Court Opinion

ID: 9406261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-30 15:02:28.001374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:28.186710
License: Public Domain

(Slip Opinion)              OCTOBER TERM, 2022                                       1

                                       Syllabus

         NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
       being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
       The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
       prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
       See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

                                       Syllabus

     DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION ET AL. v. BROWN
                     ET AL.

   CERTIORARI BEFORE JUDGMENT TO THE UNITED STATES
        COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

    No. 22–535.      Argued February 28, 2023—Decided June 30, 2023
To alleviate hardship expected to be caused by the impending resump-
  tion of federal student-loan repayments that had been suspended dur-
  ing the multi-year coronavirus pandemic, Secretary of Education Mi-
  guel Cardona announced a substantial student-loan debt-forgiveness
  plan (Plan). The Plan discharges $10,000 to $20,000 of an eligible bor-
  rower’s debt, depending on criteria such as the borrower’s income and
  the type of loan held. The Secretary invoked the Higher Education
  Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act), which
  authorizes the Secretary “to waive or modify any provision” applicable
  to federal “student financial assistance” programs “as may be neces-
  sary to ensure that . . . recipients of student financial assistance” are
  no worse off “financially in relation to that financial assistance be-
  cause” of a national emergency or disaster. 20 U. S. C. §§1098bb(a)(1),
  (a)(2)(A), 1098ee(2)(C)–(D). The HEROES Act also exempts rules
  promulgated pursuant to it from the otherwise-applicable negotiated-
  rulemaking and notice-and-comment processes.
     Before the Plan took effect, various plaintiffs—including respond-
  ents here—sued to enjoin it. Respondents Myra Brown and Alexander
  Taylor are two borrowers who do not qualify for the maximum relief
  available under the Plan. Their one-count complaint alleges that the
  Secretary was required to follow notice-and-comment and negotiated-
  rulemaking procedures in promulgating the Plan, which all agree he
  did not do. Brown and Taylor argue that the HEROES Act’s proce-
  dural exemptions apply only when the rule promulgated is substan-
  tively authorized by the Act, and because the HEROES Act does not
  authorize the Plan (they argue), the Secretary was required to follow
  negotiated rulemaking and notice and comment. The District Court
2            DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                                 Syllabus

 rejected their argument regarding the scope of the HEROES Act’s pro-
 cedural exemptions, but nevertheless vacated the Plan as substan-
 tively unauthorized. This Court granted certiorari before judgment to
 consider this case alongside Biden v. Nebraska, No. 22–506, which pre-
 sents a similar challenge to the Plan.
Held: Because respondents fail to establish that any injury they suffer
 from not having their loans forgiven is fairly traceable to the Plan, they
 lack Article III standing, so the Court has no jurisdiction to address
 their procedural claim. Pp. 6–15.
    (a) “This case begins and ends with standing.” Carney v. Adams,
 592 U. S. ___, ___. The Court’s authority under the Constitution is
 limited to resolving “Cases” or “Controversies.” Art. III, §2. The
 Court’s jurisprudence has “established that the irreducible constitu-
 tional minimum of standing contains three elements” that a plaintiff
 must plead and—ultimately—prove. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife,
 504 U. S. 555, 560. Those elements are: (1) a “concrete and particular-
 ized” injury that is (2) “fairly traceable” to the challenged action of the
 defendant and (3) “likely” to be “redressed by a favorable decision.” Id.,
 at 560–561 (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). But
 where, as here, the plaintiff alleges that she has been deprived of a
 procedural right to protect her concrete interest, she need not show
 that observing the contested procedure would necessarily lead to a dif-
 ferent substantive result. Id., at 572, n. 7. Pp. 6–8.
    (b) As articulated in this Court, respondents’ claim and theory of
 standing are twofold: First, because the HEROES Act does not sub-
 stantively authorize the Plan, the Secretary was obligated to follow
 typical negotiated-rulemaking and notice-and-comment requirements.
 Second, if the Secretary had observed those procedures, respondents
 might have used those opportunities to convince him not only that pro-
 ceeding under the HEROES Act is unlawful, but also that he should
 instead adopt a different loan-forgiveness program under the Higher
 Education Act of 1965 (HEA), and to make that program more gener-
 ous to respondents than the Plan. Respondents assert there is at least
 a chance that this series of events will come to pass now if this Court
 vacates the Plan. Pp. 8–9.
    (c) Respondents’ standing claim most clearly fails on traceability:
 They cannot show that their purported injury of not receiving loan re-
 lief under the HEA is fairly traceable to the Department’s (allegedly
 unlawful) decision to grant loan relief under the HEROES Act. Pp. 9–
 15.
       (1) Significantly, respondents are not claiming that they are in-
 jured by not being sufficiently included among the Plan’s beneficiaries:
 They think the Plan is substantively unlawful and instead seek debt
 forgiveness under the HEA. But a decision regarding the lawfulness
                   Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)                     3

                              Syllabus

of the Plan does not directly affect respondents’ ability to obtain loan
relief under the HEA; the Department’s authority to grant loan relief
under the HEA (upon which the Court does not pass) is not affected by
whether the Plan is lawful or unlawful. Any connection between loan
forgiveness under the two statutes is speculative.
   While it is true that the Court’s procedural-standing case law toler-
ates uncertainty over whether observing certain procedures would
have led to (caused) a different substantive outcome, see Lujan, 504
U. S., at 572, n. 7, the causal uncertainty here is not so limited. In-
stead, the uncertainty concerns whether the substantive decisions the
Department has made regarding the Plan under the HEROES Act
have a causal relationship with other substantive decisions respond-
ents want the Department to make under the HEA. There is no prec-
edent for tolerating this sort of causal uncertainty. Respondents can-
not show that the denial of HEA loan relief—their ostensible injury—
“fairly can be traced to” the Department’s decision to grant loan relief
in the Plan. Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426
U. S. 26, 42–43. There is little reason to think that the Department’s
discretionary decision to pursue one mechanism of loan relief under
the HEROES Act has anything to do with its discretionary decision to
pursue (or not pursue) action under the HEA. “The line of causation
between” the Department’s promulgation of the Plan and respondents’
lack of benefits under the HEA “is attenuated at best,” Allen v. Wright,
468 U. S. 737, 757, and all too dependent on “ ‘conjecture,’ ” Summers
v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U. S. 488, 496. Pp. 10–13.
     (2) Respondents’ attempts to tie the Plan to potential HEA relief
are unavailing. Although the Department has occasionally referred to
“one-time” student-loan relief in publicizing the Plan, the Plan itself
contains no such reference. And any incidental effect of the Plan on
the likelihood that the Department will undertake a separate loan-
forgiveness program under a different statute is too weak and specu-
lative to show that the absence of HEA-based loan forgiveness is fairly
traceable to the Plan. See, e.g., Simon, 426 U. S., at 42–43. To the
extent the Department has determined that the Plan crowds out other
efforts to forgive student loans, that determination is a discretionary
one that respondents may petition the Department to reconsider. Fi-
nally, respondents cannot demonstrate causation on the theory that
the Department’s failure to observe the requisite procedural rules cost
them a chance to obtain debt forgiveness; they do not want debt for-
giveness under the HEROES Act, and nothing the Department has
done deprives them of a chance to seek debt forgiveness under the
HEA. Respondents cannot meaningfully connect the absence of loan
relief under the HEA to the adoption of the Plan, so they have failed to
show that their injury is fairly traceable to the Plan. Pp. 13–14.
4             DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                                 Syllabus

Vacated and remanded.

    ALITO, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
                        Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)                              1

                             Opinion of the Court

     NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
     United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
     Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
     pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
                                   _________________

                                   No. 22–535
                                   _________________

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, ET AL., PETITIONERS
           v. MYRA BROWN, ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
            APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
                                 [June 30, 2023]

   JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
   In August 2022, the Secretary of Education announced a
large-scale student-loan forgiveness program. He pledged
to discharge hundreds of billions of dollars in student-loan
debt owed by millions of borrowers. According to the Secre-
tary, the discharge was necessary to alleviate hardship
caused by the impending resumption of loan repayments,
which had been suspended during the multi-year corona-
virus pandemic, and he therefore invoked authority that he
claimed he enjoyed under the Higher Education Relief Op-
portunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act). 117
Stat. 904, codified at 20 U. S. C. §1070 et seq. The following
month, the Secretary directed that specific actions be taken
to implement the loan-forgiveness plan (Plan). The amount
of relief available to a borrower under the Plan depends on
various criteria, including the borrower’s income and the
type of loan the borrower holds.
   Before the Plan took effect, however, various plaintiffs—
including respondents here—sued to enjoin it. Respond-
ents are two individual borrowers who, for different rea-
sons, do not qualify for the maximum relief available under
2          DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                      Opinion of the Court

the Plan. They argue that the Department of Education
promulgated the Plan without following mandatory proce-
dures known as (1) negotiated rulemaking and (2) notice
and comment. The District Court held in favor of respond-
ents, and we granted certiorari before judgment to consider
this case alongside Biden v. Nebraska, No. 22–506, which
presents a similar challenge to the Plan.
  Ultimately, however, we do not resolve respondents’ pro-
cedural claim because we conclude that they lack standing
to bring it. Accordingly, we vacate the judgment of the
United States District Court for the Northern District of
Texas and remand with instructions to dismiss. We simul-
taneously deny as moot the Department’s application for a
stay pending appeal.
                               I
                              A
  The Court’s opinion in Biden v. Nebraska, ___ U. S. ___
(2023), recounts the relevant background of the HEROES
Act, so only a brief summary is provided here. The Act au-
thorizes the Secretary of Education “to waive or modify any
provision” applicable to federal “student financial assis-
tance” programs “as may be necessary to ensure that . . .
recipients of student financial assistance” who live or work
in a declared disaster area, or suffer direct economic hard-
ship as a result of a national emergency, “are not placed in
a worse position financially in relation to that financial as-
sistance because” of the disaster or emergency. 20 U. S. C.
§§1098bb(a)(1), (a)(2)(A), 1098ee(2)(C)–(D).
  In addition to this substantive grant of authority, the
HEROES Act dispenses with certain procedural rules for
actions taken pursuant to it.
  First, the HEROES Act permits the Secretary to imple-
ment any “waivers and modifications authorized or re-
quired” by the Act without engaging in the “negotiated rule-
making” that is typically required before proposing
                 Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)            3

                     Opinion of the Court

regulations relating to student financial assistance.
§1098bb(d). Negotiated rulemaking is a lengthy delibera-
tive process involving many stakeholders. Pursuant to this
process, the Secretary must first obtain “advice of and rec-
ommendations” from a long list of sources, including “indi-
viduals and representatives” of groups “such as students,
legal assistance organizations that represent students, in-
stitutions of higher education, State student grant agen-
cies, guaranty agencies, lenders, secondary markets, loan
servicers, guaranty agency servicers, and collection agen-
cies.” §1098a(a)(1). Then, informed by this consultation,
the Secretary must submit draft regulations for considera-
tion in a negotiation process involving participants who are
“chosen by the Secretary from individuals nominated by”
such groups. §1098a(b)(1). Only after taking these steps
may the Secretary “publis[h] proposed regulations in the
Federal Register,” ibid., accompanied by a summary of the
information the Secretary received throughout the process,
§1098a(a)(2). The HEROES Act, however, permits the Sec-
retary to bypass this onerous process. §1098bb(d).
   The HEROES Act also authorizes the Secretary to bypass
notice-and-comment procedures that the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA) would otherwise demand. The APA
typically requires agencies to give the public “[g]eneral no-
tice of [a] proposed rule making” by publication in the Fed-
eral Register, and then to provide “interested persons an
opportunity to participate in the rule making through sub-
mission of written data, views, or arguments” regarding the
proposed rule. 5 U. S. C. §§553(b), (c). The agency may
promulgate a final rule only after providing notice and op-
portunity for comment. §553(c). But the HEROES Act in-
stead permits the Secretary to implement the waivers and
modifications he “deems necessary to achieve the purposes
of ” the Act merely by “publish[ing]” “notice in the Federal
Register.” 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(b)(1).
4          DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                     Opinion of the Court

                              B
  On September 27, 2022, Secretary of Education Miguel
Cardona, invoking authority under the HEROES Act, di-
rected the issuance of waivers and modifications that would
bring about the forgiveness of a substantial amount of
student-loan debt. In particular, he purported to effect the
discharge of (1) $10,000 of eligible, federally held student-
loan debt for any individual borrower with 2020 or 2021 in-
come under $125,000 (or household income under
$250,000), and (2) an additional $10,000 (making a total of
$20,000) for any such borrower who had ever received a Pell
Grant. Pell Grants are Government-funded grants to help
defray the cost of postsecondary education; eligibility for
these grants turns principally on the income of a student’s
family when the student applies to and is enrolled in the
relevant educational program (almost always undergradu-
ate study). See §§1070a(b)(2), 1087mm(a), 1091; see also 34
CFR §690.6(c) (2022) (limited eligibility for students in a
qualifying “postbaccalaureate program”). Secretary Car-
dona directed that these actions be taken via a publication
in the Federal Register, see App. 262; all agree that he did
not observe the generally applicable negotiated-rulemaking
or notice-and-comment processes in devising and announc-
ing the Plan.
  Notwithstanding the Plan’s scope and expense, not all
student-loan borrowers were pleased with it. Myra Brown
and Alexander Taylor, plaintiffs in this case, are two such
dissatisfied borrowers, albeit for different reasons. Brown’s
loans are “commercially held,” id., at 171, Complaint ¶10,
meaning that her creditor is an entity other than the Fed-
eral Government. The Plan, however, applies only to bor-
rowers whose loans fall into one or more categories of loans
“held by the Department.” 87 Fed. Reg. 61513 (2022). Con-
sequently, Brown is not entitled to any loan forgiveness un-
der the Plan.
                  Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)            5

                      Opinion of the Court

  Taylor, on the other hand, is eligible for loan for-
giveness—but only $10,000, rather than the maximum
$20,000. That is because, despite now having an annual
income of less than $25,000, he never received a Pell Grant.
See App. 183, Complaint ¶61. Thus, individuals with an-
nual income up to five times greater than his are eligible for
twice as much loan forgiveness as he is if they ever received
a Pell Grant.
  Accordingly, both Brown and Taylor object to certain ele-
ments of the Plan—Brown to its limitation to federally held
loans, and Taylor to the additional relief it doles out based
on prior Pell Grants, with no regard for current income. Be-
cause the Department did not engage in negotiated rule-
making or notice and comment, however, Brown and Taylor
had no formal opportunity to voice their views on the Plan
prior to its adoption.
  Alleging that the law entitles them to such an oppor-
tunity, Brown and Taylor brought this action in the U. S.
District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Their
one-count complaint claims that the Plan is unlawful be-
cause the Department promulgated it without observing
the requirements of negotiated rulemaking and notice and
comment. As a result, they claim, we should “[v]acate and
set aside the” Plan under 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(D). App. 186.
  Brown and Taylor recognize that the HEROES Act sup-
plies exemptions from these procedural requirements.
They argue, however, that an action of the Secretary falls
within these exemptions only if it is substantively author-
ized by the Act; the Secretary, in their view, cannot merely
invoke the “HEROES Act” to bypass negotiated rulemaking
and notice and comment. According to Brown and Taylor,
the Act does not substantively authorize the Plan, and so
the Secretary was required to follow these procedures.
  The District Court agreed with Brown and Taylor—in
part. It rebuffed their central argument that the HEROES
6          DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                      Opinion of the Court

Act exempts from procedural requirements only those ac-
tions that the Act substantively authorizes. But the Dis-
trict Court nonetheless held that the Plan exceeds the Sec-
retary’s authority under the HEROES Act and therefore
entered judgment vacating it. ___ F. Supp. 3d ___, ___,
2022 WL 16858525, *15 (ND Tex., Nov. 10, 2022).
   After the Fifth Circuit denied the Department’s motion
for a stay pending appeal, the Department applied to this
Court for such a stay. The Department advised in the al-
ternative that we could treat its application as a petition for
certiorari before judgment. We did just that, granting the
Department’s petition for certiorari before judgment and
deferring consideration of its application for a stay. 598
U. S. ___ (2022). We now review the judgment in No. 22–
535 and dispose of the pending application in No. 22A489.
                                II
  We ultimately do not address Brown and Taylor’s argu-
ment that the Department failed to observe proper proce-
dures in promulgating the Plan. “We have ‘an obligation to
assure ourselves’ of litigants’ standing under Article III” be-
fore proceeding to the merits of a case. DaimlerChrysler
Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U. S. 332, 340 (2006) (quoting Friends of
the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC),
Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 180 (2000)). And because we conclude
that Brown and Taylor lack standing, “[t]his case begins
and ends with standing.” Carney v. Adams, 592 U. S. ___,
___ (2020) (slip op., at 4). In particular, we hold that Brown
and Taylor fail to establish that any injury they suffer from
not having their loans forgiven is fairly traceable to the
Plan.
                            A
   Our authority under the Constitution is limited to resolv-
ing “Cases” or “Controversies.” Art. III, §2. “The doctrine
of standing,” among others, “implements this” limit on our
                  Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)            7

                      Opinion of the Court

authority. Carney, 592 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). Our
jurisprudence has “established that the irreducible consti-
tutional minimum of standing contains three elements”
that a plaintiff must plead and—ultimately—prove. Lujan
v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992). “First,
the plaintiff must have suffered an ‘injury in fact’ ” that is
both “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent,
not conjectural or hypothetical.” Ibid. (some internal quo-
tation marks omitted). Second, the plaintiff ’s injury must
be “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defend-
ant,” meaning that “there must be a causal connection be-
tween the injury and the conduct complained of.” Ibid. (in-
ternal quotation marks and alterations omitted). “Third, it
must be ‘likely,’ as opposed to merely ‘speculative,’ that the
injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Id., at 561
(some internal quotation marks omitted).
   We have found, however, that when a statute affords a
litigant “a procedural right to protect his concrete inter-
ests,” the litigant may establish Article III jurisdiction
without meeting the usual “standards for redressability
and immediacy.” Id., at 572, n. 7. For example, we hypoth-
esized a person “living adjacent to the site for proposed con-
struction of a federally licensed dam” and explained that
this person “has standing to challenge the licensing
agency’s failure to prepare an environmental impact state-
ment, even though he cannot establish with any certainty
that the statement will cause the license to be withheld or
altered.” Ibid. In this context, the fact that the defendant
might well come to the same decision after abiding by the
contested procedural requirement does not deprive a plain-
tiff of standing.
   Regardless of the redressability showing we have toler-
ated in the procedural-rights context, we have never held a
litigant who asserts such a right is excused from demon-
strating that it has a “concrete interest that is affected by
the deprivation” of the claimed right. Summers v. Earth
8          DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                      Opinion of the Court

Island Institute, 555 U. S. 488, 496–497 (2009).
  We emphasized this requirement in Summers, where we
were asked to review U. S. Forest Service regulations ex-
empting certain minor land-management decisions from
the typical notice-and-comment process. Id., at 490–491.
The plaintiffs in that case did not have any “concrete plans
to observe nature in [a] specific area” affected by actions the
Service took pursuant to this exemption, id., at 497, and we
therefore held that they lacked standing, id., at 494–497.
As we put it, the “deprivation of a procedural right without
some concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation—
a procedural right in vacuo—is insufficient to create Article
III standing.” Id., at 496.
                              B
  Before applying this framework, we pause to explain both
respondents’ theory of standing and the substance of their
claim, which have not always been readily ascertainable—
or consistently described—during this litigation.
  Upon initial inspection, respondents’ merits theory ap-
pears to be in tension with the possibility that the Depart-
ment could redress their injury. Respondents argue simul-
taneously (1) that the Department might have treated them
more generously if it had solicited their input in developing
the Plan and (2) that the Department lacks substantive au-
thority to promulgate broad-based loan forgiveness under
the HEROES Act. It would be quite odd for Brown and Tay-
lor to complain about being unable to seek an increase in
the scope of an administrative action that they think the
Department cannot lawfully take.
  Respondents belatedly attempted to address this strange
feature of their argument. Their complaint does not say a
word about standing. But in their reply supporting their
motion in the District Court for an injunction against the
Plan, they ventured a brief attempt to explain their position
on this threshold issue. They insisted that the Department
                  Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)            9

                      Opinion of the Court

cannot adopt the Plan under the HEROES Act regardless
of the procedures it follows. Reply in No. 4:22–cv–908
(ND Tex., Oct. 20, 2022), ECF Doc. 26, pp. 3–4. But they
observed that the Department has claimed it also has au-
thority to forgive loans under a different statute, the Higher
Education Act of 1965 (HEA), which authorizes the Secre-
tary to “compromise, waive, or release any right, title,
claim, lien, or demand.” 20 U. S. C. §1082(a)(6). Thus, re-
spondents argued, there is a chance that vacating the Plan
would prompt the Department to pursue loan relief under
the HEA instead. In this Court, Brown and Taylor discuss
the HEA at length for the first time in this litigation. See
Brief for Respondents 28–32.
   Having recounted this history, we now understand re-
spondents’ claim and theory of standing as follows. First,
because the HEROES Act does not substantively authorize
the Plan, the Department was obligated to follow the typi-
cal negotiated-rulemaking and notice-and-comment re-
quirements. Second, if the Department had observed those
procedures, respondents might have used those opportuni-
ties to convince the Department (1) that proceeding under
the HEROES Act is unlawful or otherwise undesirable, and
(2) that it should adopt a different loan-forgiveness plan un-
der the HEA instead, one that is more generous to them
than the HEROES Act plan that they allege is unlawful.
They assert there is at least a chance that this series of
events will come to pass now if we vacate the Plan. Id., at
19.
                             C
   Describing respondents’ claim illustrates how unusual it
is. They claim they are injured because the Government
has not adopted a lawful benefits program under which
they would qualify for assistance. But the same could be
said of anyone who might benefit from a benefits program
that the Government has not chosen to adopt. It is difficult
10           DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                         Opinion of the Court

to see how such an injury could be particular (since all peo-
ple suffer it) or concrete (since an as-yet-uncreated benefits
plan is necessarily “ ‘abstract’ ” and not “ ‘real’ ”).1 Spokeo,
Inc. v. Robins, 578 U. S. 330, 340 (2016); see also Allen v.
Wright, 468 U. S. 737, 755–756 (1984) (rejecting a theory
that would “extend [standing] nationwide”). Nor have we
ever accepted that an injury is redressable when the pro-
spect of redress turns on the Government’s wholly discre-
tionary decision to create a new regulatory or benefits pro-
gram.
   Nonetheless, we think the deficiencies of respondents’
claim are clearest with respect to traceability. They cannot
show that their purported injury of not receiving loan relief
under the HEA is fairly traceable to the Department’s (al-
legedly unlawful) decision to grant loan relief under the
HEROES Act.
                                1
   At the outset, we reiterate what respondents’ claim is not.
Respondents are not claiming that they are injured by not
being included in the Plan (or, in Taylor’s case, by being re-
munerated by the Plan less generously than he thinks him-
self entitled to). After all, they think the Plan is substan-
tively unlawful, a merits contention that “we accept as
valid” for purposes of analyzing standing. Federal Election
Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022)
(slip op., at 6). It would be quite strange to think that a
party experiences an Article III injury by not being affected
by an unlawful action (in Brown’s case) or not being more
affected by such action (in Taylor’s).
   Instead, respondents seek relief under a separate statu-
tory source. They name the HEA as that potential source,
but presumably they would be pleased for the Department
——————
  1 In contrast, a claim of unlawful exclusion from an existing benefits

program can be fit for judicial resolution. See, e.g., Trinity Lutheran
Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U. S. 449, 462 (2017).
                     Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)                  11

                         Opinion of the Court

to invoke any other lawful source (if one exists) as grounds
for granting them loan relief. Their interest is in obtaining
loan forgiveness in general.
   The Plan, however, is independent of any student-loan
relief the Department might craft under the HEA (or any
other statute). A decision by this Court that the Plan is
lawful would have no effect on the Department’s ability to
forgive respondents’ loans under the HEA.2 Thus, the Plan
poses no legal obstacle to the Department’s choosing to find
other ways to remedy the harm respondents experience
from not having their loans forgiven.
   Put differently, the Department’s decision to give other
people relief under a different statutory scheme did not
cause respondents not to obtain the benefits they want. The
cause of their supposed injury is far more pedestrian than
that: The Department has simply chosen not to give them
the relief they want. Ordinarily, a party’s recourse to in-
duce an agency to take a desired action is to file not a law-
suit, but a “petition for the issuance, amendment, or repeal
of a rule.” 5 U. S. C. §553(e). The denial of such a petition
“must be justified by a statement of reasons,” which in turn
“can be appealed to the courts” if the litigant has standing
to maintain such a suit. Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452, 459
(1997). Contesting a separate benefits program based on a
theory that it crowds out the desired one, however, is an
approach for which we have been unable to find any prece-
dent.
   It is true that in procedural-standing cases, we tolerate
uncertainty over whether observing certain procedures
would have led to (caused) a different substantive outcome,
as with Lujan’s example of the dam and the bypassed envi-
ronmental impact statement. See 504 U. S., at 572, n. 7. In

——————
   2 We do not opine on the substantive lawfulness of any action the De-

partment might take under the HEA or add anything to our construction
of the HEROES Act as set forth in today’s opinion in Nebraska.
12           DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                          Opinion of the Court

this case, however, the causal uncertainty is not merely
over whether observing certain procedures would have led
to a different substantive outcome. Instead, the uncer-
tainty concerns whether the substantive decisions the De-
partment has made regarding the Plan under the HEROES
Act have a causal relationship with other substantive deci-
sions respondents want the Department to make under the
HEA. There is no precedent for tolerating this sort of causal
uncertainty.
  Our other procedural-standing cases demonstrate the
point. In the example posited in Lujan, proceeding with
building the dam as planned and simultaneously sparing
the adjacent landowner from the negative effects of the dam
are mutually exclusive options. See ibid. While it might be
uncertain whether undertaking an environmental impact
statement would prevent the dam from being built, it is
clear that building the dam would directly injure the land-
owner.
  Similarly, in a case like Summers, it might be uncertain
whether public comment would alter any particular land-
management decision the Forest Service makes. There
would be no uncertainty, however, that a plaintiff with con-
crete plans to observe nature in a particular area “would be
harmed if the [land-management project] went forward
without incorporation of the ideas he would have sug-
gested” in his comments. 555 U. S., at 494.3
  Accordingly, Brown and Taylor need not allege that ob-
serving negotiated rulemaking and notice and comment
would “ ‘force’ ” the Department to reach substantive results
more favorable to them than those embodied in the Plan.
——————
   3 Although no plaintiff in Summers had standing because none had al-

leged specific plans to observe nature in one of the areas at issue in the
case, see 555 U. S., at 500, the point remains that, in an equivalent case
featuring those specific plans, environmental damage to such a plain-
tiff ’s esthetic interests could fairly be traced to the Service’s land-
management choices.
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                      Opinion of the Court

Lemon v. Geren, 514 F. 3d 1312, 1314–1315 (CADC 2008).
But they must still show—pursuant to our customary trace-
ability standards—that the Plan’s substance causes their
injury by impairing loan relief under the HEA.
   Brown and Taylor cannot meet this standard. “It is
purely speculative whether the denia[l]” of HEA loan re-
lief—their ostensible injury—“fairly can be traced to” the
Department’s decision to grant loan relief in the Plan. Si-
mon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Organization, 426 U. S.
26, 42–43 (1976); see also Warth v. Seldin, 422 U. S. 490,
503–504 (1975).
   As noted above, HEROES Act loan relief and HEA loan
relief function independently of each other. If the Depart-
ment may lawfully grant loan relief under both the
HEROES Act and the HEA, it is entitled to choose to do
both, neither, or only one (provided that it sufficiently ex-
plains its reasoning, see 5 U. S. C. §706(2)(A)). There is lit-
tle reason to think that its discretionary decision to pursue
one mechanism of loan relief has anything to do with its
discretionary decision to pursue (or not pursue) another.
“The line of causation between” the Department’s promul-
gation of the Plan and respondents’ lack of benefits under
the HEA “is attenuated at best,” Allen, 468 U. S., at 757,
and all too dependent on “ ‘conjecture,’ ” Summers, 555
U. S., at 496.
                              2
  Respondents’ attempts to tie the Plan to potential HEA
relief are unavailing. They point to a handful of documents
related to the Plan that say that the Department is provid-
ing “one-time” student-loan relief. See, e.g., App. 215, 221,
225. Such statements, Brown and Taylor argue, show that
the decision to grant loan relief under the HEROES Act
foreclosed HEA relief.
  This is insufficient. The Plan itself—the action under re-
view here—contains no reference to “one-time” relief. See
14         DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION v. BROWN

                      Opinion of the Court

87 Fed. Reg. 61512–61514. And to the extent that the De-
partment’s decision to adopt the Plan under the HEROES
Act might have some incidental effect on the likelihood that
the Department will undertake a separate loan-forgiveness
program under a different statute, the relationship is not
sufficiently close to persuade us that the latter is fairly
traceable to the former. See, e.g., Simon, 426 U. S., at 42–
43 (accepting that certain tax rules might “ ‘encourag[e]’ ” or
“ ‘discourage’ ” particular behavior, but nonetheless holding
that connection to be insufficient to establish standing
where it was “just as plausible” that actors would “forgo fa-
vorable tax treatment”). Moreover, no one argues that the
existing references to one-time relief are legally binding. To
whatever extent the Department has determined that the
Plan crowds out other efforts to forgive student loans, that,
too, is a discretionary and independent decision that re-
spondents may ask it to reconsider with a §553(e) petition.
    Finally, Brown and Taylor also argue that they have
demonstrated causation because the Secretary’s failure to
observe the requisite procedural rules cost them a
“ ‘chance’ ” to “obtain debt forgiveness.” Brief for Respond-
ents 28. But referring in the abstract to a “chance” of ob-
taining “debt forgiveness” does not solve their problem.
They do not want debt forgiveness under the HEROES Act,
which they claim is unlawful. They want debt forgiveness
under the HEA. Nothing the Secretary has done deprives
them of a “chance” to seek that result.
    Because respondents cannot meaningfully connect the
absence of loan relief under the HEA to the adoption of the
Plan, they have failed to show that their injury is fairly
traceable to the Plan.
                        *   *     *
  For these reasons, respondents lack standing, and we
therefore vacate the judgment of the District Court and re-
mand the case with instructions to dismiss. By vacating
                 Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)           15

                     Opinion of the Court

the District Court’s judgment, we obviate the need to grant
the interim relief the Department requests in its applica-
tion in No. 22A489. We therefore deny the application as
moot.
                                            It is so ordered.