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Page Number: 61.0

14 

BIDEN v. NEBRASKA 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

piece in an attempt to escape the meaning of the whole.  But 
the whole—the expansive delegation—is so apparent that
the majority has no choice but to justify its holding on extra-
statutory grounds.  So the majority resorts, as is becoming 
the norm, to its so-called major-questions doctrine.  And the 
majority again reveals that doctrine for what it is—a way
for this Court to negate broad delegations Congress has ap-
proved,  because  they  will  have  significant  regulatory  im-
pacts.  Thus the Court once again substitutes itself for Con-
gress  and  the  Executive  Branch—and  the  hundreds  of 
millions of people they represent—in making this Nation’s 
most important, as well as most contested, policy decisions. 

A 
A  bit  of  background  first,  to  give  a  sense  of  where  the
HEROES Act came from.  In 1991 and again in 2002, Con-
gress authorized the Secretary to grant student-loan relief
to borrowers affected by a specified war or emergency.  The 
first statute came out of the Persian Gulf Conflict.  It gave
the  Secretary  power  to  “waive  or  modify  any  statutory  or
regulatory provision” relating to student-loan programs in
order to assist “the men and women serving on active duty
in connection with Operation Desert Storm.”  §§372(a)(1), 
(b), 105 Stat. 93.  The next iteration responded to the im-
pacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks.  It too gave the 
Secretary power to “waive or modify” any student-loan pro-
vision, but this time to help borrowers affected by the “na-
tional emergency” created by September 11.  §2(a)(1), 115 
Stat. 2386. 

With  those  one-off  statutes  in  its  short-term  memory,
Congress decided there was a need for a broader and more 
durable emergency authorization.  So in 2003, it passed the
HEROES Act.  Instead of specifying a particular crisis, that
statute enables the Secretary to act “as [he] deems neces-
sary” in connection with any military operation or “national