Seven Republican-led states filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to challenge President Joe Biden’s administration’s latest student debt forgiveness plan, saying the US Department of Education was taking steps to start canceling loans as soon as this week.
The lawsuit came less than a week after the US Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s bid to revive a different student debt relief plan that was designed to lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers and speed up loan forgiveness for some.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Brunswick, Georgia, state attorneys general took aim at a rule the Education Department proposed in April that would provide for a waiver of federal student loan debts for an estimated 27.6 million borrowers.
Attorneys general from states including Georgia and Missouri say they recently obtained documents showing the Education Department has instructed federal loan servicers to begin canceling hundreds of billions of dollars of loans as early as either Tuesday or Saturday before the rule was finalized.
That could lead to the overnight cancelation of at least $73 billion in loans, the lawsuit said, and billions in further debt relief could follow. The states argue the Education Department has no authority to carry out such debt forgiveness.
“We successfully halted their first two illegal student loan cancelation schemes; I have no doubt we will secure yet another win to block the third one,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement.
The Education Department and White House did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the Democratic president’s efforts to fulfill a campaign pledge and bring debt relief to millions of Americans who turned to federal student loans to fund their costly higher education.
Republican-led states successfully convinced the 6-3 conservative majority US Supreme Court in June 2023 to block a $430 billion program championed by Biden that would have canceled up to $20,000 in debt per borrower for up to 43 million Americans.
The administration then pursued a different program dubbed the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan, that was designed to lower monthly payments for millions of borrowers and speed up loan forgiveness for some.
But Republican-led states convinced a federal appeals court to block that plan while litigation over it continues to play out. The Supreme Court on Aug. 28 declined to lift that injunction.
The latest plan relies on a different statute than those, a provision of the Higher Education Act that several leading Democrats including US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Elizabeth Warren have long argued provides the administration authority to cancel student debt.
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Republican-led US states sue over new Biden student debt relief plan
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Republican-led US states sue over new Biden student debt relief plan
- The lawsuit is the latest legal challenge to the Democratic president’s efforts to fulfill a campaign pledge
Russia awaits an answer from the US on New START as nuclear treaty ticks down
- Russian leader Vladimir Putin has proposed keeping the treaty’s limits
- US President Donald Trump has said Putin’s proposal sounded ‘like a good idea’
MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday said it was still awaiting a formal answer from Washington on President Vladimir Putin’s proposal to jointly stick to the last remaining Russian-US arms control treaty, which expires in less than two months.
New START, which runs out on February 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea.”
“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.
“We are waiting for a response,” Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.
Nuclear arms control in peril
Russia and the US together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87 percent of the global inventory of nuclear weapons. China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.
US and Russia eye China’s nuclear arsenal
Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernize their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade — not least over the enlargement of NATO and Moscow’s war in Ukraine — the treaties have almost all crumbled away. Each side blames the other.
In the new US National Security Strategy, the Trump administration says it wants to reestablish strategic stability with Russia” — shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.
Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief US negotiator for New START, said in an article for The Arms Control Association this month that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.
“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Gottemoeller said.
New START, which runs out on February 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.
Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea.”
“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.
“We are waiting for a response,” Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.
Nuclear arms control in peril
Russia and the US together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87 percent of the global inventory of nuclear weapons. China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.
The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.
US and Russia eye China’s nuclear arsenal
Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernize their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade — not least over the enlargement of NATO and Moscow’s war in Ukraine — the treaties have almost all crumbled away. Each side blames the other.
In the new US National Security Strategy, the Trump administration says it wants to reestablish strategic stability with Russia” — shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.
Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief US negotiator for New START, said in an article for The Arms Control Association this month that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.
“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Gottemoeller said.
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