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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–506

															_________________

															Joseph R. Biden, President of the United
States, et al., PETITIONERS v. Nebraska,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari before judgment to the
united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[June 30, 2023]

															Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of
the Court.

															To ensure that Americans could keep up with
increasing international competition, Congress authorized the first
federal student loans in 1958—up to a total of $1,000 per student
each year. National Defense Education Act of 1958, 72Stat. 1584.
Outstanding federal student loans now total $1.6 trillion extended
to 43 million borrowers. Letter from Congressional Budget Office to
Members of Congress, p. 3 (Sept. 26, 2022) (CBO Letter). Last year,
the Secretary of Education established the first comprehensive
student loan forgiveness program, invoking the Higher Education
Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act) for
authority to do so. The Secretary’s plan canceled roughly $430
billion of federal student loan balances, completely erasing the
debts of 20 million borrowers and lowering the median amount owed
by the other 23 million from $29,400 to $13,600. See ibid. ;
App. 243. Six States sued, arguing that the HEROES Act does not
authorize the loan cancellation plan. We agree.

															I

															A

															The Higher Education Act of 1965 (Education
Act) was enacted to increase educational opportunities and “assist
in making available the benefits of postsecondary education to
eligible students . . . in institutions of higher
education.” 20 U. S. C. §1070(a). To that end, Title IV
of the Act restructured federal financial aid mechanisms and
established three types of federal student loans. Direct Loans are,
as the name suggests, made directly to students and funded by the
federal fisc; they constitute the bulk of the Federal Government’s
student lending efforts. See §1087a et seq. The Government
also administers Perkins Loans— government-subsidized, low-interest
loans made by schools to students with significant financial
need—and Federal Family Education Loans, or FFELs—loans made by
private lenders and guaranteed by the Federal Government. See
§§1071 et seq. , 1087aa et seq. While FFELs and
Perkins Loans are no longer issued, many remain outstanding.
§§1071(d), 1087aa(b).

															The terms of federal loans are set by law, not
the market, so they often come with benefits not offered by private
lenders. Such benefits include deferment of any repayment until
after graduation, loan qualification regardless of credit history,
relatively low fixed interest rates, income-sensitive repayment
plans, and—for undergraduate students with financial
need—government payment of interest while the borrower is in
school. Dept. of Ed., Federal Student Aid, Federal Versus Private
Loans.

															The Education Act specifies in detail the terms
and conditions attached to federal loans, including applicable
interest rates, loan fees, repayment plans, and consequences of
default. See §§1077, 1080, 1087e, 1087dd. It also authorizes the
Secretary to cancel or reduce loans, but only in certain limited
circumstances and to a particular extent. Specifically, the
Secretary can cancel a set amount of loans held by some public
servants—including teachers, members of the Armed Forces, Peace
Corps volunteers, law enforcement and corrections officers,
firefighters, nurses, and librarians—who work in their professions
for a minimum number of years. §§1078–10, 1087j, 1087ee. The
Secretary can also forgive the loans of borrowers who have died or
been “permanently and totally disabled,” such that they cannot
“engage in any substantial gainful activity.” §1087(a)(1). Bankrupt
borrowers may have their loans forgiven. §1087(b). And the
Secretary is directed to discharge loans for borrowers falsely
certified by their schools, borrowers whose schools close down, and
borrowers whose schools fail to pay loan proceeds they owe to
lenders. §1087(c).

															Shortly after the September 11 terrorist
attacks, Congress became concerned that borrowers affected by the
crisis—particularly those who served in the military—would need
additional assistance. As a result, it enacted the Higher Education
Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2001. That law provided
the Secretary of Education, for a limited period of time, with
“specific waiver authority to respond to conditions in the national
emergency” caused by the September 11 attacks. 115Stat. 2386.
Rather than allow this grant of authority to expire by its terms at
the end of September 2003, Congress passed the Higher Education
Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003 (HEROES Act).
117Stat. 904. That Act extended the coverage of the 2001 statute to
include any war or national emergency—not just the September 11
attacks. By its terms, the Secretary “may waive or modify any
statutory or regulatory provision applicable to the student
financial assistance programs under title IV of the [Education Act]
as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with a war or other
military operation or national emergency.” 20 U. S. C.
§1098bb(a)(1).[ 1 ]

															The Secretary may issue waivers or modifications
only “as may be necessary to ensure” that “recipients of student
financial assistance under title IV of the [Education Act] who are
affected individuals are not placed in a worse position financially
in relation to that financial assistance because of their status as
affected individuals.”

															Immediately following the passage of the Act in
2003, the Secretary issued two dozen waivers and modifications
addressing a handful of specific issues. 68 Fed. Reg. 69312–69318.
Among other changes, the Secretary waived the requirement that
“affected individuals” must “return or repay an overpayment” of
certain grant funds erroneously disbursed by the Government, id. , at 69314, and the requirement that public service work
must be uninterrupted to qualify an “affected individual” for loan
cancellation, id. , at 69317. Additional adjustments were
made in 2012, with similar limited effects. 77 Fed. Reg.
59311–59318.

															But the Secretary took more significant action
in response to the COVID–19 pandemic. On March 13, 2020, the
President declared the pandemic a national emergency. Presidential
Proclamation No. 9994, 85 Fed. Reg. 15337–15338 (2020). One week
later, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced that she
was suspending loan repayments and interest accrual for all
federally held student loans. See Dept. of Ed., Breaking News:
Testing Waivers and Student Loan Relief (Mar. 20, 2020). The
following week, Congress enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security Act, which required the Secretary to extend the
suspensions through the end of September 2020. 134Stat. 404–405.
Before that extension expired, the President directed the
Secretary, “[i]n light of the national emergency,” to “effectuate
appropriate waivers of and modifications to” the Education Act to
keep the suspensions in effect through the end of the year. 85 Fed.
Reg. 49585. And a few months later, the Secretary further extended
the suspensions, broadened eligibility for federal financial
assistance, and waived certain administrative requirements (to
allow, for example, virtual rather than on-site accreditation
visits and to extend deadlines for filing reports). Id. , at
79856–79863; 86 Fed. Reg. 5008–5009 (2021).

															Over a year and a half passed with no further
action beyond keeping the repayment and interest suspensions in
place. But in August 2022, a few weeks before President Biden
stated that “the pandemic is over,” the Department of Education
announced that it was once again issuing “waivers and
modifications” under the Act—this time to reduce and eliminate
student debts directly. See App. 257–259; Washington Post, Sept.
20, 2022, p. A3, col. 1. During the first year of the pandemic, the
Department’s Office of General Counsel had issued a memorandum
concluding that “the Secretary does not have statutory authority to
provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge, or
forgiveness of student loan principal balances.” Memorandum from R.
Rubinstein to B. DeVos, p. 8 (Jan. 12, 2021). After a change in
Presidential administrations and shortly before adoption of the
challenged policy, however, the Office of General Counsel “formally
rescinded” its earlier legal memorandum and issued a replacement
reaching the opposite conclusion. 87 Fed. Reg. 52945 (2022). The
new memorandum determined that the HEROES Act “grants the Secretary
authority that could be used to effectuate a program of targeted
loan cancellation directed at addressing the financial harms of the
COVID–19 pandemic.” Id. , at 52944. Upon receiving this new
opinion, the Secretary issued his proposal to cancel student debt
under the HEROES Act. App. 257–259. Two months later, he published
the required notice of his “waivers and modifications” in the
Federal Register. 87 Fed. Reg. 61512–61514.

															The terms of the debt cancellation plan are
straightforward: For borrowers with an adjusted gross income below
$125,000 in either 2020 or 2021 who have eligible federal loans,
the Department of Education will discharge the balance of those
loans in an amount up to $10,000 per borrower.[ 2 ] Id. , at 61514 (“modif[ying] the
provisions of ” 20 U. S. C. §§1087, 1087dd(g); 34
CFR pt. 647, subpt. D (2022); 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212). Borrowers
who previously received Pell Grants qualify for up to $20,000 in
loan cancellation. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514 . Eligible loans
include “Direct Loans, FFEL loans held by the Department or subject
to collection by a guaranty agency, and Perkins Loans held by the
Department.” Ibid. The Department of Education estimates
that about 43 million borrowers qualify for relief, and the
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the plan will cancel
about $430 billion in debt principal. See App. 119; CBO Letter
3.

															B

															Six States moved for a preliminary injunction,
claiming that the plan exceeded the Secretary’s statutory
authority. The District Court held that none of the States had
standing to challenge the plan and dismissed the suit. ___
F. Supp. 3d ___ (ED Mo. 2022). The States appealed, and the
Eighth Circuit issued a nationwide preliminary injunction pending
resolution of the appeal. The court concluded that Missouri likely
had standing through the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority
(MOHELA or Authority), a public corporation that holds and services
student loans. 52 F. 4th 1044 (2022). It further concluded
that the State’s challenge raised “substantial” questions on the
merits and that the equities favored maintaining the status quo
pending further review. Id. , at 1048 (internal quotation
marks omitted).

															With the plan on pause, the Secretary asked this
Court to vacate the injunction or to grant certiorari before
judgment, “to avoid prolonging this uncertainty for the millions of
affected borrowers.” Application 4. We granted the petition and set
the case for expedited argument. 598 U. S. ___ (2022).

															II

															Before addressing the legality of the
Secretary’s program, we must first ensure that the States have
standing to challenge it. Under Article III of the Constitution, a
plaintiff needs a “personal stake” in the case. TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez , 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (slip
op., at 7). That is, the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in
fact—a concrete and imminent harm to a legally protected interest,
like property or money—that is fairly traceable to the challenged
conduct and likely to be redressed by the lawsuit. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S.
555 , 560–561 (1992). If at least one plaintiff has standing,
the suit may proceed. Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and
Institutional Rights, Inc. , 547 U.S.
47 , 52, n. 2 (2006). Because we conclude that the
Secretary’s plan harms MOHELA and thereby directly injures
Missouri—conferring standing on that State—we need not consider the
other theories of standing raised by the States.

															Missouri created MOHELA as a nonprofit
government corporation to participate in the student loan market.
Mo. Rev. Stat. §173.360 (2016). The Authority owns over $1 billion
in FFELs. MOHELA, FY 2022 Financial Statement 9 (Financial
Statement). It also services nearly $150 billion worth of federal
loans, having been hired by the Department of Education to collect
payments and provide customer service to borrowers. Id. , at
4, 8. MOHELA receives an administrative fee for each of the five
million federal accounts it services, totaling $88.9 million in
revenue last year alone. Ibid. Under the Secretary’s plan, roughly half of all
federal borrowers would have their loans completely discharged.
App. 119. MOHELA could no longer service those closed accounts,
costing it, by Missouri’s estimate, $44 million a year in fees that
it otherwise would have earned under its contract with the
Department of Education. Brief for Respondents 16. This financial
harm is an injury in fact directly traceable to the Secretary’s
plan, as both the Government and the dissent concede. See Tr. of
Oral Arg. 18; post , at 5 (Kagan, J., dissenting).

															The plan’s harm to MOHELA is also a harm to
Missouri. MOHELA is a “public instrumentality” of the State. Mo.
Rev. Stat. §173.360. Missouri established the Authority to perform
the “essential public function” of helping Missourians access
student loans needed to pay for college. Ibid. ; see Todd v. Curators of University of Missouri , 347 Mo.
460, 464, 147 S.W.2d 1063, 1064 (1941) (“Our constitution
recognizes higher education as a governmental function.”). To
fulfill this public purpose, the Authority is empowered by the
State to invest in or finance student loans, including by issuing
bonds. §§173.385(1)(6)–(7). It may also service loans and collect
“reasonable fees” for doing so. §§173.385(1)(12), (18). Its profits
help fund education in Missouri: MOHELA has provided $230 million
for development projects at Missouri colleges and universities and
almost $300 million in grants and scholarships for Missouri
students. Financial Statement 10, 20.

															The Authority is subject to the State’s
supervision and control. Its board consists of two state officials
and five members appointed by the Governor and approved by the
Senate. §173.360. The Governor can remove any board member for
cause. Ibid. MOHELA must provide annual financial reports to
the Missouri Department of Education, detailing its income,
expenditures, and assets. §173.445. The Authority is therefore
“directly answerable” to the State. Casualty Reciprocal
Exchange v. Missouri Employers Mut. Ins. Co. , 956 S.W.2d 249 , 254 (Mo. 1997). The State “set[s] the terms of
its existence,” and only the State “can abolish [MOHELA] and set
the terms of its dissolution.” Id. , at 254–255.

															By law and function, MOHELA is an
instrumentality of Missouri: It was created by the State to further
a public purpose, is governed by state officials and state
appointees, reports to the State, and may be dissolved by the
State. The Secretary’s plan will cut MOHELA’s revenues, impairing
its efforts to aid Missouri college students. This acknowledged
harm to MOHELA in the performance of its public function is
necessarily a direct injury to Missouri itself.

															We came to a similar conclusion 70 years ago in Arkansas v. Texas , 346 U.S.
368 (1953). Arkansas sought to invoke our original jurisdiction
in a suit against Texas, claiming that Texas had wrongfully
interfered with a contract between the University of Arkansas and a
Texas charity. Id. , at 369. Texas argued that the suit could
not proceed because the University did “not stand in the shoes of
the State.” Id. , at 370. The harm to the University, as
Texas saw it, was not a harm to Arkansas sufficient for the State
to sue in its own name.

															We disagreed. We recognized that “Arkansas must,
of course, represent an interest of her own and not merely that of
her citizens or corporations.” Ibid. But we concluded that
Arkansas was in fact seeking to protect its own interests
because the University was “an official state instrumentality.” Ibid. The State had labeled the University “an instrument of
the state in the performance of a governmental work.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The University served a public
purpose, acting as the State’s “agen[t] in the educational field.” Id. , at 371. The University had been “created by the
Arkansas legislature,” was “governed by a Board of Trustees
appointed by the Governor with consent of the Senate,” and
“report[ed] all of its expenditures to the legislature.” Id. , at 370. In short, the University was an instrumentality
of the State, and “any injury under the contract to the University
[was] an injury to Arkansas.” Ibid. So too here. Because the
Authority is part of Missouri, the State does not seek to “rely on
injuries suffered by others.” Post , at 2 (opinion of Kagan,
J.). It aims to remedy its own.

															The Secretary and the dissent assert that
MOHELA’s injuries should not count as Missouri’s because MOHELA, as
a public corporation, has a legal personality separate from the
State. Every government corporation has such a distinct
personality; it is a corporation, after all, “with the powers to
hold and sell property and to sue and be sued.” First Nat. City
Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba , 462 U.S.
611 , 624 (1983). Yet such an instrumentality—created and
operated to fulfill a public function—nonetheless remains “(for
many purposes at least) part of the Government itself.” Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation , 513 U.S.
374 , 397 (1995).

															In Lebron , Amtrak was sued for refusing
to display a political advertisement on a billboard at one of its
stations. Id. , at 376–377. Amtrak argued that it was not
subject to the First Amendment because it was a corporation
separate from the Federal Government . See id. , at
392. Congress had even specified in its authorizing statute that
Amtrak was not “an agency or establishment of the United States
Government.” Id. , at 391 (quoting 84Stat. 1330). Despite
this disclaimer, we held that Amtrak remained subject to the First
Amendment because it functioned as an instrumentality of the
Federal Government, “created by a special statute, explicitly for
the furtherance of federal governmental goals” of ensuring that the
American public had access to passenger trains. Lebron , 513
U. S., at 397. Its board was appointed by the President, and
it had to submit annual reports to the President and Congress. Id. , at 385–386. Having been “established and organized
under federal law for the very purpose of pursuing federal
governmental objectives, under the direction and control of federal
governmental appointees,” Amtrak could not disclaim that it was
“part of the Government.” Id. , at 398, 400.

															We reiterated the point in Department of
Transportation v. Association of American Railroads , 575
U.S. 43 (2015). There, railroads argued that giving Amtrak
regulatory power was an unconstitutional delegation of government
authority to a private entity. Id. , at 49–50. We rejected
that contention, noting that “Amtrak was created by the Government,
is controlled by the Government, and operates for the Government’s
benefit.” Id. , at 53. It was therefore acting “as a
governmental entity” in exercising that regulatory power. Id. , at 54.

															That principle holds true here. The Secretary
and the dissent contend that because MOHELA can sue on its own
behalf, it—not Missouri—must be the one to sue. But in Arkansas , 346 U.S.
368 , the University of Arkansas could have asserted its rights
under the contract on its own. The University’s governing statute
made it “a body politic and corporate,” with “all the powers of a
corporate body,” Ark. Stat. §80–2804 (1887)—including the power to
sue and be sued on its own behalf, see HRR Arkansas, Inc. v. River City Contractors, Inc. , 350 Ark. 420, 427, 87 S.W.3d
232, 237 (2002); see, e.g. , Board of Trustees, Univ. of
Ark. v. Pulaski County , 229 Ark. 370, 315 S.W.2d 879 (1958). We permitted Arkansas to bring an
original suit all the same. Where a State has been harmed in
carrying out its responsibilities, the fact that it chose to
exercise its authority through a public corporation it created and
controls does not bar the State from suing to remedy that harm
itself.[ 3 ]

															The Secretary’s plan harms MOHELA in the
performance of its public function and so directly harms the State
that created and controls MOHELA. Missouri thus has suffered an
injury in fact sufficient to give it standing to challenge the
Secretary’s plan. With Article III satisfied, we turn to the
merits.

															III

															The Secretary asserts that the HEROES Act
grants him the authority to cancel $430 billion of student loan
principal. It does not. We hold today that the Act allows the
Secretary to “waive or modify” existing statutory or regulatory
provisions applicable to financial assistance programs under the
Education Act, not to rewrite that statute from the ground up.

															A

															The HEROES Act authorizes the Secretary to
“waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision applicable
to the student financial assistance programs under title IV of the
[Education Act] as the Secretary deems necessary in connection with
a war or other military operation or national emergency.” 20
U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(1). That power has limits. To begin
with, statutory permission to “modify” does not authorize “basic
and fundamental changes in the scheme” designed by Congress. MCI
Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone &
Telegraph Co. , 512 U.S.
218 , 225 (1994). Instead, that term carries “a connotation of
increment or limitation,” and must be read to mean “to change
moderately or in minor fashion.” Ibid. That is how the word
is ordinarily used. See, e.g. , Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary 1952 (2002) (defining “modify” as “to make
more temperate and less extreme,” “to limit or restrict the meaning
of,” or “to make minor changes in the form or structure of [or]
alter without transforming”). The legal definition is no different.
Black’s Law Dictionary 1203 (11th ed. 2019) (giving the first
definition of “modify” as “[t]o make somewhat different; to make
small changes to,” and the second as “[t]o make more moderate or
less sweeping”). The authority to “modify” statutes and regulations
allows the Secretary to make modest adjustments and additions to
existing provisions, not transform them.

															The Secretary’s previous invocations of the
HEROES Act illustrate this point. Prior to the COVID–19 pandemic,
“modifications” issued under the Act implemented only minor
changes, most of which were procedural. Examples include reducing
the number of tax forms borrowers are required to file, extending
time periods in which borrowers must take certain actions, and
allowing oral rather than written authorizations. See 68 Fed. Reg.
69314–69316.

															Here, the Secretary purported to “modif[y] the
provisions of ” two statutory sections and three related
regulations governing student loans. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. The
affected statutory provisions granted the Secretary the power to
“discharge [a] borrower’s liability,” or pay the remaining
principal on a loan, under certain narrowly prescribed
circumstances. 20 U. S. C. §§1087, 1087dd(g)(1). Those
circumstances were limited to a borrower’s death, disability, or
bankruptcy; a school’s false certification of a borrower or failure
to refund loan proceeds as required by law; and a borrower’s
inability to complete an educational program due to closure of the
school. See §§1087(a)–(d), 1087dd(g). The corresponding regulatory
provisions detailed rules and procedures for such discharges. They
also defined the terms of the Government’s public service loan
forgiveness program and provided for discharges when schools commit
malfeasance. See 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212; 34 CFR pt. 674, subpt.
D.

															The Secretary’s new “modifications” of these
provisions were not “moderate” or “minor.” Instead, they created a
novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness program. The new
program vests authority in the Department of Education to discharge
up to $10,000 for every borrower with income below $125,000 and up
to $20,000 for every such borrower who has received a Pell Grant.
87 Fed. Reg. 61514. No prior limitation on loan forgiveness is left
standing. Instead, every borrower within the specified income cap
automatically qualifies for debt cancellation, no matter their
circumstances. The Department of Education estimates that the
program will cover 98.5% of all borrowers. See Dept. of Ed., White
House Fact Sheet: The Biden Administration’s Plan for Student Debt
Relief Could Benefit Tens of Millions of Borrowers in All Fifty
States (Sept. 20, 2022). From a few narrowly delineated situations
specified by Congress, the Secretary has expanded forgiveness to
nearly every borrower in the country.

															The Secretary’s plan has “modified” the cited
provisions only in the same sense that “the French Revolution
‘modified’ the status of the French nobility”—it has abolished them
and supplanted them with a new regime entirely. MCI , 512
U. S., at 228. Congress opted to make debt forgiveness
available only in a few particular exigent circumstances; the power
to modify does not permit the Secretary to “convert that approach
into its opposite” by creating a new program affecting 43 million
Americans and $430 billion in federal debt. Descamps v. United States , 570 U.S.
254 , 274 (2013). Labeling the Secretary’s plan a mere
“modification” does not lessen its effect, which is in essence to
allow the Secretary unfettered discretion to cancel student loans.
It is “highly unlikely that Congress” authorized such a sweeping
loan cancellation program “through such a subtle device as
permission to ‘modify.’ ” MCI , 512 U. S., at
231.

															The Secretary responds that the Act authorizes
him to “waive” legal provisions as well as modify them—and that
this additional term “grant[s] broader authority” than would
“modify” alone. But the Secretary’s invocation of the waiver power
here does not remotely resemble how it has been used on prior
occasions. Previously, waiver under the HEROES Act was
straightforward: the Secretary identified a particular legal
requirement and waived it, making compliance no longer necessary.
For instance, on one occasion the Secretary waived the requirement
that a student provide a written request for a leave of absence.
See 77 Fed. Reg. 59314. On another, he waived the regulatory
provisions requiring schools and guaranty agencies to attempt
collection of defaulted loans for the time period in which students
were affected individuals. See 68 Fed. Reg. 69316.

															Here, the Secretary does not identify any
provision that he is actually waiving.[ 4 ] No specific provision of the Education Act establishes
an obligation on the part of student borrowers to pay back the
Government. So as the Government concedes, “waiver”—as used in the
HEROES Act—cannot refer to “waiv[ing] loan balances” or “waiving
the obligation to repay” on the part of a borrower. Tr. of Oral
Arg. 9, 64. Contrast 20 U. S. C. §1091b(b)(2)(D)
(allowing the Secretary to “waive the amounts that students are
required to return” in specified circumstances of overpayment by
the Government). Because the Secretary cannot waive a particular
provision or provisions to achieve the desired result, he is forced
to take a more circuitous approach, one that avoids any need to
show compliance with the statutory limitation on his authority. He
simply “waiv[es] the elements of the discharge and cancellation
provisions that are inapplicable in this [debt cancellation]
program that would limit eligibility to other contexts.” Tr. of
Oral Arg. 64–65.

															Yet even that expansive conception of waiver
cannot justify the Secretary’s plan, which does far more than relax
existing legal requirements. The plan specifies particular sums to
be forgiven and income-based eligibility requirements. The addition
of these new and substantially different provisions cannot be said
to be a “waiver” of the old in any meaningful sense. Recognizing
this, the Secretary acknowledges that waiver alone is not enough;
after waiving whatever “inapplicable” law would bar his debt
cancellation plan, he says, he then “modif[ied] the provisions to
bring [them] in line with this program.” Id. , at 65. So in
the end, the Secretary’s plan relies on modifications all the way
down. And as we have explained, the word “modify” simply cannot
bear that load.

															The Secretary and the dissent go on to argue
that the power to “waive or modify” is greater than the sum of its
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 Secretary’s program cannot be justified by such
sleight of hand. The Secretary has not truly waived or modified the
provisions 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 operate 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
regulatory provisions” as the Secretary has waived or modified. 20
U. S. C. §1098bb(b)(2) (emphasis added). In the
Secretary’s view, that language authorizes “both deleting and then
adding back in, waiving and then putting his own requirements 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 provision is no more than it appears to be: a humdrum
reporting requirement. Rather than implicitly granting the
Secretary authority to draft new substantive statutory provisions
at will, it simply imposes the obligation to report any waivers and
modifications he has made. Section 1098bb(b)(2) suggests that
“waivers and modifications” includes additions. The dissent
accordingly reads the statute as authorizing any degree of change
or any new addition, “from modest to substantial”—and nothing in
the dissent’s analysis suggests stopping at “substantial.” Post , at 20. Because the Secretary “does not have to leave
gaping holes” when he waives provisions, the argument runs, it
follows that any replacement terms the Secretary uses to
fill those holes must be lawful. Ibid. But the Secretary’s
ability to add new terms “in lieu of ” the old is limited to
his authority to “modify” existing law. As with any other
modification issued under the Act, no new term or condition
reported pursuant to §1098bb(b)(2) may distort the fundamental
nature of the provision it alters.[ 5 ]

															The Secretary’s comprehensive debt cancellation
plan cannot fairly be called a waiver—it not only nullifies
existing provisions, but augments and expands them dramatically. It
cannot be mere modification, because it constitutes “effectively
the introduction of a whole new regime.” MCI , 512
U. S., at 234. And it cannot be some combination of the two,
because when the Secretary seeks to add to existing law, the
fact that he has “waived” certain provisions does not give him a
free pass to avoid the limits inherent in the power to “modify.”
However broad the meaning of “waive or modify,” that language
cannot authorize the kind of exhaustive rewriting of the statute
that has taken place here.[ 6 ]

															B

															In a final bid to elide the statutory text,
the Secretary appeals to congressional purpose. “The whole point
of ” the HEROES Act, the Government contends, “is to ensure
that in the face of a national emergency that is causing financial
harm to borrowers, the Secretary can do something.” Tr. of Oral
Arg. 55. And that “something” was left deliberately vague because
Congress intended “to grant substantial discretion to the Secretary
to respond to unforeseen emergencies.” Reply Brief 22, n. 3.
So the unprecedented nature of the Secretary’s debt cancellation
plan only “reflects the pandemic’s unparalleled scope.” Brief for
Petitioners 52 (Brief for United States).

															The dissent agrees. “Emergencies, after all, are
emergencies,” it reasons, and “more serious measures” must be
expected “in response to more serious problems.” Post , at
25, 28. The dissent’s interpretation of the HEROES Act would grant
unlimited power to the Secretary, not only to modify or waive
certain provisions but to “fill the holes that action creates with
new terms”—no matter how drastic those terms might be—and to “alter
[provisions] to the extent [he] think[s] appropriate,” up to and
including “the most substantial kind of change” imaginable. Post, at 16, 19–20. That is inconsistent with the statutory
language and past practice under the statute.

															The question here is not whether something
should be done; it is who has the authority to do it. Our recent
decision in West Virginia v. EPA involved similar
concerns over the exercise of administrative power. 597 U. S.
___ (2022). That case involved the EPA’s claim that the Clean Air
Act authorized it to impose a nationwide cap on carbon dioxide
emissions. Given “the ‘history and the breadth of the authority
that [the agency] ha[d] asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political
significance’ of that assertion,” we found that there was
“ ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant
to confer such authority.” Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 17)
(quoting FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. , 529 U.S.
120 , 159–160 (2000); first alteration in original).

															So too here, where the Secretary of Education
claims the authority, on his own, to release 43 million borrowers
from their obligations to repay $430 billion in student loans. The
Secretary has never previously claimed powers of this magnitude
under the HEROES Act. As we have already noted, past waivers and
modifications issued under the Act have been extremely modest and
narrow in scope. The Act has been used only once before to waive or
modify a provision related to debt cancellation: In 2003, the
Secretary waived the requirement that borrowers seeking loan
forgiveness under the Education Act’s public service discharge
provisions “perform uninterrupted, otherwise qualifying service for
a specified length of time (for example, one year) or for
consecutive periods of time, such as 5 consecutive years.” 68 Fed.
Reg. 69317. That waiver simply eased the requirement that service
be uninterrupted to qualify for the public service loan forgiveness
program. In sum, “[n]o regulation premised on” the HEROES Act “has
even begun to approach the size or scope” of the Secretary’s
program. Alabama Assn. , 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
7).[ 7 ]

															Under the Government’s reading of the HEROES
Act, the Secretary would enjoy virtually unlimited power to rewrite
the Education Act. This would “effec[t] a ‘fundamental revision of
the statute, changing it from [one sort of] scheme of
. . . regulation’ into an entirely different kind,” West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 24)
(quoting MCI , 512 U. S., at 231)—one in which the
Secretary may unilaterally define every aspect of federal student
financial aid, provided he determines that recipients have
“suffered direct economic hardship as a direct result of a
. . . national emergency.” 20 U. S. C.
§1098ee(2)(D).

															The “ ‘economic and political
significance’ ” of the Secretary’s action is staggering by any
measure. West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
17) (quoting Brown & Williamson , 529 U. S., at
160). Practically every student borrower benefits, regardless of
circumstances. A budget model issued by the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania estimates that the program will cost
taxpayers “between $469 billion and $519 billion,” depending on the
total number of borrowers ultimately covered. App. 108. That is ten
times the “economic impact” that we found significant in concluding
that an eviction moratorium implemented by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention triggered analysis under the major questions
doctrine. Alabama Assn. , 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 6). It amounts to nearly one-third of the Government’s $1.7
trillion in annual discretionary spending. Congressional Budget
Office, The Federal Budget in Fiscal Year 2022. There is no serious
dispute that the Secretary claims the authority to exercise control
over “a significant portion of the American economy.” Utility
Air Regulatory Group v. EPA , 573
U.S. 302 , 324 (2014) (quoting Brown & Williamson ,
529 U. S., at 159).

															The dissent is correct that this is a case about
one branch of government arrogating to itself power belonging to
another. But it is the Executive seizing the power of the
Legislature. The Secretary’s assertion of administrative authority
has “conveniently enabled [him] to enact a program” that Congress
has chosen not to enact itself. West Virginia , 597
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 27). Congress is not unaware of
the challenges facing student borrowers. “More than 80 student loan
forgiveness bills and other student loan legislation” were
considered by Congress during its 116th session alone. M.
Kantrowitz, Year in Review: Student Loan Forgiveness Legislation,
Forbes, Dec. 24, 2020.[ 8 ] And
the discussion is not confined to the halls of Congress. Student
loan cancellation “raises questions that are personal and
emotionally charged, hitting fundamental issues about the structure
of the economy.” J. Stein, Biden Student Debt Plan Fuels Broader
Debate Over Forgiving Borrowers, Washington Post, Aug. 31,
2022.

															The sharp debates generated by the Secretary’s
extraordinary program stand in stark contrast to the unanimity with
which Congress passed the HEROES Act. The dissent asks us to
“[i]magine asking the enacting Congress: Can the Secretary use his
powers to give borrowers more relief when an emergency has
inflicted greater harm?” Post , at 27–28. The dissent “can’t
believe” the answer would be no. Post , at 28. But imagine
instead asking the enacting Congress a more pertinent question:
“Can the Secretary use his powers to abolish $430 billion in
student loans, completely canceling loan balances for 20 million
borrowers, as a pandemic winds down to its end?” We can’t believe
the answer would be yes. Congress did not unanimously pass the
HEROES Act with such power in mind. “A decision of such magnitude
and consequence” on a matter of “ ‘earnest and profound debate
across the country’ ” must “res[t] with Congress itself, or an
agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that
representative body.” West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___,
___ (slip op., at 28, 31) (quoting Gonzales v. Oregon , 546 U.S.
243 , 267–268 (2006)). As then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
explained:

															“People think that the President of the
United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He
can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That
has to be an act of Congress.” Press Conference, Office of the
Speaker of the House (July 28, 2021).

															Aside from reiterating its interpretation of the
statute, the dissent offers little to rebut our conclusion that
“indicators from our previous major questions cases are present”
here. Post , at 15 (Barrett, J., concurring). The dissent
insists that “[s]tudent loans are in the Secretary’s wheelhouse.” Post , at 26 (opinion of Kagan, J.). But in light of the
sweeping and unprecedented impact of the Secretary’s loan
forgiveness program, it would seem more accurate to describe the
program as being in the “wheelhouse” of the House and Senate
Committees on Appropriations. Rather than dispute the extent of
that impact, the dissent chooses to mount a frontal assault on what
it styles “the Court’s made-up major questions doctrine.” Post , at 29–30. But its attempt to relitigate West
Virginia is misplaced. As we explained in that case, while the
major questions “label” may be relatively recent, it refers to “an
identifiable body of law that has developed over a series of
significant cases” spanning decades. West Virginia , 597
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20). At any rate, “the issue now
is not whether [ West Virginia ] is correct. The question is
whether that case is distinguishable from this one. And it is not.” Collins v. Yellen , 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021)
(Kagan, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (slip
op., at 2).

															The Secretary, for his part, acknowledges that West Virginia is the law. Brief for United States 47–48. But
he objects that its principles apply only in cases concerning
“agency action[s] involv[ing] the power to regulate, not the
provision of government benefits.” Reply Brief 21. In the
Government’s view, “there are fewer reasons to be concerned” in
cases involving benefits, which do not impose “profound burdens” on
individual rights or cause “regulatory effects that might prompt a
note of caution in other contexts involving exercises of emergency
powers.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 61.

															This Court has never drawn the line the
Secretary suggests—and for good reason. Among Congress’s most
important authorities is its control of the purse. U. S.
Const., Art. I, §9, cl. 7; see also Office of Personnel
Management v. Richmond , 496 U.S.
414 , 427 (1990) (the Appropriations Clause is “a most useful
and salutary check upon profusion and extravagance” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). It would be odd to think that separation
of powers concerns evaporate simply because the Government is
providing monetary benefits rather than imposing obligations. As we
observed in West Virginia , experience shows that major
questions cases “have arisen from all corners of the administrative
state,” and administrative action resulting in the conferral of
benefits is no exception to that rule. 597 U. S., at ___ (slip
op., at 17). In King v. Burwell , 576 U.S. 473 (2015),
we declined to defer to the Internal Revenue Service’s
interpretation of a healthcare statute, explaining that the
provision at issue affected “billions of dollars of spending each
year and . . . the price of health insurance for millions
of people.” Id. , at 485. Because the interpretation of the
provision was “a question of deep ‘economic and political
significance’ that is central to [the] statutory scheme,” we said,
we would not assume that Congress entrusted that task to an agency
without a clear statement to that effect. Ibid. (quoting Utility Air , 573 U. S., at 324). That the statute at
issue involved government benefits made no difference in King , and it makes no difference here.

															All this leads us to conclude that “[t]he basic
and consequential tradeoffs” inherent in a mass debt cancellation
program “are ones that Congress would likely have intended for
itself.” West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
26). In such circumstances, we have required the Secretary to
“point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ ” to justify the
challenged program. Id. , at ___, ___ (slip op., at 19, 28)
(quoting Utility Air , 573 U. S., at 324). And as we
have already shown, the HEROES Act provides no authorization for
the Secretary’s plan even when examined using the ordinary tools of
statutory interpretation—let alone “clear congressional
authorization” for such a program.[ 9 ]

															*  *  *

															It has become a disturbing feature of some
recent opinions to criticize the decisions with which they disagree
as going beyond the proper role of the judiciary. Today, we have
concluded that an instrumentality created by Missouri, governed by
Missouri, and answerable to Missouri is indeed part of Missouri;
that the words “waive or modify” do not mean “completely rewrite”;
and that our precedent—old and new—requires that Congress speak
clearly before a Department Secretary can unilaterally alter large
sections of the American economy. We have employed the traditional
tools of judicial decisionmaking in doing so. Reasonable minds may
disagree with our analysis—in fact, at least three do. See post , p. ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting). We do not mistake this
plainly heartfelt disagreement for disparagement. It is important
that the public not be misled either. Any such misperception would
be harmful to this institution and our country.

															The judgment of the District Court for the
Eastern District of Missouri is reversed, and the case is remanded
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The
Government’s application to vacate the Eighth Circuit’s injunction
is denied as moot.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 Like its 2001
predecessor, the HEROES Act enjoyed virtually unanimous bipartisan
support at the time of its enactment, passing by a 421-to-1 vote in
the House of Representatives and a unanimous voice vote in the
Senate. See 149 Cong. Rec. 7952–7953 (2003); id. , at 20809;
147 Cong. Rec. 20396 (2001); id. , at 26292–26293. The single
dissenting Representative later voiced his support for the Act,
explaining that he “meant to vote ‘yea.’ ” 149 Cong. Rec. 8559
(statement of Rep. Miller). 2 A borrower filing
“jointly or as a Head of Household, or as a qualifying widow(er),”
qualifies for loan cancellation with an adjusted gross income lower
than $250,000. 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. 3 The dissent, for all its
attempts to cabin these precedents, cites no precedents of its own
addressing a State’s standing to sue for a harm to its
instrumentality. The dissent offers only a state court case
involving a different public corporation, in which the Missouri
Supreme Court said that the corporation was separate from the State
for the purposes of a state ban on “the lending of the credit of
the state.” Menorah Medical Center v. Health and Ed.
Facilities Auth. , 584 S.W.2d 73 , 78 (1979) (plurality opinion). But as the
dissent recognizes, a public corporation can count as part of the
State for some but not “other purposes.” Post , at 11, and n.
1. The Missouri Supreme Court said nothing about, and had no reason
to address, whether an injury to that public corporation was a harm
to the State. 4 While the Secretary’s
notice published in the Federal Register refers to “waivers and
modifications” generally, see 87 Fed. Reg. 61512–61514, and while
two sentences use the somewhat ambiguous phrase “[t]his waiver,” id. , at 61514, the notice identifies no specific legal
provision as having been “waived” by the Secretary. 5 The dissent asserts that
our decision today will control any challenge to the Secretary’s
temporary suspensions of loan repayments and interest accrual. Post , at 21–22. We decide only the case before us. A
challenge to the suspensions may involve different considerations
with respect to both standing and the merits. 6 The States further
contend that the Secretary’s program violates the requirement in
the HEROES Act that any waivers or modifications be “necessary to
ensure that . . . affected individuals are not placed in
a worse position financially in relation to” federal financial
assistance. 20 U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(2)(A); see Brief for
Respondents 39–44. While our decision does not rest upon that
reasoning, we note that the Secretary faces a daunting task in
showing that cancellation of debt principal is “necessary to
ensure” that borrowers are not placed in “worse position[s]
financially in relation to” their loans, especially given the
Government’s prior determination that pausing interest accrual and
loan repayments would achieve that end. 7 The Secretary also cites
a prior invocation of the HEROES Act waiving the requirement that
borrowers must repay prior overpayments of certain grant funds. See
Brief for United States 41; 68 Fed. Reg. 69314. But Congress had
already limited borrower liability in such cases to exclude
overpayments in amounts up to “50 percent of the total grant
assistance received by the student” for the period at issue, so the
Secretary’s waiver had only a modest effect. 20 U. S. C.
§1091b(b)(2)(C)(i)(II). And that waiver simply held the Government
responsible for its own errors when it had mistakenly
disbursed undeserved grant funds. 8 Resolutions were also
introduced in 2020 and 2021 “[c]alling on the President
. . . to take executive action to broadly cancel Federal
student loan debt.” See S. Res. 711, 116th Cong., 2d Sess. (2020);
S. Res. 46, 117th Cong., 1st Sess. (2021). Those resolutions failed
to reach a vote. 9 The dissent complains
that our application of the major questions doctrine is a “tell”
revealing that “ ‘normal’ statutory interpretation cannot
sustain [our] decision.” Post , at 23, 30. Not so. As we have
explained, the statutory text alone precludes the Secretary’s
program. Today’s opinion simply reflects this Court’s familiar
practice of providing multiple grounds to support its conclusions.
See, e.g. , Kucana v. Holder , 558 U.S.
233 , 243–252 (2010) (interpreting the text of a federal
immigration statute in the first instance, then citing the
“presumption favoring judicial review of administrative action” as
an additional sufficient basis for the Court’s decision). The fact
that multiple grounds support a result is usually regarded as a
strength, not a weakness. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–506

															_________________

															Joseph R. Biden, President of the United
States, et al., PETITIONERS v. Nebraska,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari before judgment to the
united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[June 30, 2023]

															Justice Barrett, concurring.

															I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write
separately to address the States’ argument that, under the “major
questions doctrine,” we can uphold the Secretary of Education’s
loan cancellation program only if he points to “ ‘clear
congressional authorization’ ” for it. West Virginia v. EPA , 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 19). In
this case, the Court applies the ordinary tools of statutory
interpretation to conclude that the HEROES Act does not authorize
the Secretary’s plan. Ante , at 12–18. The major questions
doctrine reinforces that conclusion but is not necessary to it. Ante , at 25.

															Still, the parties have devoted significant
attention to the major questions doctrine, and there is an ongoing
debate about its source and status. I take seriously the charge
that the doctrine is inconsistent with textualism. West
Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (Kagan, J., dissenting) (slip
op., at 28) (“When [textualism] would frustrate broader goals,
special canons like the ‘major questions doctrine’ magically appear
as get-out-of-text-free cards”). And I grant that some
articulations of the major questions doctrine on offer—most
notably, that the doctrine is a substantive canon—should give a
textualist pause.

															Yet for the reasons that follow, I do not see
the major questions doctrine that way. Rather, I understand it to
emphasize the importance of context when a court interprets
a delegation to an administrative agency. Seen in this light, the
major questions doctrine is a tool for discerning—not departing
from—the text’s most natural interpretation.

															I

															A

															Substantive canons are rules of construction
that advance values external to a statute.[ 1 ] A. Barrett, Substantive Canons and Faithful Agency,
90 B. U. L. Rev. 109, 117 (2010) (Barrett). Some
substantive canons, like the rule of lenity, play the modest role
of breaking a tie between equally plausible interpretations of a
statute. United States v. Santos , 553 U.S.
507 , 514 (2008) (plurality opinion). Others are more
aggressive—think of them as strong-form substantive canons. Unlike
a tie-breaking rule, a strong-form canon counsels a court to strain statutory text to advance a particular value. Barrett
168. There are many such canons on the books, including
constitutional avoidance, the clear-statement federalism rules, and
the presumption against retroactivity. Id. , at 138–145,
172–173. Such rules effectively impose a “clarity tax” on Congress
by demanding that it speak unequivocally if it wants to accomplish
certain ends. J. Manning, Clear Statement Rules and the
Constitution, 110 Colum. L. Rev. 399, 403 (2010). This “clear
statement” requirement means that the better interpretation of a
statute will not necessarily prevail. E.g. , Boechler v. Commissioner , 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op.,
at 6) (“[I]n this context, better is not enough”). Instead, if the
better reading leads to a disfavored result (like provoking a
serious constitutional question), the court will adopt an
inferior-but-tenable reading to avoid it. So to achieve an end
protected by a strong-form canon, Congress must close all plausible
off ramps.

															While many strong-form canons have a long
historical pedigree, they are “in significant tension with
textualism” insofar as they instruct a court to adopt something
other than the statute’s most natural meaning. Barrett 123–124. The
usual textualist enterprise involves “hear[ing] the words as they
would sound in the mind of a skilled, objectively reasonable user
of words.” F. Easterbrook, The Role of Original Intent in Statutory
Construction, 11 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol’y 59, 65 (1988).
But a strong-form canon “load[s] the dice for or against a
particular result” in order to serve a value that the judiciary has
chosen to specially protect. A. Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation
27 (1997) (Scalia); see also Barrett 124, 168–169. Even if the
judiciary’s adoption of such canons can be reconciled with the
Constitution,[ 2 ] it is
undeniable that they pose “a lot of trouble” for “the honest
textualist.” Scalia 28.

															B

															Some have characterized the major questions
doctrine as a strong-form substantive canon designed to enforce
Article I’s Vesting Clause. See, e.g. , C. Sunstein, There
Are Two “Major Questions” Doctrines, 73 Admin. L. Rev. 475,
483–484 (2021) (asserting that recent cases apply the major
questions doctrine as “a nondelegation canon”); L. Heinzerling, The
Power Canons, 58 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1933, 1946–1948 (2017)
(describing the major questions doctrine as a “normative” canon
that “is both a presumption against certain kinds of agency
interpretations and an instruction to Congress”). On this view, the
Court overprotects the nondelegation principle by increasing the
cost of delegating authority to agencies—namely, by requiring
Congress to speak unequivocally in order to grant them significant
rule- making power. See Barrett 172–176; see also post , at
27 (Kagan, J., dissenting) (describing the major questions
doctrine as a “heightened-specificity requirement”); Georgia v. President of the United States , 46 F. 4th 1283, 1314
(CA11 2022) (Anderson, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part) (“[T]he major questions doctrine is essentially a
clear-statement rule”). This “clarity tax” might prevent Congress
from getting too close to the nondelegation line, especially since
the “intelligible principle” test largely leaves Congress to
self-police. (So the doctrine would function like constitutional
avoidance.) In addition or instead, the doctrine might reflect the
judgment that it is so important for Congress to exercise “[a]ll
legislative Powers,” Art. I, §1, that it should be forced to think
twice before delegating substantial discretion to agencies—even if
the delegation is well within Congress’s power to make. (So the
doctrine would function like the rule that Congress must speak
clearly to abrogate state sovereign immunity.) No matter which
rationale justifies it, this “clear statement” version of the major
questions doctrine “loads the dice” so that a plausible
antidelegation interpretation wins even if the agency’s
interpretation is better.

															While one could walk away from our major
questions cases with this impression, I do not read them this way.
No doubt, many of our cases express an expectation of “clear
congressional authorization” to support sweeping agency action.
See, e.g. , West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 19); Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA , 573 U.S.
302 , 324 (2014); see also Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs. , 594 U. S. ___,
___ (2021) ( per curiam ) (slip op., at 6). But none
requires “an ‘unequivocal declaration’ ” from Congress
authorizing the precise agency action under review, as our
clear-statement cases do in their respective domains. See Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for P. R. v. Centro De Periodismo Investigativo, Inc. , 598 U. S.
___, ___ (2023) (slip op., at 6). And none purports to depart from
the best interpretation of the text—the hallmark of a true
clear-statement rule.

															So what work is the major questions doctrine
doing in these cases? I will give you the long answer, but here is
the short one: The doctrine serves as an interpretive tool
reflecting “common sense as to the manner in which Congress is
likely to delegate a policy decision of such economic and political
magnitude to an administrative agency.” FDA v. Brown
& Williamson Tobacco Corp. , 529 U.S.
120 , 133 (2000).

															II

															The major questions doctrine situates text in
context, which is how textualists, like all interpreters, approach
the task at hand. C. Nelson, What Is Textualism? 91 Va.
L. Rev. 347, 348 (2005) (“[N]o ‘textualist’ favors isolating
statutory language from its surrounding context”); Scalia 37 (“In
textual interpretation, context is everything”). After all, the
meaning of a word depends on the circumstances in which it is used.
J. Manning, The Absurdity Doctrine, 116 Harv. L. Rev. 2387,
2457 (2003) (Manning). To strip a word from its context is to strip
that word of its meaning.

															Context is not found exclusively “ ‘within
the four corners’ of a statute.” Id. , at 2456. Background
legal conventions, for instance, are part of the statute’s context.
F. Easterbrook, The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Revisited,
112 Harv. L. Rev. 1876, 1913 (1999) (“Language takes meaning
from its linguistic context,” as well as “historical and
governmental contexts”). Thus, courts apply a presumption of mens rea to criminal statutes, Xiulu Ruan v. United States , 597 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at
5), and a presumption of equitable tolling to statutes of
limitations, Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs , 498 U.S.
89 , 95–96 (1990). It is also well established that “[w]here
Congress employs a term of art obviously transplanted from another
legal source, it brings the old soil with it.” George v. McDonough , 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (slip op., at 5)
(internal quotation marks omitted). I could go on. See, e.g. , Lexmark Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control
Components, Inc. , 572 U.S.
118 , 132 (2014) (federal causes of action are construed “to
incorporate a requirement of proximate causation”); Wisconsin
Dept. of Revenue v. William Wrigley, Jr., Co. , 505 U.S.
214 , 231 (1992) (“ de minimis non curat lex ”). As it
happens, “[t]he notion that some things ‘go without saying’ applies
to legislation just as it does to everyday life.” Bond v. United States , 572 U.S.
844 , 857 (2014).

															Context also includes common sense, which is
another thing that “goes without saying.” Case reporters and
casebooks brim with illustrations of why literalism—the antithesis
of context-driven interpretation—falls short. Consider the classic
example of a statute imposing criminal penalties on “ ‘whoever
drew blood in the streets.’ ” United States v. Kirby , 7 Wall. 482, 487 (1869). Read literally, the statute
would cover a surgeon accessing a vein of a person in the street.
But “common sense” counsels otherwise, ibid. , because in the
context of the criminal code, a reasonable observer would “expect
the term ‘drew blood’ to describe a violent act,” Manning 2461.
Common sense similarly bears on judgments like whether a floating
home is a “vessel,” Lozman v. Riviera Beach , 568 U.S.
115 , 120–121 (2013), whether tomatoes are “vegetables,” Nix v. Hedden , 149 U.S.
304 , 306–307 (1893), and whether a skin irritant is a “chemical
weapon,” Bond , 572 U. S., at 860–862.

															Why is any of this relevant to the major
questions doctrine? Because context is also relevant to
interpreting the scope of a delegation. Think about agency law,
which is all about delegations. When an agent acts on behalf of a
principal, she “has actual authority to take action designated or
implied in the principal’s manifestations to the agent
. . . as the agent reasonably understands [those]
manifestations.” Restatement (Third) of Agency §2.02(1) (2005).
Whether an agent’s understanding is reasonable depends on “[t]he context in which the principal and agent interact,”
including their “[p]rior dealings,” industry “customs and usages,”
and “the nature of the principal’s business or the principal’s
personal situation.” Id. , §2.02, Comment e (emphasis
added). With that in mind, imagine that a grocer instructs a clerk
to “go to the orchard and buy apples for the store.” Though this
grant of apple-purchasing authority sounds unqualified, a
reasonable clerk would know that there are limits. For example, if
the grocer usually keeps 200 apples on hand, the clerk does not
have actual authority to buy 1,000—the grocer would have spoken
more directly if she meant to authorize such an out-of-the-ordinary
purchase. A clerk who disregards context and stretches the words to
their fullest will not have a job for long.

															This is consistent with how we communicate
conversationally. Consider a parent who hires a babysitter to watch
her young children over the weekend. As she walks out the door, the
parent hands the babysitter her credit card and says: “Make sure
the kids have fun.” Emboldened, the babysitter takes the kids on a
road trip to an amusement park, where they spend two days on
rollercoasters and one night in a hotel. Was the babysitter’s trip
consistent with the parent’s instruction? Maybe in a literal sense,
because the instruction was open-ended. But was the trip consistent
with a reasonable understanding of the parent’s instruction?
Highly doubtful. In the normal course, permission to spend money on
fun authorizes a babysitter to take children to the local ice cream
parlor or movie theater, not on a multiday excursion to an
out-of-town amusement park. If a parent were willing to greenlight
a trip that big, we would expect much more clarity than a general
instruction to “make sure the kids have fun.”

															But what if there is more to the story? Perhaps
there is obvious contextual evidence that the babysitter’s jaunt
was permissible—for example, maybe the parent left tickets to the
amusement park on the counter. Other clues, though less obvious,
can also demonstrate that the babysitter took a reasonable view of
the parent’s instruction. Perhaps the parent showed the babysitter
where the suitcases are, in the event that she took the children
somewhere overnight. Or maybe the parent mentioned that she had
budgeted $2,000 for weekend entertainment. Indeed, some relevant
points of context may not have been communicated by the parent at
all. For instance, we might view the parent’s statement differently
if this babysitter had taken the children on such trips before or
if the babysitter were a grandparent.

															In my view, the major questions doctrine grows
out of these same commonsense principles of communication. Just as
we would expect a parent to give more than a general instruction if
she intended to authorize a babysitter-led getaway, we also “expect
Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency
decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.’ ” Utility Air , 573 U. S., at 324. That clarity may come
from specific words in the statute, but context can also do the
trick. Surrounding circumstances, whether contained within the
statutory scheme or external to it, can narrow or broaden the scope
of a delegation to an agency.

															This expectation of clarity is rooted in the
basic premise that Congress normally “intends to make major policy
decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies.” United
States Telecom Assn. v. FCC , 855 F.3d 381, 419 (CADC
2017) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting from denial of reh’g en banc). Or,
as Justice Breyer once observed, “Congress is more likely to have
focused upon, and answered, major questions, while leaving
interstitial matters [for agencies] to answer themselves in the
course of a statute’s daily administration.” S. Breyer, Judicial
Review of Questions of Law and Policy, 38 Admin. L. Rev. 363,
370 (1986); see also A. Gluck & L. Bressman, Statutory
Interpretation From the Inside—An Empirical Study of Congressional
Drafting, Delegation, and the Canons: Part I, 65 Stan. L. Rev.
901, 1003–1006 (2013). That makes eminent sense in light of our
constitutional structure, which is itself part of the legal context
framing any delegation. Because the Constitution vests Congress
with “[a]ll legislative Powers,” Art. I, §1, a reasonable
interpreter would expect it to make the big-time policy calls
itself, rather than pawning them off to another branch. See West
Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 19) (explaining
that the major questions doctrine rests on “both separation of
powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative
intent”).

															Crucially, treating the Constitution’s structure
as part of the context in which a delegation occurs is not the same as using a clear-statement rule to overenforce Article I’s
nondelegation principle (which, again, is the rationale behind the
substantive-canon view of the major questions doctrine). My point
is simply that in a system of separated powers, a reasonably
informed interpreter would expect Congress to legislate on
“important subjects” while delegating away only “the details.” Wayman v. Southard , 10 Wheat. 1, 43 (1825). That is
different from a normative rule that discourages Congress
from empowering agencies. To see what I mean, return to the
ambitious babysitter. Our expectation of clearer authorization for
the amusement-park trip is not about discouraging the parent from
giving significant leeway to the babysitter or forcing the parent
to think hard before doing so. Instead, it reflects the intuition
that the parent is in charge and sets the terms for the
babysitter—so if a judgment is significant, we expect the parent to
make it. If, by contrast, one parent left the children with the
other parent for the weekend, we would view the same trip
differently because the parents share authority over the children.
In short, the balance of power between those in a relationship
inevitably frames our understanding of their communications. And
when it comes to the Nation’s policy, the Constitution gives
Congress the reins—a point of context that no reasonable
interpreter could ignore.

															Given these baseline assumptions, an interpreter
should “typically greet” an agency’s claim to “extravagant
statutory power” with at least some “measure of skepticism.” Utility Air , 573 U. S., at 324. That skepticism is
neither “made-up” nor “new.” Post , at 24, 29
(Kagan, J., dissenting). On the contrary, it appears in a line
of decisions spanning at least 40 years. E.g. , King v. Burwell , 576 U.S. 473, 485–486 (2015); Gonzales v. Oregon , 546 U.S.
243 , 267–268 (2006); Brown & Williamson , 529
U. S., at 159–160; Industrial Union Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute , 448 U.S.
607 , 645 (1980) (plurality opinion).[ 3 ]

															Still, this skepticism does not mean that courts
have an obligation (or even permission) to choose an
inferior-but-tenable alternative that curbs the agency’s
authority—and that marks a key difference between my view and the
“clear statement” view of the major questions doctrine. In some
cases, the court’s initial skepticism might be overcome by text
directly authorizing the agency action or context demonstrating
that the agency’s interpretation is convincing. (And because
context can suffice, I disagree with Justice Kagan’s critique that
“[t]he doctrine forces Congress to delegate in highly specific
terms.” Post , at 24.) If so, the court must adopt the
agency’s reading despite the “majorness” of the question.[ 4 ] In other cases, however, the court
might conclude that the agency’s expansive reading, even if
“plausible,” is not the best. West Virginia , 597 U. S.,
at ___ (slip op., at 19). In that event, the major questions
doctrine plays a role, because it helps explain the court’s
conclusion that the agency overreached.

															Consider Brown & Williamson , in which
we rejected the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s)
determination that tobacco products were within its regulatory
purview. 529 U. S., at 131. The agency’s assertion of
authority—which depended on the argument that nicotine is a
“ ‘drug’ ” and that cigarettes and smokeless tobacco are
“ ‘drug delivery devices’ ”—would have been plausible if
the relevant statutory text were read in a vacuum. Ibid. But
a vacuum is no home for a textualist. Instead, we stressed that the
“meaning” of a word or phrase “may only become evident when placed
in context .” Id. , at 132 (emphasis added). And the
critical context in Brown & Williamson was tobacco’s
“unique political history”: the FDA’s longstanding disavowal of
authority to regulate it, Congress’s creation of “a distinct
regulatory scheme for tobacco products,” and the tobacco industry’s
“significant” role in “the American economy.” Id. , at
159–160. In light of those considerations, we concluded that
“Congress could not have intended to delegate a decision of such
economic and political significance to an agency in so cryptic a
fashion.” Id. , at 160.

															We have also been “[s]keptical of mismatches”
between broad “invocations of power by agencies” and relatively
narrow “statutes that purport to delegate that power.” In re MCP No. 165, OSHA, Interim Final Rule: Covid–19
Vaccination and Testing , 20 F. 4th 264, 272 (CA6 2021) (Sutton,
C. J., dissenting from denial of initial hearing en banc).
Just as an instruction to “pick up dessert” is not permission to
buy a four-tier wedding cake, Congress’s use of a “subtle device”
is not authorization for agency action of “enormous importance.” MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone &
Telegraph Co. , 512 U.S.
218 , 231 (1994); cf. Whitman v. American Trucking
Assns., Inc. , 531 U.S.
457 , 468 (2001) (Congress does not “hide elephants in
mouseholes”). This principle explains why the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) general authority to
“ ‘prevent the . . . spread of communicable
diseases’ ” did not authorize a nationwide eviction
moratorium. Alabama Assn. of Realtors , 594 U. S., at
___–___, ___ (slip op., at 2–3, 6). The statute, we observed, was a
“wafer-thin reed” that could not support the assertion of “such
sweeping power.” Id. , at ___ (slip op., at 7). Likewise, in West Virginia , we held that a “little-used backwater”
provision in the Clean Air Act could not justify an Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) rule that would “restructur[e] the Nation’s
overall mix of electricity generation.” 597 U. S., at ___, ___
(slip op., at 16, 26).

															Another telltale sign that an agency may have
transgressed its statutory authority is when it regulates outside
its wheelhouse. For instance, in Gonzales v. Oregon ,
we rebuffed an interpretive rule from the Attorney General that
restricted the use of controlled substances in physician-assisted
suicide. 546 U. S., at 254, 275. This judgment, we explained,
was a medical one that lay beyond the Attorney General’s expertise,
and so a sturdier source of statutory authority than “an implicit
delegation” was required. Id. , at 267–268. Likewise, in King v. Burwell , we blocked the Internal Revenue
Service’s (IRS’s) attempt to decide whether the Affordable Care
Act’s tax credits could be available on federally established
exchanges. 576 U. S., at 485–486. Among other things, the
IRS’s lack of “expertise in crafting health insurance policy” made
us think that “had Congress wished to assign that question to an
agency, it surely would have done so expressly.” Id. , at
486. Echoing the theme, our reasoning in Alabama Association of
Realtors rested partly on the fact that the CDC’s eviction
moratorium “intrude[d] into . . . the landlord-tenant
relationship”—hardly the day-in, day-out work of a public-health
agency. 594 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6). National
Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA is of a
piece. 595 U. S. ___ (2022) ( per curiam ). There,
we held that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s
(OSHA’s) authority to ensure “ ‘safe and healthful working
conditions’ ” did not encompass the power to mandate the
vaccination of employees; as we explained, the statute empowered
the agency “to set workplace safety standards, not broad
public health measures.” Id. , at ___, ___ (slip op., at 2,
6). The shared intuition behind these cases is that a reasonable
speaker would not understand Congress to confer an unusual form of
authority without saying more.

															We have also pumped the brakes when “an agency
claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to
regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy.’ ” Utility Air , 573 U. S., at 324. Of course, an agency’s
post-enactment conduct does not control the meaning of a statute,
but “this Court has long said that courts may consider the
consistency of an agency’s views when we weigh the persuasiveness
of any interpretation it proffers in court.” Bittner v. United States , 598 U.S. 85, 97 (2023) (citing Skidmore v. Swift & Co. , 323
U.S. 134 , 140 (1944)). The agency’s track record can be
particularly probative in this context: A longstanding “want of
assertion of power by those who presumably would be alert to
exercise it” may provide some clue that the power was never
conferred. FTC v. Bunte Brothers, Inc. , 312 U.S.
349 , 352 (1941). Once again, Brown & Williamson is a
good example. There, we balked at the FDA’s novel attempt to
regulate tobacco in part because this move was “[c]ontrary to its
representations to Congress since 1914.” 529 U. S., at 159.
And in Utility Air , we were dubious when the EPA discovered
“newfound authority” in the Clean Air Act that would have allowed
it to require greenhouse-gas permits for “millions of small
sources—including retail stores, offices, apartment buildings,
shopping centers, schools, and churches.” 573 U. S., at
328.

															If the major questions doctrine were a
substantive canon, then the common thread in these cases would be
that we “exchange[d] the most natural reading of a statute for a
bearable one more protective of a judicially specified value.”
Barrett 111. But by my lights, the Court arrived at the most
plausible reading of the statute in these cases. To be sure, “[a]ll
of these regulatory assertions had a colorable textual basis.” West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 18). In
each case, we could have “[p]ut on blinders” and confined ourselves
to the four corners of the statute, and we might have reached a
different outcome. Sykes v. United States , 564 U.S.
1 , 43 (2011) (Kagan, J., dissenting). Instead, we took “off
those blinders,” “view[ed] the statute as a whole,” ibid. ,
and considered context that would be important to a reasonable
observer. With the full picture in view, it became evident in each
case that the agency’s assertion of “highly consequential power”
went “beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have
granted.” West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op.,
at 20).

															III

															As for today’s case: The Court surely could
have “hi[t] the send button,” post , at 23 (Kagan, J.,
dissenting), after the routine statutory analysis set out in Part
III–A. But it is nothing new for a court to punctuate its
conclusion with an additional point, and the major questions
doctrine is a good one here. Ante , at 25, n. 9. It is
obviously true that the Secretary’s loan cancellation program has
“vast ‘economic and political significance.’ ” Utility
Air , 573 U. S., at 324. That matters not because agencies
are incapable of making highly consequential decisions, but rather
because an initiative of this scope, cost, and political salience
is not the type that Congress lightly delegates to an agency. And
for the reasons given by the Court, the HEROES Act provides no
indication that Congress empowered the Secretary to do anything of
the sort. Ante , at 12–18, 25.

															Granted, some context clues from past major
questions cases are absent here—for example, this is not a case
where the agency is operating entirely outside its usual domain.
But the doctrine is not an on-off switch that flips when a critical
mass of factors is present—again, it simply reflects “common sense
as to the manner in which Congress is likely to delegate a policy
decision of such economic and political magnitude.” Brown &
Williamson , 529 U. S., at 133. Common sense tells us that
as more indicators from our previous major questions cases are
present, the less likely it is that Congress would have delegated
the power to the agency without saying so more clearly.

															Here, enough of those indicators are present to
demonstrate that the Secretary has gone far “beyond what Congress
could reasonably be understood to have granted” in the HEROES Act. West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 20). Our
decision today does not “trump” the statutory text, nor does it
make this Court the “arbiter” of “national policy.” Post , at
24–25 (Kagan, J., dissenting). Instead, it gives Congress’s
words their best reading.

															*  *  *

															The major questions doctrine has an important
role to play when courts review agency action of “vast ‘economic
and political significance.’ ” Utility Air , 573
U. S., at 324. But the doctrine should not be taken for more
than it is—the familiar principle that we do not interpret a
statute for all it is worth when a reasonable person would not read
it that way. Notes 1 They stand in contrast to
linguistic or descriptive canons, which are designed to reflect
grammatical rules (such as the punctuation canon) or speech
patterns (like the inclusion of some things implies the exclusion
of others). A. Barrett, Substantive Canons and Faithful Agency, 90
B. U. L. Rev. 109, 117 (2010). 2 Whether the creation or
application of strong-form canons exceeds the “judicial Power”
conferred by Article III is a difficult question. On the one hand,
“federal courts have been developing and applying [such] canons for
as long as they have been interpreting statutes,” and that is some
reason to regard the practice as consistent with the original
understanding of the “judicial Power.” Barrett 155, 176. Moreover,
many strong-form canons advance constitutional values, which
heightens their claim to legitimacy. Id. , at 168–170. On the
other hand, these canons advance constitutional values by imposing
prophylactic constraints on Congress—and that is in tension with
the Constitution’s structure. Id. , at 174, 176. Thus, even
assuming that the federal courts have not overstepped by adopting
such canons in the past, I am wary of adopting new ones—and if the
major questions doctrine were a newly minted strong-form canon, I
would not embrace it. In my view, however, the major questions
doctrine is neither new nor a strong-form canon. 3 Indeed, the doctrine may
have even deeper roots. See ICC v. Cincinnati, N. O.
& T. P. R. Co. , 167 U.S.
479 , 494–495 (1897) (explaining that for agency assertions of
“vast and comprehensive” power, “no just rule of construction would
tolerate a grant of such power by mere implication”). 4 I am dealing only with
statutory interpretation, not the separate argument that a
statutory delegation exceeds constitutional limits. See Whitman v. American Trucking Assns., Inc. , 531 U.S.
457 , 474 (2001) (describing a delegation held unconstitutional
because it “conferred authority to regulate the entire economy on
the basis of ” an imprecise standard). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 22–506

															_________________

															Joseph R. Biden, President of the United
States, et al., PETITIONERS v. Nebraska,
et al.

															on writ of certiorari before judgment to the
united states court of appeals for the eighth circuit

															[June 30, 2023]

															Justice Kagan, with whom Justice Sotomayor and
Justice Jackson join, dissenting.

															In every respect, the Court today exceeds its
proper, limited role in our Nation’s governance.

															Some 20 years ago, Congress enacted legislation,
called the HEROES Act, authorizing the Secretary of Education to
provide relief to student-loan borrowers when a national emergency
struck. The Secretary’s authority was bounded: He could do only
what was “necessary” to alleviate the emergency’s impact on
affected borrowers’ ability to repay their student loans. 20
U. S. C. §1098bb(a)(2). But within that bounded area,
Congress gave discretion to the Secretary. He could “waive or
modify any statutory or regulatory provision” applying to federal
student-loan programs, including provisions relating to loan
repayment and forgiveness. And in so doing, he could replace the
old provisions with new “terms and conditions.” §§1098bb(a)(1),
(b)(2). The Secretary, that is, could give the relief that was
needed, in the form he deemed most appropriate, to counteract the
effects of a national emergency on borrowers’ capacity to repay.
That may have been a good idea, or it may have been a bad idea.
Either way, it was what Congress said.

															When COVID hit, two Secretaries serving two
different Presidents decided to use their HEROES Act authority. The
first suspended loan repayments and interest accrual for all
federally held student loans. The second continued that policy for
a time, and then replaced it with the loan forgiveness plan at
issue here, granting most low- and middle-income borrowers up to
$10,000 in debt relief. Both relied on the HEROES Act language
cited above. In establishing the loan forgiveness plan, the current
Secretary scratched the pre-existing conditions for loan discharge,
and specified different conditions, opening loan forgiveness to
more borrowers. So he “waive[d]” and “modif[ied]” statutory and
regulatory provisions and applied other “terms and conditions” in
their stead. That may have been a good idea, or it may have been a
bad idea. Either way, the Secretary did only what Congress had told
him he could.

															The Court’s first overreach in this case is
deciding it at all. Under Article III of the Constitution, a
plaintiff must have standing to challenge a government action. And
that requires a personal stake—an injury in fact. We do not allow
plaintiffs to bring suit just because they oppose a policy. Neither
do we allow plaintiffs to rely on injuries suffered by others.
Those rules may sound technical, but they enforce “fundamental
limits on federal judicial power.” Allen v. Wright , 468 U.S.
737 , 750 (1984). They keep courts acting like courts. Or stated
the other way around, they prevent courts from acting like this
Court does today. The plaintiffs in this case are six States that
have no personal stake in the Secretary’s loan forgiveness plan.
They are classic ideological plaintiffs: They think the plan a very
bad idea, but they are no worse off because the Secretary differs.
In giving those States a forum—in adjudicating their complaint—the
Court forgets its proper role. The Court acts as though it is an
arbiter of political and policy disputes, rather than of cases and
controversies.

															And the Court’s role confusion persists when it
takes up the merits. For years, this Court has insisted that the
way 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 forgiveness 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 delegation. But the Court forbids him to proceed. As in
other recent cases, the rules of the game change when Congress
enacts 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 statutes 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 substitutes
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 President would have been accountable for its
success or failure. But this Court today decides that some 40
million Americans 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
constitutional limitation of federal-court jurisdiction to actual
cases or controversies.” Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare
Rights Organization , 426 U.S.
26 , 37 (1976). In our system, “[f]ederal courts do not possess
a roving commission to publicly 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 Executive Branches.” Ibid. A court may address the legality of a government action only if the
person challenging it has standing—which requires that the person
have suffered a “concrete and particularized injury.” Ibid. It is not enough for the plaintiff to assert a “generalized
grievance[ ]” about government policy. Gill v. Whitford , 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 13).
And critically here, the plaintiff cannot rest its claim on a third
party’s rights and interests. See Warth v. Seldin , 422 U.S.
490 , 499 (1975). The plaintiff needs its own stake—a “personal
stake”—in the outcome of the litigation. TransUnion , 594
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 7). If the plaintiff has no such
stake, a court must stop in its tracks. To decide the case is to
exceed the permissible boundaries of the judicial role.

															That is what the Court does today. The
plaintiffs here are six States: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri,
Nebraska, and South Carolina. They oppose the Secretary’s loan
cancellation plan on varied policy and legal grounds. But as
everyone agrees, those objections are just general grievances; they
do not show the particularized injury needed to bring suit. And the
States have no straightforward way of making that showing—of
explaining how they are harmed by a plan that reduces
individual borrowers’ federal student-loan debt. So the States have
thrown no fewer than four different theories of injury against the
wall, hoping that a court anxious to get to the merits will say
that one of them sticks. The most that can be said of the theory
the majority selects, proffered solely by Missouri, is that it is
less risible than the others. It still contravenes a bedrock
principle of standing law—that a plaintiff cannot ride on someone
else’s injury. Missouri is doing just that in relying on injuries
to the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), a legally
and financially independent public corporation. And that means the
Court, by deciding this case, exercises authority it does not have.
It violates the Constitution.

															A

															Missouri’s theory of standing, as accepted by
the majority, goes as follows. MOHELA is a state-created
corporation participating in the student-loan market. As part of
that activity, it has contracted with the Department of Education
to service federally held loans—essentially, to handle billing and
collect payments for the Federal Government. Under that contract,
MOHELA receives an administrative fee for each loan serviced. When
a loan is canceled, MOHELA will not get a fee; so the Secretary’s
plan will cost MOHELA money. And if MOHELA is harmed, Missouri must
be harmed, because the corporation is a “public instrumentality”
and, as such, “part of Missouri’s government.” Brief for
Respondents 16–17; see ante , at 8–9.

															Up to the last step, the theory is
unexceptionable—except that it points to MOHELA as the proper
plaintiff. Financial harm is a classic injury in fact. MOHELA
plausibly alleges that it will suffer that harm as a result of the
Secretary’s plan. So MOHELA can sue the Secretary, as the
Government readily concedes. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 18. But not even
Missouri, and not even the majority, claims that MOHELA’s revenue
loss gets passed through to the State. As further discussed below,
MOHELA is financially independent from Missouri—as corporations
typically are, the better to insulate their creators from financial
loss. See infra , at 6. So MOHELA’s revenue decline—the
injury in fact claimed to justify this suit—is not in fact
Missouri’s. The State’s treasury will not be out one penny because
of the Secretary’s plan. The revenue loss allegedly grounding this
case is MOHELA’s alone.

															Which leads to an obvious question: Where’s
MOHELA? The answer is: As far from this suit as it can manage.
MOHELA could have brought this suit. It possesses the power under
Missouri law to “sue and be sued” in its own name. Mo. Rev. Stat.
§173.385.1(3) (2016). But MOHELA is not a party here. Nor is it an amicus . Nor is it even a rooting bystander. MOHELA was “not
involved with the decision of the Missouri Attorney General’s
Office” to file this suit. Letter from Appellees in No. 22–3179
(CA8), p. 3 (Nov. 1, 2022). And MOHELA did not cooperate with
the Attorney General’s efforts. When the AG wanted documents
relating to MOHELA’s loan-servicing contract, to aid him in putting
forward the State’s standing theory, he had to file formal
“sunshine law” demands on the entity. See id. , at 3–4.
MOHELA had no interest in assisting voluntarily.

															If all that makes you suspect that MOHELA is
distinct from the State, you would be right. And that is so as a
matter of law and financing alike. Yes, MOHELA is a creature of
state statute, a public instrumentality established to serve a
public function. §173.360. But the law sets up MOHELA as a
corporation—a so-called “body corporate”—with a “[s]eparate legal
personality.” Ibid. ; First Nat. City Bank v. Banco
Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba , 462
U.S. 611 , 625 (1983) ( Bancec ). Or said a bit
differently, MOHELA is—like the lion’s share of corporations,
whether public or private—a “separate legal [entity] with distinct
legal rights and obligations” from those belonging to its creator. Agency for Int’l Development v. Alliance for Open Society
Int’l Inc. , 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 5).
MOHELA, for example, has the power to contract with other entities,
which is how it entered into a loan-servicing contract with the
Department of Education. See §173.385.1(15). MOHELA’s assets,
including the fees gained from that contract, are not “part of the
revenue of the [S]tate” and cannot be “used for the payment of debt
incurred by the [S]tate.” §§173.386, 173.425. On the other side of
the ledger, MOHELA’s debts are MOHELA’s alone; Missouri cannot be
liable for them. §173.410. And as noted earlier, MOHELA has the
power to “sue and be sued” independent of Missouri, so it can both
“prosecute and defend” all its varied interests. §173.385.1(3); see supra , at 5. Indeed, before this case, Missouri had never
tried to appear in court on MOHELA’s behalf. That is no surprise.
In the statutory scheme, independence is everywhere: State law
created MOHELA, but in so doing set it apart.

															The Missouri Supreme Court itself recognized as
much in addressing a near-carbon-copy state instrumentality. MOHEFA
(note the one-letter difference) issues bonds to support various
health and educational institutions in the State. Like MOHELA,
MOHEFA is understood as a “public instrumentality” serving a
“public function.” Menorah Medical Center v. Health and
Ed. Facilities Auth. , 584 S.W.2d 73 , 76 (Mo. 1979). And like MOHELA, MOHEFA has a
board appointed by the Governor and sends annual reports to a state
department. See Mo. Rev. Stat. §§360.020, 360.140 (1978); ante , at 9 (suggesting those features matter). But the State
Supreme Court, when confronted with a claim that MOHEFA’s
undertakings should be ascribed to the State, could hardly have
been more dismissive. The court thought it beyond dispute that
MOHEFA “is not the [S]tate,” and that its activities are not state
activities. Menorah , 584 S. W. 2d, at 78. Citing
MOHEFA’s financial and legal independence, the court explained that
“[s]imilar bodies have been adjudged as ‘separate entities’ from”
Missouri. Ibid. MOHELA is no different.

															Under our usual standing rules, that separation
would matter—indeed, would decide this case. A plaintiff, this
Court has held time and again, cannot rest its claim to judicial
relief on the “legal rights and interests” of third parties. Warth , 422 U. S., at 499. And MOHELA qualifies as such
a party, for all the reasons just given. That MOHELA is publicly
created makes not a whit of difference: When a “government
instrumentalit[y]” is “established as [a] juridical entit[y]
distinct and independent from [its] sovereign,” the law—including
the law of standing—is supposed to treat it that way. Bancec , 462 U. S., at 626–627; see Sloan Shipyards
Corp. v. United States Shipping Bd. Emergency Fleet
Corporation , 258 U.S.
549 , 567 (1922). So this case should have been open-and-shut.
Missouri and MOHELA are legally, and also financially, “separate
entities.” Menorah , 584 S. W. 2d, at 78. MOHELA is
fully capable of representing its own interests, and always has
done so before. The injury to MOHELA thus does not entitle
Missouri—under our normal standing rules—to go to court.

															And those normal rules are more than just rules:
They are, as this case shows, guarantors of our constitutional
order. The requirement that the proper party—the party actually
affected—challenge an action ensures that courts do not overstep
their proper bounds. See Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l
USA , 568 U.S.
398 , 408–409 (2013) (“Relaxation of standing [rules] is
directly related to the expansion of judicial power”). Without that
requirement, courts become “forums for the ventilation of public
grievances”—for settlement of ideological and political disputes. Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for
Separation of Church and State , Inc. , 454 U.S.
464 , 473 (1982). The kind of forum this Court has become today.
Is there a person in America who thinks Missouri is here because it
is worried about MOHELA’s loss of loan-servicing fees? I would like
to meet him. Missouri is here because it thinks the Secretary’s
loan cancellation plan makes for terrible, inequitable, wasteful
policy. And so too for Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South
Carolina. And maybe all of them are right. But that question is not
what this Court sits to decide. That question is “more
appropriately addressed in the representative branches,” and by the
broader public. Allen , 468 U. S., at 751. Our
third-party standing rules, like the rest of our standing doctrine,
exist to separate powers in that way—to send political issues to
political institutions, and retain only legal controversies,
brought by plaintiffs who have suffered real legal injury. If
MOHELA had brought this suit, we would have had to resolve it,
however hot or divisive. But Missouri? In adjudicating Missouri’s
claim, the majority reaches out to decide a matter it has no
business deciding. It blows through a constitutional guardrail
intended to keep courts acting like courts.

															B

															The majority does not over-expend itself in
defending that action. It recites the State’s assertion that a
“harm to MOHELA is also a harm to Missouri” because the former is
the latter’s instrumentality. Ante , at 8. But in doing so,
the majority barely addresses MOHELA’s separate corporate identity,
its financial independence, and its distinct legal rights. In other
words, the majority glides swiftly over all the attributes of
MOHELA ensuring that its economic losses (1) are not passed on to
the State and (2) can be rectified (if there is legal wrong)
without the State’s help. The majority is left to argue from a
couple of prior decisions and a single idea, the latter relating to
the State’s desire to “aid Missouri college students.” Ante ,
at 9. But the decisions do not stand for what the majority claims.
And the idea collides with another core precept of standing law.
All in all, the majority’s justifications turn standing law from a
pillar of a restrained judiciary into nothing more than “a lawyer’s
game.” Massachusetts v. EPA , 549
U.S. 497 , 548 (2007) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting).

															The majority mainly relies on Arkansas v. Texas , 346 U.S.
368 (1953), but that case shows only that not all public
instrumentalities are the same. The Court there held that Arkansas
could bring suit on behalf of a state university. But it did so
because the school lacked the financial and legal
separateness MOHELA has. Arkansas, we observed, “owns all the
property used by the University.” Id. , at 370. And the suit,
if successful, would have enhanced that property: The litigation
sought to stop Texas from interfering with a contract to build a
medical facility on campus. For the same reason, the Court found
that “any injury under the contract to the University is an injury
to Arkansas”: The State was the principal beneficiary of the
contract to improve its own property. Ibid. So Arkansas had
the sort of direct financial interest not present here. And there
is more: The University, the Court thought, could not sue on its
own. See ibid. The majority suggests otherwise, citing a
state-court decision holding that corporations usually have the
power to bring and defend legal actions. See ante , at 11–12.
But the Arkansas Court referenced a different state-court
decision—one holding that another state school was “not authorized”
to “sue and be sued.” Allen Eng. Co. v. Kays , 106
Ark. 174, 177, 152 S.W. 992, 993 (1913); see Arkansas , 346
U. S., at 370, and n. 9. That decision led this Court to
conclude that Arkansas law treated “a suit against the University”
as “a suit against the State.” Id. , at 370. But if state law
had not done so—as it does not in Missouri for MOHELA? See supra , at 6–7. The Court made clear that a State cannot
stand in for an independent entity. The State, the Court said,
“must, of course, represent an interest of her own and not merely
that of her citizens or corporations.” Ibid. The majority’s second case— Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corporation , 513 U.S.
374 (1995)—is yet further afield. The issue there was whether
Amtrak, a public corporation similar to MOHELA, had to comply with
the First Amendment. The Court held that it did, labeling Amtrak a
state actor for that purpose. On the opposite view, we reasoned, a
government could “evade the most solemn obligations imposed in the
Constitution by simply resorting to the corporate form.” Id. , at 397; see ibid. (noting that Plessy could then be “resurrected by the simple device” of creating a
public corporation to run trains). But that did not mean Amtrak was
equivalent to the Government for all purposes. Over and over, we
cabined our holding that Amtrak was a state actor by adding a
phrase like “for purposes of the First Amendment” or other
constitutional rights. Id. , at 400; see id. , at 383
(Amtrak “must be regarded as a Government entity for First
Amendment purposes”); id. , at 392 (Amtrak is “a Government
entity for purposes of determining the constitutional rights of
citizens”); id. , at 394 (Amtrak is an “instrumentality of
the United States for the purpose of individual rights guaranteed
against the Government”); id. , at 397, 399, 400 (similar,
similar, and similar). But for other purposes, a different rule
might, or would, obtain. Our holding, we said, did not mean Amtrak
had sovereign immunity. See id. , at 392. And most relevant
here, we reaffirmed that “[t]he State does not, by becoming a
corporator, identify itself with the corporation” for purposes of
litigation. Id. , at 398. Or said again, the Government is
“not a party to suits brought by or against” its corporation. Id. , at 399. So what Lebron tells us about MOHELA is
that it must comply with the Constitution. Lebron offers no
support (more like the opposite) for the different view that MOHELA
and Missouri are interchangeable parties in litigation.[ 1 ]

															Remaining is the majority’s unsupported—and
insupportable—idea that the Secretary’s plan “necessarily” hurts
Missouri because it “impair[s]” MOHELA’s “efforts to aid [the
State’s] college students.” Ante , at 9. To begin with, it
seems unlikely that the reduction in MOHELA’s revenues resulting
from the discharge would make it harder for students to “access
student loans,” as the majority contends. Ante , at 8. MOHELA
is not a lender; it services loans others have made. Which is
probably why even Missouri has never tried to show that the
Secretary’s plan will so detrimentally affect the State’s
borrowers. In any event—and more important—such a harm to citizens
cannot provide an escape hatch out of MOHELA’s legal and financial
independence. That is because of another canonical limit on a
State’s ability to ride on third parties: A State may never sue the
Federal Government based on its citizens’ rights and interests. See Alfred L. Snapp & Son , Inc. v. Puerto Rico ex
rel. Barez , 458 U.S.
592 , 610, n. 16 (1982); Haaland v. Brackeen , 599
U. S. ___, ___, and n. 11 (2023) (slip op., at 32, and
n. 11). Or said more technically, a “State does not have
standing as parens patriae to bring an action against the
Federal Government.” Ibid. ; see Massachusetts v. Mellon , 262 U.S.
447 , 485–486 (1923). So Missouri cannot get standing by
asserting that a harm to MOHELA will harm the State’s citizens.
Missouri needs to show that the harm to MOHELA produces harm to the
State itself. And because, as explained above, MOHELA was set up
(as corporations typically are) to insulate its creator from such
derivative harm, Missouri is incapable of making that showing. See supra , at 6. The separateness, both financial and legal,
between MOHELA and Missouri makes MOHELA alone the proper
party.

															The author of today’s opinion once wrote that a
1970s-era standing decision “became emblematic” of “how utterly
manipulable” this Court’s standing law is “if not taken seriously
as a matter of judicial self-restraint.” Massachusetts , 549
U. S., at 548 (Roberts, C. J., dissenting). After today,
no one will have to go back 50 years for the classic case of the
Court manipulating standing doctrine, rather than obeying the edict
to stay in its lane. The majority and I differ, as I’ll soon
address, on whether the Executive Branch exceeded its authority in
issuing the loan cancellation plan. But assuming the Executive
Branch did so, that does not license this Court to exceed its own
role. Courts must still “function as courts,” this one no less than
others. Ibid. And in our system, that means refusing to
decide cases that are not really cases because the plaintiffs have
not suffered concrete injuries. The Court ignores that principle in
allowing Missouri to piggy-back on the “legal rights and interests”
of an independent entity. Warth , 422 U. S., at 499. If
MOHELA wanted to, it could have brought this suit. It declined to
do so. Under the non-manipulable, serious version of standing law,
that would have been the end of the matter—regardless how much
Missouri, or this Court, objects to the Secretary’s plan.

															II

															The majority finds no firmer ground when it
reaches the merits. The statute Congress enacted gives the
Secretary broad authority to respond to national emergencies. That
authority kicks in only under exceptional conditions. But when it
kicks in, the Secretary can take exceptional measures. He can
“waive or modify any statutory or regulatory provision” applying to
the student-loan program. §1098bb(a)(1). And as part of that power,
he can “appl[y]” new “terms and conditions” “in lieu of ” the
former ones. §1098bb(b)(2). That means when an emergency strikes,
the Secretary can alter, so as to cover more people, pre-existing
provisions enabling loan discharges. Which is exactly what the
Secretary did in establishing his loan forgiveness plan. The
majority’s contrary conclusion rests first on stilted textual
analysis. The majority picks the statute apart piece by 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 approved, because they will have
significant regulatory impacts. Thus the Court once again
substitutes itself for Congress 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, Congress
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), 105Stat. 93. The next iteration responded to the
impacts of the September 11 terrorist attacks. It too gave the
Secretary power to “waive or modify” any student-loan provision,
but this time to help borrowers affected by the “national
emergency” created by September 11. §2(a)(1), 115Stat. 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 necessary” in
connection with any military operation or “national emergency.”
§1098bb(a)(1). But the statute’s greater coverage came with no
sacrifice of potency. When the law’s emergency conditions are
satisfied, the Secretary again has the power to “waive or modify
any statutory or regulatory provision” relating to federal
student-loan programs. Ibid. Before turning to the scope of that power, note
the stringency of the triggering conditions. Putting aside military
applications, the Secretary can act only when the President has
declared a national emergency. See §1098ee(4). Further, the
Secretary may provide benefits only to “affected
individuals”—defined as anyone who “resides or is employed in an
area that is declared a disaster area . . . in connection
with a national emergency” or who has “suffered direct economic
hardship as a direct result of a . . . national
emergency.” §§1098ee(2)(C)–(D). And the Secretary can do only what
he determines to be “necessary” to ensure that those individuals
“are not placed in a worse position financially in relation to”
their loans “because of ” the emergency. §1098bb(a)(2). That
last condition, said more simply, requires the Secretary to show
that the relief he awards does not go beyond alleviating the
economic effects of an emergency on affected borrowers’ ability to
repay their loans.

															But if those conditions are met, the Secretary’s
delegated authority is capacious. As in the prior statutes, the
Secretary has the linked power to “waive or modify any statutory or
regulatory provision” applying to the student-loan programs.
§1098bb(a)(1). To start with the phrase after the verbs, “the word
‘any’ has an expansive meaning.” United States v. Gonzales , 520 U.S.
1 , 5 (1997). “Any” of the referenced provisions means, well,
any of those provisions. And those provisions include several
relating to student-loan cancellation—more precisely, specifying
conditions in which the Secretary can discharge loan principal. See
§§1087, 1087dd(g); 34 CFR §§682.402, 685.212 (2022). Now go back to
the twin verbs: “waive or modify.” To “waive” means to “abandon,
renounce, or surrender”—so here, to eliminate a regulatory
requirement or condition. Black’s Law Dictionary 1894 (11th ed.
2019). To “modify” means “[t]o make somewhat different” or “to
reduce in degree or extent”—so here, to lessen rather than
eliminate such a requirement. Id. , at 1203. Then put the
words together, as they appear in the statute: To “waive or modify”
a requirement means to lessen its effect, from the slightest
adjustment up to eliminating it altogether. Of course, making such
changes may leave gaps to fill. So the statute says what is anyway
obvious: that the Secretary’s waiver/modification power includes
the ability to specify “the terms and conditions to be applied in
lieu of such [modified or waived] statutory and regulatory
provisions.” §1098bb(b)(2). Finally, attach the “waive or modify”
power to all the provisions relating to loan cancellation: The
Secretary may amend, all the way up to discarding, those provisions
and fill the holes that action creates with new terms designed to
counteract an emergency’s effects on borrowers.

															Before reviewing how that statutory scheme
operated here, consider how it might work for a hypothetical
emergency that the enacting Congress had in the front of its mind.
As noted above, a precursor to the HEROES Act was a statute
authorizing the Secretary to assist student-loan borrowers affected
by September 11. See supra , at 14. The HEROES Act, as
Congress designed it, would give him the identical power to address
similar terrorist attacks in the future. So imagine the horrific. A
terrorist organization sets off a dirty bomb in Chicago. Beyond
causing deaths, the incident leads millions of residents (including
many with student loans) to flee the city to escape the radiation.
They must find new housing, probably new jobs. And still their
student-loan bills are coming due every month. To prevent
widespread loan delinquencies and defaults, the Secretary wants to
discharge $10,000 for the class of affected borrowers. Is that
legal? Of course it is; it is exactly what Congress provided for.
The statutory preconditions are met: The President has declared a
national emergency; the Secretary’s proposed relief extends only to
“affected individuals”; and the Secretary has deemed the action
“necessary to ensure” that the attack does not place those
borrowers “in a worse position” to repay their loans. §1098bb(a).
And the statutory powers of waiver and modification give the
Secretary the means to offer the needed assistance. He can, for
purposes of this special loan forgiveness program, scratch the
pre-existing conditions for discharge and specify different
conditions met by the affected borrowers. That is what the
congressionally delegated 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 thinking about
pandemics generally. But that is immaterial, because Congress
delegated broadly, for all national emergencies. 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 pandemic 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 “necessary
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, the Secretary’s waiver/modification powers
kick in. And the Secretary used them just as described in the
hypothetical above. For purposes of the COVID program, he scratched
the conditions for loan discharge contained in several provisions.
See App. 261–262 (citing §§1087, 1087dd(g); 34 CFR §§682.402,
685.212). He then altered those provisions by specifying different
conditions, which opened up loan forgiveness to more borrowers. So
he “waive[d]” and “modif[ied]” pre-existing law and, in so doing,
applied new “terms and conditions” “in lieu of ” the old.
§§1098bb(a)(1), (b)(2); see 87 Fed. Reg. 61514. As in the prior
hypothetical, then, he used his statutory emergency powers in the
manner Congress designed.

															How does the majority avoid this conclusion? By
picking the statute apart, and addressing each segment of
Congress’s authorization as if it had nothing to do with the
others. For the first several pages—really, the heart—of its
analysis, the majority proceeds as though the statute contains only
the word “modify.” See ante , at 13–15. It eventually gets
around to the word “waive,” but similarly spends most of its time
treating that word alone. See ante , at 15–16. Only when that
discussion is over does the majority inform the reader that the
statute also contemplates the Secretary’s addition of new terms and
conditions. See ante , at 17–18. But once again the majority
treats that authority in isolation, and thus as insignificant. Each
aspect of the Secretary’s authority—waiver, modification,
replacement—is kept sealed in a vacuum-packed container. The way
they connect and reinforce each other is generally ignored. “Divide
to conquer” is the watchword. So there cannot possibly emerge “a
fair construction of the whole instrument.” McCulloch v. Maryland , 4 Wheat. 316, 406 (1819). The majority fails to
read the statutory authorization right because it fails to read it
whole. See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The
Interpretation of Legal Texts 167–169 (2012) (discussing the
importance of the whole-text—here, really, the
whole-sentence—canon).

															The majority’s cardinal error is reading
“modify” as if it were the only word in the statutory delegation.
Taken alone, this Court once stated, the word connotes “increment”
and means “to change moderately or in minor fashion.” MCI
Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone &
Telegraph Co. , 512 U.S.
218 , 225 (1994). But no sooner did the Court say that much than
it noted the importance of “contextual indications.” Id. , at
226; see Scalia & Garner 167 (“Context is a primary determinant
of meaning”). And in the HEROES Act, the dominant piece of context
is that “modify” does not stand alone. It is one part of a couplet:
“waive or modify.” The first verb, as discussed above, means
eliminate—usually the most substantial kind of change. See supra , at 15; accord, ante , at 16. So the question
becomes: Would Congress have given the Secretary power to wholly
eliminate a requirement, as well as to relax it just a little bit,
but nothing in between? The majority says yes. But the answer is
no, because Congress would not have written so insane a law. The
phrase “waive or modify” instead says to the Secretary: “Feel free
to get rid of a requirement or, short of that, to alter it to the
extent you think appropriate.” Otherwise said, the phrase extends
from minor changes all the way up to major ones.

															The majority fares no better in claiming that
the phrase “waive or modify” somehow limits the Secretary’s ability
“to add to existing law.” Ante , at 18 (emphasis in
original). The majority’s explanation of that idea oscillates a
fair bit. At times the majority tries to convey that “additions” as
a class are somehow suspect. See ante , at 17–18 (looking
askance at “add[ing] new terms,” “adding back in,” “filling the
empty space,” “augment[ing],” and “draft[ing] new” language). But
that is mistaken. Change often (usually?) involves or necessitates
replacements. So when the Secretary uses his statutory power to
remove some conditions on loan cancellation, he can under that same
power replace them with others. The majority itself must ultimately
concede that point. See ante , at 13, 17–18. So it falls back
on arguing that the “additions” allowed cannot be
“substantial[ ]” because the statute uses the word “modify.” Ante , at 16; see ante , at 17–18. But that just
doubles down on the majority’s most basic error: extracting
“modify” from the “waive or modify” phrase in order to confine the
Secretary to making minor changes. As just shown, the phrase as a
whole says the opposite—tells the Secretary that he can make
changes along a spectrum, from modest to substantial. See supra , at 19. And so he can make additions along that
spectrum as well. In particular, if he entirely removes existing
conditions on loan discharge, he can substitute new ones; he does
not have to leave gaping holes.

															Indeed, other language in the statute makes that
substitution authority perfectly clear. As noted earlier, the
statute refers expressly to “the terms and conditions to be applied
in lieu of such [modified or waived] statutory and regulatory
provisions.” §1098bb(b)(2); see supra , at 16. In other
words, the statute expects the Secretary’s waivers and
modifications to involve replacing the usual provisions with
different ones. The majority rejoins that the “in lieu of ”
language is a “wafer-thin reed” for the Secretary to rely on
because it appears in a “humdrum reporting requirement.” Ante , at 17. But the adjectives are by far the best part of
that response. It is perfectly true that the language instructs the
Secretary to “include” his new “terms and conditions” when he
provides notice of his “waivers or modifications.” §1098bb(b)(2).
But that is because the statute contemplates that there will be new
terms and conditions to report. In other words, the statute
proceeds on the premise that the usual waiver or modification will,
contra the majority, involve adding “new substantive” provisions. Ante , at 17. The humdrum reporting requirement thus confirms
the expansive extent of the Secretary’s waiver/modification
authority.

															The majority’s opposing construction makes the
Act inconsequential. The Secretary emerges with no ability to
respond to large-scale emergencies in commensurate ways. The
creation of any “novel and fundamentally different loan forgiveness
program” is off the table. Ante , at 14. So, for example, the
Secretary could not cancel student loans held by victims of the
hypothetical terrorist attack described above. See supra , at
16–17. That too would involve “the introduction of a whole new
regime” by way of “draft[ing] new substantive” conditions for
discharging loans. Ante , at 17–18. And under the majority’s
analysis, new loan forbearance policies are similarly out of
bounds. When COVID struck, Secretary DeVos immediately suspended
loan repayments and interest accrual for all federally held student
loans. See ante , at 5. The majority claims it is not
deciding whether that action was lawful. Ante , at 18,
n. 5. Which is all well and good, except that under the
majority’s reasoning, how could it not be? The suspension too
offered a significant new benefit, and to an even greater number of
borrowers. (Indeed, for many borrowers, it was worth much more than
the current plan’s $10,000 discharge.) So the suspension could no
more meet the majority’s pivotal definition of “modify”—as make a
“minor change[ ]”—than could the forgiveness plan. Ante , at 13. On the majority’s telling, Congress thought
that in the event of a national emergency financially harming
borrowers—under a statute gearing potential relief to the measure
of that harm, so that affected borrowers end up no less able to
repay their loans—the Secretary can do no more than fiddle. He can,
the majority says, “reduc[e] the number of tax forms borrowers are
required to file.” Ibid. Or he can “waive[ ] the
requirement that a student provide a written request for a leave of
absence.” Ante , at 15. But he can do nothing that would
ameliorate an emergency’s economic impact on student-loan
borrowers.

															That is not the statute Congress wrote. The
HEROES Act was designed to deal with national emergencies—typically
major in scope, often unpredictable in nature. It gave the
Secretary discretionary authority to relieve borrowers of the
adverse impacts of many possible crises—as “necessary” to ensure
that those individuals are not “in a worse position financially” to
make repayment. §1098bb(a)(2). If all the Act’s triggers are met,
the Secretary can waive or modify the usual provisions relating to
student loans, and substitute new terms and conditions. That power
extends to the varied provisions governing loan repayment and
discharge. Those provisions are, indeed, the most obvious
candidates for alteration under a statute drafted to leave
borrowers no worse off, in relation to their loans, than before an
emergency struck. But the majority will not accept the statute’s
meaning. At every pass, it “impos[es] limits on an agency’s
discretion that are not supported by the text.” Little Sisters
of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania ,
591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 16). It refuses to
apply the Act in accordance with its terms. Explains the majority:
“However broad the meaning of ‘waive or modify’ ”—meaning
however much power Congress gave the Secretary—this program is just
too large. Ante , at 18.

															B

															The tell comes in the last part of the
majority’s opinion. When a court is confident in its interpretation
of a statute’s text, it spells out its reading and hits the send
button. Not this Court, not today. This Court needs a whole other
chapter to explain why it is striking down the Secretary’s plan.
And that chapter is not about the statute Congress passed and the
President signed, in their representation of many millions of
citizens. It instead expresses the Court’s own “concerns over the
exercise of administrative power.” Ante , at 19. Congress may
have wanted the Secretary to have wide discretion during
emergencies to offer relief to student-loan borrowers. Congress in
fact drafted a statute saying as much. And the Secretary acted
under that statute in a way that subjects the President he serves
to political accountability—the judgment of voters. But none of
that is enough. This Court objects to Congress’s permitting the
Secretary (and other agency officials) to answer so-called major
questions. Or at least it objects when the answers given are not to
the Court’s satisfaction. So the Court puts its own heavyweight
thumb on the scales. It insists that “[h]owever broad” Congress’s
delegation to the Secretary, it (the Court) will not allow him to
use that general authorization to resolve important issues. The
question, the majority helpfully tells us, is “who has the
authority” to make such significant calls. Ibid. The answer,
as is now becoming commonplace, is this Court. See, e.g. , West Virginia , 597 U. S. ___; Alabama Assn. of
Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs. , 594
U. S. ___ (2021); see also Sackett v. EPA , 598
U. S. ___ (2023) (using a similar judicially manufactured tool
to negate statutory text enabling regulation).

															The majority’s stance, as I explained last Term,
prevents Congress from doing its policy-making job in the way it
thinks best. See West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___–___,
___–___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 13–19, 28–33). The new
major-questions doctrine works not to better understand—but instead
to trump—the scope of a legislative delegation. See id. , at
___ (slip op., at 32). Here is a fact of the matter: Congress
delegates to agencies often and broadly. And it usually does so for
sound reasons. Because agencies have expertise Congress lacks.
Because times and circumstances change, and agencies are better
able to keep up and respond. Because Congress knows that if it had
to do everything, many desirable and even necessary things wouldn’t
get done. In wielding the major-questions sword, last Term and this
one, this Court overrules those legislative judgments. The doctrine
forces Congress to delegate in highly specific terms—respecting,
say, loan forgiveness of certain amounts for borrowers of certain
incomes during pandemics of certain magnitudes. Of course Congress
sometimes delegates in that way. But also often not. Because if
Congress authorizes loan forgiveness, then what of loan
forbearance? And what of the other 10 or 20 or 50 knowable and
unknowable things the Secretary could do? And should the measure
taken—whether forgiveness or forbearance or anything else—always be
of the same size? Or go to the same classes of people? Doesn’t it
depend on the nature and scope of the pandemic, and on a host of
other foreseeable and unforeseeable factors? You can see the
problem. It is hard to identify and enumerate every possible
application of a statute to every possible condition years in the
future. So, again, Congress delegates broadly. Except that this
Court now won’t let it reap the benefits of that choice.

															And that is a major problem not just for
governance, but for democracy too. Congress is of course a
democratic institution; it responds, even if imperfectly, to the
preferences of American voters. And agency officials, though not
themselves elected, serve a President with the broadest of all
political constituencies. But this Court? It is, by design, as
detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the Court
is supposed to stick to its business—to decide only cases and
controversies (but see supra , at 3–13), and to stay away
from making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan
relief. The policy judgments, under our separation of powers, are
supposed to come from Congress and the President. But they don’t
when the Court refuses to respect the full scope of the delegations
that Congress makes to the Executive Branch. When that happens, the
Court becomes the arbiter—indeed, the maker—of national policy. See West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (Kagan, J.,
dissenting) (slip op., at 32) (“The Court, rather than Congress,
will decide how much regulation is too much”). That is no proper
role for a court. And it is a danger to a democratic order.

															The HEROES Act is a delegation both purposive
and clear. Recall that Congress enacted the statute after passing
two similar laws responding to specific crises. See supra ,
at 14. Congress knew that national emergencies would continue to
arise. And Congress decided that when they did, the Secretary
should have the power to offer relief without waiting for another,
incident-specific round of legislation. Emergencies, after all, are
emergencies, where speed is of the essence. For similar reasons,
Congress replicated its prior (two-time) choice to leave the scope
and nature of the loan relief to the Secretary, so that he could
respond to varied conditions. As the House Report noted, Congress
provided “the authority to implement waivers” that were “not yet
contemplated” but might become necessary to deal with “any
unforeseen issues that may arise.” H. R. Rep. No. 108–122, pp. 8–9
(2003). That delegation is at the statute’s very center, in its
“waive or modify” language. And the authority it grants goes only
to the Secretary—the official Congress knew to hold the
responsibility for administering the Government’s student-loan
portfolio and programs. See §1082. Student loans are in the
Secretary’s wheelhouse. And so too, Congress decided, relief from
those loan obligations in case of emergency. That delegation was
the entire point of the HEROES Act. Indeed, the statute
accomplishes nothing else.

															The majority is therefore wrong to say that the
“indicators from our previous major questions cases are present
here.” Ante , at 23 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Compare the HEROES Act to other statutes containing broad
delegations that the same majority has found to raise
major-questions problems. Last Term, for example, the majority
thought the trouble with the Clean Power Plan lay in the EPA’s use
of a “long-extant” and “ancillary” provision addressed to other
matters. West Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at
20). Before that, the majority invalidated the CDC’s eviction
moratorium because the agency had asserted authority far outside
its “particular domain.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors , 594
U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6). I thought both those decisions
wrong. But assume the opposite; there is, even on that view,
nothing like those circumstances here. (Or, to quote the majority
quoting me, those “case[s are] distinguishable from this one.” Ante , at 23.) In this case, the Secretary responsible for
carrying out the student-loan programs forgave student loans in a
national emergency under the core provision of a recently enacted
statute empowering him to provide student-loan relief in national
emergencies.[ 3 ] Today’s
decision thus moves the goalposts for triggering the
major-questions doctrine. Who knows—by next year, the Secretary of
Health and Human Services may be found unable to implement the
Medicare program under a broad delegation because of his actions’
(enormous) “economic impact.” Ante , at 21.

															To justify this use of its
heightened-specificity requirement, the majority relies largely on
history: “[P]ast waivers and modifications,” the majority argues,
“have been extremely modest.” Ante , at 20. But first, it
depends what you think is “past.” One prior action, nowhere counted
by the majority, is the suspension of loan payments and interest
accrual begun in COVID’s first days. That action cost the Federal
Government over $100 billion, and benefited many more borrowers
than the forgiveness plan at issue. See supra , at 21. And
second, it’s all relative. Past actions were more modest because
the precipitating emergencies were more modest. (The COVID
emergency generated, all told, over $5 trillion in
Government relief spending.) In providing more significant relief
for a more significant emergency—or call it unprecedented relief
for an unprecedented emergency—the Secretary did what the HEROES
Act contemplates. Imagine asking the enacting Congress: Can the
Secretary use his powers to give borrowers more relief when an
emergency has inflicted greater harm? I can’t believe the majority
really thinks Congress would have answered “no.” In any event, the
statute Congress passed does not say “no.” Delegations like the
HEROES Act are designed to enable agencies to “adapt their rules
and policies to the demands of changing circumstances.” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. , 529 U.S.
120 , 157 (2000). Congress allows, and indeed expects, agencies
to take more serious measures in response to more serious
problems.

															Similarly unavailing is the majority’s reliance
on the controversy surrounding the program. Student-loan
cancellation, the majority says, “raises questions that are
personal and emotionally charged,” precipitating “profound debate
across the country.” Ante , at 22. I have no quarrel with
that description. Student-loan forgiveness, and responses to COVID
generally, have joined the list of issues on which this Nation is
divided. But that provides yet more reason for the Court to adhere
to its properly limited role. There are two paths here. One is to
respect the political branches’ judgments. On that path, the Court
recognizes the breadth of Congress’s delegation to the Secretary,
and declines to interfere with his use of that granted authority.
Maybe Congress was wrong to give the Secretary so much discretion;
or maybe he, and the President he serves, did not make good use of
it. But if so, there are political remedies—accountability for all
the actors, up to the President, who the public thinks have made
mistakes. So a political controversy is resolved by political
means, as our Constitution requires. That is one path. Now here is
the other, the one the Court takes. Wielding its judicially
manufactured heightened-specificity requirement, the Court refuses
to acknowledge the plain words of the HEROES Act. It declines to
respect Congress’s decision to give broad emergency powers to the
Secretary. It strikes down his lawful use of that authority to
provide student-loan assistance. It does not let the political
system, with its mechanisms of accountability, operate as normal.
It makes itself the decisionmaker on, of all things, federal
student-loan policy. And then, perchance, it wonders why it has
only compounded the “sharp debates” in the country? Ibid. III

															From the first page to the last, today’s
opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint. At the
behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides
a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the
politically accountable branches and the people they represent. In
saying so, and saying so strongly, I do not at all
“disparage[ ]” those who disagree. Ante , at 26. The
majority is right to make that point, as well as to say that
“[r]easonable minds” are found on both sides of this case. Ante , at 25. And there is surely nothing personal in the
dispute here. But Justices throughout history have raised the alarm
when the Court has overreached—when it has “exceed[ed] its proper,
limited role in our Nation’s governance.” Supra , at 1. It
would have been “disturbing,” and indeed damaging, if they had not. Ante , at 25. The same is true in our own day.

															The majority’s opinion begins by distorting
standing doctrine to create a case fit for judicial resolution. But
there is no such case here, by any ordinary measure. The
Secretary’s plan has not injured the plaintiff-States, however much
they oppose it. And in that respect, Missouri is no different from
any of the others. Missouri does not suffer any harm from a revenue
loss to MOHELA, because the two entities are legally and
financially independent. And MOHELA has chosen not to sue—which of
course it could have. So no proper party is before the Court. A
court acting like a court would have said as much and stopped.

															The opinion ends by applying the Court’s made-up
major-questions doctrine to jettison the Secretary’s loan
forgiveness plan. Small wonder the majority invokes the doctrine.
The majority’s “normal” statutory interpretation cannot sustain its
decision. The statute, read as written, gives the Secretary broad
authority to relieve a national emergency’s effect on borrowers’
ability to repay their student loans. The Secretary did no more
than use that lawfully delegated authority. So the majority applies
a rule specially crafted to kill significant regulatory action, by
requiring Congress to delegate not just clearly but also micro-
specifically. The question, the majority maintains, is “who has the
authority” to decide whether such a significant action should go
forward. Ante , at 19; see supra , at 23. The right
answer is the political branches: Congress in broadly authorizing
loan relief, the Secretary and the President in using that
authority to implement the forgiveness plan. The majority instead
says that it is theirs to decide.

															So in a case not a case, the majority overrides
the combined judgment of the Legislative and Executive Branches,
with the consequence of eliminating loan forgiveness for 43 million
Americans. I respectfully dissent from that decision. Notes 1 The same goes for the
majority’s other case about Amtrak, which just “reiterate[s]” Lebron ’s reasoning. Ante , at 11; see Department of
Transportation v. Association of American Railroads , 575
U.S. 43 (2015). There too we held that Amtrak was a “governmental
entity” for purposes of the “requirements of the
Constitution”—specifically, the nondelegation doctrine. Id. ,
at 54. And there too we kept our holding as limited as possible,
repeatedly stating that we were treating Amtrak as the Government
for that purpose alone. See, e.g. , id. , at 51 (“for
purposes of separation-of-powers analysis under the Constitution”); id. , at 54 (“for purposes of the Constitution’s separation
of powers provisions”); id. , at 55 (“for purposes of
determining the constitutional issues presented in this case”). As
for any other purpose? Not a word to suggest the same result. And
as even the majority concedes, “a public corporation can count as
part of the State for some but not other purposes.” Ante , at
12, n. 3 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Amtrak
decisions, to continue borrowing the majority’s language, “said
nothing about, and had no reason to address, whether an injury to
[a] public corporation is a harm to the [Government].” Ibid. 2 More specifically, the
Secretary determined that without a loan discharge, 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 expresses doubt about that finding, though says that its
skepticism plays no role in its decision. See ante , at
18–19, n. 6. Far better if the majority had ruled on that
alternative ground. Then, the Court’s invalidation of the
Secretary’s plan would not have neutered the statute for all future
uses. But in any event, the skepticism is unwarranted. All the
majority says to support it is that the current “paus[e]” on
“interest accrual and loan repayments” could achieve the same end. Ibid. But the majority gives no reason for concluding that
the pause would work just as well to ensure that borrowers are not
“placed in a worse position financially in relation to” their loans
because of the COVID emergency. §1098bb(a)(2)(A). How could it
possibly know? And in any event, the majority’s view of the statute
would also make the pause unlawful, as later discussed. See infra , at 21. So the availability of the pause can hardly
provide a basis for the majority’s questioning of the Secretary’s
finding that cancellation is necessary. 3 The nature of the
delegation here poses a particular challenge for Justice Barrett,
given her distinctive understanding of the major-questions
doctrine. In her thoughtful concurrence, she notes the “importance
of context when a court interprets a delegation to an
administrative agency.” Ante , at 2 (emphasis in original). I
agree, and have said so; there are, indeed, some significant
overlaps between my and Justice Barrett’s views on properly
contextual interpretation of delegation provisions. See West
Virginia , 597 U. S., at ___–___ (dissenting opinion) (slip
op., at 14–19). But then consider two of the contextual factors
Justice Barrett views as “telltale sign[s]” of whether an agency
has exceeded the scope of a delegation. Ante , at 12. First,
she asks, is there a “mismatch[ ]” between a “backwater
provision” or “subtle device” and an agency’s exercise of power? Ibid. And second, is the agency official operating within or
“outside [his] wheelhouse”? Ante , at 12–13. Here, for the
reasons stated above, there is no mismatch: The broadly worded
“waive or modify” delegation IS the HEROES Act, not some tucked
away ancillary provision. And as Justice Barrett agrees, “this is
not a case where the agency is operating entirely outside its usual
domain.” Ante , at 15. So I could practically rest my case on
Justice Barrett’s reasoning.

Summary: The case concerns the legality of the Secretary of Education's plan to cancel federal student loan debt for millions of borrowers under the HEROES Act. The Supreme Court ruled that the HEROES Act does not authorize the Secretary's plan, agreeing with the six states that sued, citing the terms of federal loans set by law rather than market forces. The Court's decision invalidates the loan cancellation plan, with Justice Barrett's concurrence noting the importance of context in interpreting delegations of power to administrative agencies.