Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 64

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

17 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

are met: The President has declared a national emergency;
the Secretary’s proposed relief extends only to “affected in-
dividuals”; and the Secretary has deemed the action “nec-
essary to ensure” that the attack does not place those bor-
rowers  “in  a  worse  position”  to  repay  their  loans. 
§1098bb(a).  And the statutory powers of waiver and modi-
fication  give  the  Secretary  the  means  to  offer  the  needed 
assistance.    He  can,  for  purposes  of  this  special  loan  for-
giveness  program,  scratch  the  pre-existing  conditions  for 
discharge  and  specify  different  conditions  met  by  the  af-
fected  borrowers.    That  is  what  the  congressionally  dele-
gated  powers  are  for.  If  the  Secretary  did  not  use  them,
Congress would be appalled.

The HEROES Act applies to the COVID loan forgiveness
program in just the same way.  Of course, Congress did not
know COVID was coming; and maybe it wasn’t even think-
ing about pandemics generally.  But that is immaterial, be-
cause Congress delegated broadly, for all national emergen-
cies.  It is true, too, that the Secretary’s use of the HEROES
Act delegation has proved politically controversial, in a way 
that assistance to terrorism victims presumably would not.
But  again,  that  fact  is  irrelevant  to  the  lawfulness  of  the 
program.  If the hypothetical plan just discussed is legal, so
too is this real one.  Once more, the statutory preconditions 
have  been  met.  The  President  declared  the  COVID  pan-
demic a “national emergency.”  §1098ee(4); see 87 Fed. Reg. 
10289  (2022).    The  eligible  borrowers  all  fall  within  the
law’s definition of “affected individual[s].”  §1098ee(2); see 
supra,  at  15.    And  the  Secretary  “deem[ed]”  relief  “neces-
sary  to  ensure”  that  the  pandemic  did  not  put  low-  and
middle-income  borrowers  “in  a  worse  position”  to  repay
their loans.  §§1098bb(a)(1)–(2).2  With those boxes checked, 
—————— 

2 More specifically, the Secretary determined that without a loan dis-
charge,  borrowers  making  less  than  $125,000  are  likely  to  experience
higher delinquency and default rates because of the pandemic’s economic 
effects.  See App. 234–242, 257–259.  In a puzzling footnote, the majority