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

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

parts.  Because  waiver  allows  the  Secretary  “to  eliminate
legal obligations in their entirety,” the argument runs, the 
combination  of  “waive  or  modify”  allows  him  “to  reduce 
them to any extent short of waiver”—even if the power to 
“modify” ordinarily does not stretch that far.  Reply Brief 
16–17 (internal quotation marks omitted).  But the Secre-
tary’s program cannot be justified by such sleight of hand.
The Secretary has not truly waived or modified the provi-
sions in the Education Act authorizing specific and limited
forgiveness  of  student  loans.  Those  provisions  remain
safely intact in the U. S. Code, where they continue to op-
erate in full force.  What the Secretary has actually done is
draft  a  new  section  of  the  Education  Act  from  scratch  by
“waiving”  provisions  root  and  branch  and  then  filling  the
empty space with radically new text.

Lastly, the Secretary points to a procedural provision in
the HEROES Act.  The Act directs the Secretary to publish
a notice in the Federal Register “includ[ing] the terms and 
conditions to be applied in lieu of such statutory and regu-
latory provisions” as the Secretary has waived or modified.
20 U. S. C. §1098bb(b)(2) (emphasis added).  In the Secre-
tary’s  view,  that  language  authorizes  “both  deleting  and 
then adding back in, waiving and then putting his own re-
quirements in”—a sort of “red penciling” of the existing law. 
Tr. of Oral Arg. 65; see also Reply Brief 17. 

Section  1098bb(b)(2)  is,  however,  “a  wafer-thin  reed  on 
which  to  rest  such  sweeping  power.”  Alabama  Assn.  of 
Realtors  v.  Department  of  Health  and  Human  Servs.,  594 
U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 7).  The provi-
sion is no more than it appears to be: a humdrum reporting 
requirement.    Rather  than  implicitly  granting  the  Secre-
tary authority to draft new substantive statutory provisions
at will, it simply imposes the obligation to report any waiv-
ers  and  modifications  he  has  made.    Section  1098bb(b)(2) 
suggests  that  “waivers  and  modifications”  includes  addi-