or local official in connection with a national emergency” or who “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a war or other military operation or national emergency, as determined by the Secretary.” §§1098ee(2)(C)–(D). And a “national emergency” for the purposes of the Act is “a national emergency declared by the President of the United States.” §1098ee(4).
Immediately following the passage of the Act in 2003, the Secretary issued two dozen waivers and modifications addressing a handful of specific issues. 68 Fed. Reg. 69312–69318. Among other changes, the Secretary waived the requirement that “affected individuals” must “return or repay an overpayment” of certain grant funds erroneously disbursed by the Government, id., at 69314, and the requirement that public service work must be uninterrupted to qualify an “affected individual” for loan cancellation, id., at 69317. Additional adjustments were made in 2012, with similar limited effects. 77 Fed. Reg. 59311–59318.
But the Secretary took more significant action in response to the COVID–19 pandemic. On March 13, 2020, the President declared the pandemic a national emergency. Presidential Proclamation No. 9994, 85 Fed. Reg. 15337–15338 (2020). One week later, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that she was suspending loan repayments and interest accrual for all federally held student loans. See Dept. of Ed., Breaking News: Testing Waivers and Student Loan Relief (Mar. 20, 2020). The following week, Congress enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which required the Secretary to extend the suspensions through the end of September 2020. 134 Stat. 404–405. Before that extension expired, the President directed the Secretary, “[i]n light of the national emergency,” to “effectuate appropriate waivers of and modifications to” the Education Act to keep the suspensions in effect through the end of the year. 85 Fed. Reg. 49585. And a few months later, the Secretary further extended the suspensions, broadened eligibility for federal financial assistance, and waived certain administrative requirements (to allow, for example, virtual rather than on-site accreditation visits and to extend deadlines for filing reports). Id., at 79856–79863; 86 Fed. Reg. 5008–5009 (2021).
Over a year and a half passed with no further action beyond keeping the repayment and interest suspensions in place. But in August 2022, a few weeks before President Biden stated that “the pandemic is over,” the Department of Education announced that it was once again issuing “waivers and modifications” under the Act—this time to reduce and eliminate student debts directly. See App. 257–259; Washington Post, Sept. 20, 2022, p. A3, col. 1. During the first year of the pandemic, the Department’s Office of General Counsel had issued a memorandum concluding that “the Secretary does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge, or forgiveness of student loan principal balances.” Memorandum from R. Rubinstein to B. DeVos, p. 8 (Jan. 12, 2021). After a change in Presidential administrations and shortly before adoption of the challenged policy, however, the Office of General Counsel “formally rescinded” its earlier legal memorandum and issued a replacement reaching the opposite conclusion. 87 Fed. Reg. 52945 (2022). The new memorandum determined that the HEROES Act “grants the Secretary authority that could be used to effectuate a program of targeted loan cancellation directed at addressing the financial harms of the COVID–19 pandemic.” Id., at 52944. Upon receiving this new opinion, the Secretary issued his proposal to cancel student debt under the HEROES Act. App. 257–259. Two months later, he published the required notice of his “waivers and modifications” in the Federal Register. 87 Fed. Reg. 61512–61514.
The terms of the debt cancellation plan are straightforward: For borrowers with an adjusted gross income below $125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 who have eligible federal loans, the Department of Education will discharge the balance of those loans in an amount up to $10,000 per borrower.[2] Id., at 61514 (“modif[ying] the provisions of” 20 U. S. C. §§1087, 1087dd(g); 34 CFR pt. 647, subpt. D (2022); 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212). Borrowers who previously received Pell Grants qualify for up to $20,000 in loan cancellation. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. Eligible loans include “Direct Loans, FFEL loans held by the Department or subject to collection by a guaranty agency, and Perkins Loans held by the Department.” Ibid. The Department of Education estimates that about 43 million borrowers qualify for relief, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the plan will cancel about $430 billion in debt principal. See App. 119; CBO Letter 3.
B
Six States moved for a preliminary injunction, claiming that the plan exceeded the Secretary’s statutory authority. The District Court held that none of the States had standing to challenge the plan and dismissed the suit. ___ F. Supp. 3d ___ (ED Mo. 2022). The States appealed, and the Eighth Circuit issued a nationwide preliminary injunction pending resolution of the appeal. The court concluded that Missouri likely had standing through the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA or Authority), a public corporation that holds and services student loans. 52 F. 4th 1044 (2022). It further concluded that the State’s challenge raised “substantial” questions on the merits and that the equities favored maintaining the status quo pending further review. Id., at 1048 (internal quotation marks omitted).
With the plan on pause, the Secretary asked this Court to vacate the injunction or to grant certiorari before judgment, “to avoid prolonging this uncertainty for the millions of affected borrowers.” Application 4. We granted the petition and set the case for expedited argument. 598 U. S. ___ (2022).
II
Before addressing the legality of the Secretary’s program, we must first ensure that the States have standing to challenge it. Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff needs a “personal stake” in the case. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 7). That is, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact—a concrete and imminent harm to a legally protected interest, like property or money—that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct and likely to be redressed by the lawsuit. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560–561 (1992). If at least one plaintiff has standing, the suit may proceed. Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc., 547 U. S. 47, 52, n. 2 (2006). Because we conclude that the Secretary’s plan harms MOHELA and thereby directly injures Missouri—conferring standing on that State—we need not consider the other theories of standing raised by the States.
Missouri created MOHELA as a nonprofit government corporation to participate in the student loan market. Mo. Rev. Stat. §173.360 (2016). The Authority owns over $1 billion in FFELs. MOHELA, FY 2022 Financial Statement 9 (Financial Statement). It also services nearly $150 billion worth of federal loans, having been hired by the Department of Education to collect payments and provide customer service to borrowers. Id., at 4, 8. MOHELA receives an administrative fee for each of the five million federal accounts it services, totaling $88.9 million in revenue last year alone. Ibid.
Under the Secretary’s plan, roughly half of all federal borrowers would have their loans completely discharged. App. 119. MOHELA could no longer service those closed accounts, costing it, by Missouri’s estimate, $44 million a year in fees that it otherwise would have earned under its contract with the Department of Education. Brief for Respondents 16. This financial harm is an injury in fact directly traceable to the Secretary’s plan, as both the Government and the dissent concede. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 18; post, at 5 (Kagan, J., dissenting).
The plan’s harm to MOHELA is also a harm to Missouri. MOHELA is a “public instrumentality” of the State. Mo. Rev. Stat. §173.360. Missouri established the Authority to perform the “essential public function” of helping Missourians access student loans needed to pay for college. Ibid.; see Todd v. Curators of University of Missouri, 347 Mo. 460, 464, 147 S. W. 2d 1063, 1064 (1941) (“Our constitution recognizes higher education as a governmental function.”). To fulfill this public purpose, the Authority is empowered by the State to invest in or finance student loans, including by issuing bonds. §§173.385(1)(6)–(7). It may also service loans and collect “reasonable fees” for doing so. §§173.385(1)(12), (18). Its profits help fund education in Missouri: MOHELA has provided $230 million for development projects at Missouri colleges and universities and almost $300 million in grants and scholarships for Missouri students. Financial Statement 10, 20.
The Authority is subject to the State’s supervision and control. Its board consists of two state officials and five members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate. §173.360. The Governor can remove any board member for cause. Ibid. MOHELA must provide annual financial reports to the Missouri Department of Education, detailing its income, expenditures, and assets. §173.445. The Authority is therefore “directly answerable” to the State. Casualty Reciprocal Exchange v. Missouri Employers Mut. Ins. Co., 956 S. W. 2d 249, 254 (Mo. 1997). The State “set[s] the terms of its existence,” and only the State “can abolish [MOHELA] and set the terms of its dissolution.” Id., at 254–255.
By law and function, MOHELA is an instrumentality of Missouri: It was created by the State to further a public purpose, is governed by state officials and state appointees, reports to the State, and may be dissolved by the State. The Secretary’s plan will cut MOHELA’s revenues, impairing its efforts to aid Missouri college students. This acknowledged harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself.
We came to a similar conclusion 70 years ago in Arkansas v. Texas, 346 U. S. 368 (1953). Arkansas sought to invoke our original jurisdiction in a suit against Texas, claiming that Texas had wrongfully interfered with a contract between the University of Arkansas and a Texas charity. Id., at 369. Texas argued that the suit could not proceed because the University did “not stand in the shoes of the State.” Id., at 370. The harm to the University, as Texas saw it, was not a harm to Arkansas sufficient for the State to sue in its own name.
We disagreed. We recognized that “Arkansas must, of course, represent an interest of her own and not merely that of her citizens or corporations.” Ibid. But we concluded that Arkansas was in fact seeking to protect its own interests because the University was “an official state instrumentality.” Ibid. The State had labeled the University “an instrument of the state in the performance of a governmental work.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The University served a public purpose, acting as the State’s “agen[t] in the educational field.” Id., at 371. The University had been “created by the Arkansas legislature,” was “governed by a Board of Trustees appointed by the Governor with consent of the Senate,” and “report[ed] all of its expenditures to the legislature.” Id., at 370. In short, the University was an instrumentality of the State, and “any injury under the contract to the University [was] an injury to Arkansas.” Ibid. So too here. Because the Authority is part of Missouri, the State does not seek to “rely on injuries suffered by others.” Post, at 2 (opinion of Kagan, J.). It aims to remedy its own.
The Secretary and the dissent assert that MOHELA’s injuries should not count as Missouri’s because MOHELA, as a public corporation, has a legal personality separate from the State. Every government corporation has such a distinct personality; it is a corporation, after all, “with the powers to hold and sell property and to sue and be sued.” First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U. S. 611, 624 (1983). Yet such an instrumentality—created and operated to fulfill a public function—nonetheless remains “(for many purposes at least) part of the Government itself.” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 513 U. S. 374, 397 (1995).
In Lebron, Amtrak was sued for refusing to display a political advertisement on a billboard at one of its stations. Id., at 376–377. Amtrak argued that it was not subject to the First Amendment because it was a corporation separate from the Federal Government. See id., at 392. Congress had even specified in its authorizing statute that Amtrak was not “an agency or establishment of the United States Government.” Id., at 391 (quoting 84 Stat. 1330). Despite this disclaimer, we held that Amtrak remained subject to the First Amendment because it functioned as an instrumentality of the Federal Government, “created by a special statute, explicitly for the furtherance of federal governmental goals” of ensuring that the American public had access to passenger trains. Lebron, 513 U. S., at 397. Its board was appointed by the President, and it had to submit annual reports to the President and Congress. Id., at 385–386. Having been “established and organized under federal law for the very purpose of pursuing federal governmental objectives, under the direction and control of federal governmental appointees,” Amtrak could not disclaim that it was “part of the Government.” Id., at 398, 400.
We reiterated the point in Department of Transportation v. Association of American Railroads, 575 U. S. 43 (2015). There, railroads argued that giving Amtrak regulatory power was an unconstitutional delegation of government authority to a private entity. Id., at 49–50. We rejected that contention, noting that “Amtrak was created by the Government, is controlled by the Government, and operates for the Government’s benefit.” Id., at 53. It was therefore acting “as a governmental entity” in exercising that regulatory power. Id., at 54.
That principle holds true here. The Secretary and the dissent contend that because MOHELA can sue on its own behalf, it—not Missouri—must be the one to sue. But in Arkansas, 346 U. S. 368, the University of Arkansas could have asserted its rights under the contract on its own. The University’s governing statute made it “a body politic and corporate,” with “all the powers of a corporate body,” Ark. Stat. §80–2804 (1887)—including the power to sue and be sued on its own behalf, see HRR Arkansas, Inc. v. River City Contractors, Inc., 350 Ark. 420, 427, 87 S. W. 3d 232, 237 (2002); see, e.g., Board of Trustees, Univ. of Ark. v. Pulaski County, 229 Ark. 370, 315 S. W. 2d 879 (1958). We permitted Arkansas to bring an original suit all the same. Where a State has been harmed in carrying out its responsibilities, the fact that it chose to exercise its authority through a public corporation it created and controls does not bar the State from suing to remedy that harm itself.[3]
The Secretary’s plan harms MOHELA in the performance of its public function and so directly harms the State that created and controls MOHELA. Missouri thus has suffered an injury in fact sufficient to give it standing to challenge the Secretary’s plan. With Article III satisfied, we turn to the merits.
III
The Secretary asserts that the HEROES Act grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan principal. It does not. We hold today that the Act allows the Secretary to “waive or modify” existing statutory or regulatory provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up.
A
The HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to “waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student financial assistance programs under title IV of the [Education Act] as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other military operation or national emergency.” 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(1). That power has limits. To begin with, statutory permission to “modify” does not authorize “basic and fundamental changes in the scheme” designed by Congress. MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 225 (1994). Instead, that term carries “a connotation of increment or limitation,” and must be read to mean “to change moderately or in minor fashion.” Ibid. That is how the word is ordinarily used. See, e.g., Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1952 (2002) (defining “modify” as “to make more temperate and less extreme,” “to limit or restrict the meaning of,” or “to make minor changes in the form or structure of [or] alter without transforming”). The legal definition is no different. Black’s Law Dictionary 1203 (11th ed. 2019) (giving the first definition of “modify” as “[t]o make somewhat different; to make small changes to,” and the second as “[t]o make more moderate or less sweeping”). The authority to “modify” statutes and regulations allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to existing provisions, not transform them.
The Secretary’s previous invocations of the HEROES Act illustrate this point. Prior to the COVID–19 pandemic, “modifications” issued under the Act implemented only minor changes, most of which were procedural. Examples include reducing the number of tax forms borrowers are required to file, extending time periods in which borrowers must take certain actions, and allowing oral rather than written authorizations. See 68 Fed. Reg. 69314–69316.
Here, the Secretary purported to “modif[y] the provisions of” two statutory sections and three related regulations governing student loans. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. The affected statutory provisions granted the Secretary the power to “discharge [a] borrower’s liability,” or pay the remaining principal on a loan, under certain narrowly prescribed circumstances. 20 U. S. C. §§1087, 1087dd(g)(1). Those circumstances were limited to a borrower’s death, disability, or bankruptcy; a school’s false certification of a borrower or failure to refund loan proceeds as required by law; and a borrower’s inability to complete an educational program due to closure of the school. See §§1087(a)–(d), 1087dd(g). The corresponding regulatory provisions detailed rules and procedures for such discharges. They also defined the terms of the Government’s public service loan forgiveness program and provided for discharges when schools commit malfeasance. See 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212; 34 CFR pt. 674, subpt. D.
The Secretary’s new “modifications” of these provisions were not “moderate” or “minor.” Instead, they created a novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program. The new program vests authority in the Department of Education to discharge up to $10,000 for every borrower with income below $125,000 and up to $20,000 for every such borrower who has received a Pell Grant. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. No prior limitation on loan forgiveness is left standing. Instead, every borrower within the specified income cap automatically qualifies for debt cancellation, no matter their circumstances. The Department of Education estimates that the program will cover 98.5% of all borrowers. See Dept. of Ed., White House Fact Sheet: The Biden Administration’s Plan for Student Debt Relief Could Benefit Tens of Millions of Borrowers in All Fifty States (Sept. 20, 2022). From a few narrowly delineated situations specified by Congress, the Secretary has expanded forgiveness to nearly every borrower in the country.
The Secretary’s plan has “modified” the cited provisions only in the same sense that “the French Revolution ‘modified’ the status of the French nobility”—it has abolished them and supplanted them with a new regime entirely. MCI, 512 U. S., at 228. Congress opted to make debt forgiveness available only in a few particular exigent circumstances; the power to modify does not permit the Secretary to “convert that approach into its opposite” by creating a new program affecting 43 million Americans and $430 billion in federal debt. Descamps v. United States, 570 U. S. 254, 274 (2013). Labeling the Secretary’s plan a mere “modification” does not lessen its effect, which is in essence to allow the Secretary unfettered discretion to cancel student loans. It is “highly unlikely that Congress” authorized such a sweeping loan cancellation program “through such a subtle device as permission to ‘modify.’ ” MCI, 512 U. S., at 231.
The Secretary responds that the Act authorizes him to “waive” legal provisions as well as modify them—and that this additional term “grant[s] broader authority” than would “modify” alone. But the Secretary’s invocation of the waiver power here does not remotely resemble how it has been used on prior occasions. Previously, waiver under the HEROES Act was straightforward: the Secretary identified a particular legal requirement and waived it, making compliance no longer necessary. For instance, on one occasion the Secretary waived the requirement that a student provide a written request for a leave of absence. See 77 Fed. Reg. 59314. On another, he waived the regulatory provisions requiring schools and guaranty agencies to attempt collection of defaulted loans for the time period in which students were affected individuals. See 68 Fed. Reg. 69316.
Here, the Secretary does not identify any provision that he is actually waiving.[4] No specific provision of the Education Act establishes an obligation on the part of student borrowers to pay back the Government. So as the Government concedes, “waiver”—as used in the HEROES Act—cannot refer to “waiv[ing] loan balances” or “waiving the obligation to repay” on the part of a borrower. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9, 64. Contrast 20 U. S. C. §1091b(b)(2)(D) (allowing the Secretary to “waive the amounts that students are required to return” in specified circumstances of overpayment by the Government). Because the Secretary cannot waive a particular provision or provisions to achieve the desired result, he is forced to take a more circuitous approach, one that avoids any need to show compliance with the statutory limitation on his authority. He simply “waiv[es] the elements of the discharge and cancellation provisions that are inapplicable in this [debt cancellation] program that would limit eligibility to other contexts.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 64–65.
Yet even that expansive conception of waiver cannot justify the Secretary’s plan, which does far more than relax existing legal requirements. The plan specifies particular sums to be forgiven and income-based eligibility requirements. The addition of these new and substantially different provisions cannot be said to be a “waiver” of the old in any meaningful sense. Recognizing this, the Secretary acknowledges that waiver alone is not enough; after waiving whatever “inapplicable” law would bar his debt cancellation plan, he says, he then “modif[ied] the provisions to bring [them] in line with this program.” Id., at 65. So in the end, the Secretary’s plan relies on modifications all the way down. And as we have explained, the word “modify” simply cannot bear that load.
The Secretary and the dissent go on to argue that the power to “waive or modify” is greater than the sum of its parts. Because waiver allows the Secretary “to eliminate legal obligations in their entirety,” the argument runs, the combination of “waive or modify” allows him “to reduce them to any extent short of waiver”—even if the power to “modify” ordinarily does not stretch that far. Reply Brief 16–17 (internal quotation marks omitted). But the Secretary’s program cannot be justified by such sleight of hand. The Secretary has not truly waived or modified the provisions in the Education Act authorizing specific and limited forgiveness of student loans. Those provisions remain safely intact in the U. S. Code, where they continue to operate in full force. What the Secretary has actually done is draft a new section of the Education Act from scratch by “waiving” provisions root and branch and then filling the empty space with radically new text.
Lastly, the Secretary points to a procedural provision in the HEROES Act. The Act directs the Secretary to publish a notice in the Federal Register “includ[ing] the terms and conditions to be applied in lieu of such statutory and regulatory provisions” as the Secretary has waived or modified. 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(b)(2) (emphasis added). In the Secretary’s view, that language authorizes “both deleting and then adding back in, waiving and then putting his own requirements in”—a sort of “red penciling” of the existing law. Tr. of Oral Arg. 65; see also Reply Brief 17.
Section 1098bb(b)(2) is, however, “a wafer-thin reed on which to rest such sweeping power.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 7). The provision is no more than it appears to be: a humdrum reporting requirement. Rather than implicitly granting the Secretary authority to draft new substantive statutory provisions at will, it simply imposes the obligation to report any waivers and modifications he has made. Section 1098bb(b)(2) suggests that “waivers and modifications” includes additions. The dissent accordingly reads the statute as authorizing any degree of change or any new addition, “from modest to substantial”—and nothing in the dissent’s analysis suggests stopping at “substantial.” Post, at 20. Because the Secretary “does not have to leave gaping holes” when he waives provisions, the argument runs, it follows that any replacement terms the Secretary uses to fill those holes must be lawful. Ibid. But the Secretary’s ability to add new terms “in lieu of” the old is limited to his authority to “modify” existing law. As with any other modification issued under the Act, no new term or condition reported pursuant to §1098bb(b)(2) may distort the fundamental nature of the provision it alters.[5]
The Secretary’s comprehensive debt cancellation plan cannot fairly be called a waiver—it not only nullifies existing provisions, but augments and expands them dramatically. It cannot be mere modification, because it constitutes “effectively the introduction of a whole new regime.” MCI, 512 U. S., at 234. And it cannot be some combination of the two, because when the Secretary seeks to add to existing law, the fact that he has “waived” certain provisions does not give him a free pass to avoid the limits inherent in the power to “modify.” However broad the meaning of “waive or modify,” that language cannot authorize the kind of exhaustive rewriting of the statute that has taken place here.[6]
B
In a final bid to elide the statutory text, the Secretary appeals to congressional purpose. “The whole point of” the HEROES Act, the Government contends, “is to ensure that in the face of a national emergency that is causing financial harm to borrowers, the Secretary can do something.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 55. And that “something” was left deliberately vague because Congress intended “to grant substantial discretion to the Secretary to respond to unforeseen emergencies.” Reply Brief 22, n. 3. So the unprecedented nature of the Secretary’s debt cancellation plan only “reflects the pandemic’s unparalleled scope.” Brief for Petitioners 52 (Brief for United States).
The dissent agrees. “Emergencies, after all, are emergencies,” it reasons, and “more serious measures” must be expected “in response to more serious problems.” Post, at 25, 28. The dissent’s interpretation of the HEROES Act would grant unlimited power to the Secretary, not only to modify or waive certain provisions but to “fill the holes that action creates with new terms”—no matter how drastic those terms might be—and to “alter [provisions] to the extent [he] think[s] appropriate,” up to and including “the most substantial kind of change” imaginable. Post, at 16, 19–20. That is inconsistent with the statutory language and past practice under the statute.
The question here is not whether something should be done; it is who has the authority to do it. Our recent decision in West Virginia v. EPA involved similar concerns over the exercise of administrative power. 597 U. S. ___ (2022). That case involved the EPA’s claim that the Clean Air Act authorized it to impose a nationwide cap on carbon dioxide emissions. Given “the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] ha[d] asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion,” we found that there was “ ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 17) (quoting FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 159–160 (2000); first alteration in original).
So too here, where the Secretary of Education claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans. The Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude under the HEROES Act. As we have already noted, past waivers and modifications issued under the Act have been extremely modest and narrow in scope. The Act has been used only once before to waive or modify a provision related to debt cancellation: In 2003, the Secretary waived the requirement that borrowers seeking loan forgiveness under the Education Act’s public service discharge provisions “perform uninterrupted, otherwise qualifying service for a specified length of time (for example, one year) or for consecutive periods of time, such as 5 consecutive years.” 68 Fed. Reg. 69317. That waiver simply eased the requirement that service be uninterrupted to qualify for the public service loan forgiveness program. In sum, “[n]o regulation premised on” the HEROES Act “has even begun to approach the size or scope” of the Secretary’s program. Alabama Assn., 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7).[7]
Under the Government’s reading of the HEROES Act, the Secretary would enjoy virtually unlimited power to rewrite the Education Act. This would “effec[t] a ‘fundamental revision of the statute, changing it from [one sort of] scheme of … regulation’ into an entirely different kind,” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24) (quoting MCI, 512 U. S., at 231)—one in which the Secretary may unilaterally define every aspect of federal student financial aid, provided he determines that recipients have “suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a … national emergency.” 20 U. S. C. §1098ee(2)(D).
The “ ‘economic and political significance’ ” of the Secretary’s action is staggering by any measure. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17) (quoting Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 160). Practically every student borrower benefits, regardless of circumstances. A budget model issued by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania estimates that the program will cost taxpayers “between $469 billion and $519 billion,” depending on the total number of borrowers ultimately covered. App. 108. That is ten times the “economic impact” that we found significant in concluding that an eviction moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention triggered analysis under the major questions doctrine. Alabama Assn., 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6). It amounts to nearly one-third of the Government’s $1.7 trillion in annual discretionary spending. Congressional Budget Office, The Federal Budget in Fiscal Year 2022. There is no serious dispute that the Secretary claims the authority to exercise control over “a significant portion of the American economy.” Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, 573 U. S. 302, 324 (2014) (quoting Brown & Williamson, 529 U. S., at 159).
The dissent is correct that this is a case about one branch of government arrogating to itself power belonging to another. But it is the Executive seizing the power of the Legislature. The Secretary’s assertion of administrative authority has “conveniently enabled [him] to enact a program” that Congress has chosen not to enact itself. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 27). Congress is not unaware of the challenges facing student borrowers. “More than 80 student loan forgiveness bills and other student loan legislation” were considered by Congress during its 116th session alone. M. Kantrowitz, Year in Review: Student Loan Forgiveness Legislation, Forbes, Dec. 24, 2020.[8] And the discussion is not confined to the halls of Congress. Student loan cancellation “raises questions that are personal and emotionally charged, hitting fundamental issues about the structure of the economy.” J. Stein, Biden Student Debt Plan Fuels Broader Debate Over Forgiving Borrowers, Washington Post, Aug. 31, 2022.
The sharp debates generated by the Secretary’s extraordinary program stand in stark contrast to the unanimity with which Congress passed the HEROES Act. The dissent asks us to “[i]magine asking the enacting Congress: Can the Secretary use his powers to give borrowers more relief when an emergency has inflicted greater harm?” Post, at 27–28. The dissent “can’t believe” the answer would be no. Post, at 28. But imagine instead asking the enacting Congress a more pertinent question: “Can the Secretary use his powers to abolish $430 billion in student loans, completely canceling loan balances for 20 million borrowers, as a pandemic winds down to its end?” We can’t believe the answer would be yes. Congress did not unanimously pass the HEROES Act with such power in mind. “A decision of such magnitude and consequence” on a matter of “ ‘earnest and profound debate across the country’ ” must “res[t] with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 28, 31) (quoting Gonzales v. Oregon, 546 U. S. 243, 267–268 (2006)). As then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi explained:
“People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress.” Press Conference, Office of the Speaker of the House (July 28, 2021).
Aside from reiterating its interpretation of the statute, the dissent offers little to rebut our conclusion that “indicators from our previous major questions cases are present” here. Post, at 15 (Barrett, J., concurring). The dissent insists that “[s]tudent loans are in the Secretary’s wheelhouse.” Post, at 26 (opinion of Kagan, J.). But in light of the sweeping and unprecedented impact of the Secretary’s loan forgiveness program, it would seem more accurate to describe the program as being in the “wheelhouse” of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations. Rather than dispute the extent of that impact, the dissent chooses to mount a frontal assault on what it styles “the Court’s made-up major questions doctrine.” Post, at 29–30. But its attempt to relitigate West Virginia is misplaced. As we explained in that case, while the major questions “label” may be relatively recent, it refers to “an identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of significant cases” spanning decades. West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20). At any rate, “the issue now is not whether [West Virginia] is correct. The question is whether that case is distinguishable from this one. And it is not.” Collins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (Kagan, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 2).
The Secretary, for his part, acknowledges that West Virginia is the law. Brief for United States 47–48. But he objects that its principles apply only in cases concerning “agency action[s] involv[ing] the power to regulate, not the provision of government benefits.” Reply Brief 21. In the Government’s view, “there are fewer reasons to be concerned” in cases involving benefits, which do not impose “profound burdens” on individual rights or cause “regulatory effects that might prompt a note of caution in other contexts involving exercises of emergency powers.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 61.
This Court has never drawn the line the Secretary suggests—and for good reason. Among Congress’s most important authorities is its control of the purse. U. S. Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 7; see also Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U. S. 414, 427 (1990) (the Appropriations Clause is “a most useful and salutary check upon profusion and extravagance” (internal quotation marks omitted)). It would be odd to think that separation of powers concerns evaporate simply because the Government is providing monetary benefits rather than imposing obligations. As we observed in West Virginia, experience shows that major questions cases “have arisen from all corners of the administrative state,” and administrative action resulting in the conferral of benefits is no exception to that rule. 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 17). In King v. Burwell, 576 U. S. 473 (2015), we declined to defer to the Internal Revenue Service’s interpretation of a healthcare statute, explaining that the provision at issue affected “billions of dollars of spending each year and … the price of health insurance for millions of people.” Id., at 485. Because the interpretation of the provision was “a question of deep ‘economic and political significance’ that is central to [the] statutory scheme,” we said, we would not assume that Congress entrusted that task to an agency without a clear statement to that effect. Ibid. (quoting Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324). That the statute at issue involved government benefits made no difference in King, and it makes no difference here.
All this leads us to conclude that “[t]he basic and consequential tradeoffs” inherent in a mass debt cancellation program “are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself.” West Virginia, 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 26). In such circumstances, we have required the Secretary to “point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ ” to justify the challenged program. Id., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 19, 28) (quoting Utility Air, 573 U. S., at 324). And as we have already shown, the HEROES Act provides no authorization for the Secretary’s plan even when examined using the ordinary tools of statutory interpretation—let alone “clear congressional authorization” for such a program.[9] *** It has become a disturbing feature of some recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary. Today, we have concluded that an instrumentality created by Missouri, governed by Missouri, and answerable to Missouri is indeed part of Missouri; that the words “waive or modify” do not mean “completely rewrite”; and that our precedent—old and new—requires that Congress speak clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large sections of the American economy. We have employed the traditional tools of judicial decisionmaking in doing so. Reasonable minds may disagree with our analysis—in fact, at least three do. See post, p. ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting). We do not mistake this plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement. It is important that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would be harmful to this institution and our country.
The judgment of the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The Government’s application to vacate the Eighth Circuit’s injunction is denied as moot.
- ↑ Like its 2001 predecessor, the HEROES Act enjoyed virtually unanimous bipartisan support at the time of its enactment, passing by a 421-to-1 vote in the House of Representatives and a unanimous voice vote in the Senate. See 149 Cong. Rec. 7952–7953 (2003); id., at 20809; 147 Cong. Rec. 20396 (2001); id., at 26292–26293. The single dissenting Representative later voiced his support for the Act, explaining that he “meant to vote ‘yea.’ ” 149 Cong. Rec. 8559 (statement of Rep. Miller).
- ↑ A borrower filing “jointly or as a Head of Household, or as a qualifying widow(er),” qualifies for loan cancellation with an adjusted gross income lower than $250,000. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514.
- ↑ The dissent, for all its attempts to cabin these precedents, cites no precedents of its own addressing a State’s standing to sue for a harm to its instrumentality. The dissent offers only a state court case involving a different public corporation, in which the Missouri Supreme Court said that the corporation was separate from the State for the purposes of a state ban on “the lending of the credit of the state.” Menorah Medical Center v. Health and Ed. Facilities Auth., 584 S. W. 2d 73, 78 (1979) (plurality opinion). But as the dissent recognizes, a public corporation can count as part of the State for some but not “other purposes.” Post, at 11, and n. 1. The Missouri Supreme Court said nothing about, and had no reason to address, whether an injury to that public corporation was a harm to the State.
- ↑ While the Secretary’s notice published in the Federal Register refers to “waivers and modifications” generally, see 87 Fed. Reg. 61512–61514, and while two sentences use the somewhat ambiguous phrase “[t]his waiver,” id., at 61514, the notice identifies no specific legal provision as having been “waived” by the Secretary.
- ↑ The dissent asserts that our decision today will control any challenge to the Secretary’s temporary suspensions of loan repayments and interest accrual. Post, at 21–22. We decide only the case before us. A challenge to the suspensions may involve different considerations with respect to both standing and the merits.
- ↑ The States further contend that the Secretary’s program violates the requirement in the HEROES Act that any waivers or modifications be “necessary to ensure that … affected individuals are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to” federal financial assistance. 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(2)(A); see Brief for Respondents 39–44. While our decision does not rest upon that reasoning, we note that the Secretary faces a daunting task in showing that cancellation of debt principal is “necessary to ensure” that borrowers are not placed in “worse position[s] financially in relation to” their loans, especially given the Government’s prior determination that pausing interest accrual and loan repayments would achieve that end.
- ↑ The Secretary also cites a prior invocation of the HEROES Act waiving the requirement that borrowers must repay prior overpayments of certain grant funds. See Brief for United States 41; 68 Fed. Reg. 69314. But Congress had already limited borrower liability in such cases to exclude overpayments in amounts up to “50 percent of the total grant assistance received by the student” for the period at issue, so the Secretary’s waiver had only a modest effect. 20 U. S. C. §1091b(b)(2)(C)(i)(II). And that waiver simply held the Government responsible for its own errors when it had mistakenly disbursed undeserved grant funds.
- ↑ Resolutions were also introduced in 2020 and 2021 “[c]alling on the President … to take executive action to broadly cancel Federal student loan debt.” See S. Res. 711, 116th Cong., 2d Sess. (2020); S. Res. 46, 117th Cong., 1st Sess. (2021). Those resolutions failed to reach a vote.
- ↑ The dissent complains that our application of the major questions doctrine is a “tell” revealing that “ ‘normal’ statutory interpretation cannot sustain [our] decision.” Post, at 23, 30. Not so. As we have explained, the statutory text alone precludes the Secretary’s program. Today’s opinion simply reflects this Court’s familiar practice of providing multiple grounds to support its conclusions. See, e.g., Kucana v. Holder, 558 U. S. 233, 243–252 (2010) (interpreting the text of a federal immigration statute in the first instance, then citing the “presumption favoring judicial review of administrative action” as an additional sufficient basis for the Court’s decision). The fact that multiple grounds support a result is usually regarded as a strength, not a weakness.