Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf
Page Number: 50

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

3 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

to keep judges’ policy views and preferences out of judicial 
decisionmaking is to hew to a statute’s text.  The HEROES 
Act’s  text  settles  the  legality  of  the  Secretary’s  loan  for-
giveness  plan.  The  statute  provides  the  Secretary  with
broad  authority  to  give  emergency  relief  to  student-loan 
borrowers,  including  by  altering  usual  discharge  rules. 
What the Secretary did fits comfortably within that delega-
tion.  But the Court forbids him to proceed.  As in other re-
cent cases, the rules of the game change when Congress en-
acts broad delegations allowing agencies to take substantial 
regulatory measures.  See, e.g., West Virginia v. EPA, 597 
U. S. ___ (2022).  Then, as in this case, the Court reads stat-
utes unnaturally, seeking to cabin their evident scope.  And 
the  Court  applies  heightened-specificity  requirements, 
thwarting Congress’s efforts to ensure adequate responses 
to unforeseen events.  The result here is that the Court sub-
stitutes  itself  for  Congress  and  the  Executive  Branch  in 
making  national  policy  about  student-loan  forgiveness. 
Congress  authorized  the  forgiveness  plan  (among  many 
other actions); the Secretary put it in place; and the Presi-
dent would have been accountable for its success or failure. 
But this Court today decides that some 40 million Ameri-
cans will not receive the benefits the plan provides, because 
(so  says  the  Court)  that  assistance  is  too  “significan[t].” 
Ante, at 20–21.  With all respect, I dissent. 

I 
“No  principle  is  more  fundamental  to  the  judiciary’s
proper role in our system of government than the constitu-
tional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual cases 
or controversies.”  Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Or-
ganization,  426  U. S.  26,  37  (1976).    In  our  system, 
“[f]ederal courts do not possess a roving commission to pub-
licly  opine  on  every  legal  question.”  TransUnion  LLC  v. 
Ramirez, 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip op., at 8).  Nor do 
they “exercise general legal oversight of the Legislative and