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A federal judge in Texas on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s student debt forgiveness policy, ruling that it goes beyond the authority of the Education Department and the power of the executive branch — a decision that marks the second major legal obstacle to the program, which had hoped to begin implementation this fall.
The U.S. district judge, Mark T. Pittman, was appointed by former President Donald Trump, and the lawsuit was brought in October by the conservative Job Creators Network Foundation.
The debt cancellation program was already on hold, unable to discharge any loan payments because of a temporary stay in a federal appeals court that is reviewing a separate lawsuit brought by six conservative states. (A final decision is that case is pending.)
The federal government has said some 43 million people would be eligible for student debt cancellation under the policy.
As of Nov. 3, 26 million people had applied. Of those, the Biden administration said 16 million peoples’ applications had been reviewed and prepared for relief, if and when the program is allowed to move forward.
But in the Texas ruling, Pittman found that whether the loan relief « constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine, » instead focusing on government overreach: « No one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States, » he wrote.
Pittman wrote that there wasn’t clear justification for the Biden administration to wield such influence.
