Opinion of the Court
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
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.
