The Supreme Court defines the forgiveness of student debts in the US.

(CNN) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday on President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program, an initiative aimed at providing debt relief to millions of student loan borrowers that has so far been stalled due to legal issues.

Republican-led states and conservatives who question the program say it amounts to an illegal attempt to erase an estimated $430 billion of federal student loan debt under the guise of the pandemic.

At the heart of the case is whether the Department of Education had the authority to forgive the loans. Several of the conservative justices have pointed out in recent years that the agencies, without direct accountability to the public, have become too powerful, upsetting the separation of powers.

Tuesday’s decision will also highlight an important question that could prevent the court from getting to the bottom of the dispute: whether the parties behind the challenge have the legal right, or “standing,” to sue.

The arguments

The Biden administration argues that the education secretary had clear authority to provide the aid to borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year ($250,000 for households) in 2020 or 2021 to protect them from harm. caused by the pandemic, such as the inability to buy food or make rent or mortgage payments.

On the state side, Nebraska Attorney General Michael T. Hilgers, who also represents Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina, stressed that the Biden government exceeded its authority by using the pandemic as a pretext to mask the true goal of fulfilling an election promise to erase student loan debt.

The Court is hearing oral arguments in a matter that is on hold after a lower court blocked the plan in November.

Judge Neil Gorsuch

During Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Neil Gorsuch asked if the Biden administration considered the cost this will take for people who are ineligible for the student loan forgiveness program because they don’t have student loans.

The plaintiffs said that what is missing from the government’s analysis, according to Gorsuch, is the “cost to other people in terms of equity, for example, people who have repaid their loans … and people who are not directly eligible for the loans”.

He was referring to Americans who did not go to college or who have already paid off their student loans, who will not see a direct benefit from the Biden program, which the Congressional Budget Office has estimated will cost $400 billion.

About 81% of households with incomes less than $125,000 a year have no student loan debt, according to an analysis last year by Matthew Chingos, vice president of education data and policy at the Urban Institute. He based the estimate on the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances conducted by the Federal Reserve.

The so-called “important issues doctrine”

The so-called “important issues doctrine” was widely mentioned and received a lot of attention during the debate of the red states case before the judges on Tuesday. But what exactly does it consist of?

In the previous term, the Court cited the “important issues doctrine” in a 6-3 decision that curbed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to widely regulate carbon emissions from existing power plants.

Under this theory, if an agency acts in a way that could have significant political or economic implications, it must have the authority of Congress. What the states are arguing is that, essentially, the college debt relief plan is too big for the Biden administration to use the authority of the Department of Education alone.