The Biden administration filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court last week, demanding that it lift a lower court ruling that blocks the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) Plan.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote to the justices, “The rule is a straightforward exercise of the Department’s express statutory authority to set the parameters of income-contingent repayment plans — just as it has done for three decades.”
The Supreme Court struck down an earlier plan last year in a 6-3 vote.
According to The Hill, the SAVE Plan’s “first phase began last fall, raising the income protected from payments from 150 percent above the federal poverty guidelines to 225 percent and waiving accrued unpaid interest outside the calculated payments.”
The plan’s second phase was to begin in July, “dropping payments on undergraduate loans from 10 percent of discretionary income to 5 percent and other loan forgiveness options for certain groups.”
Several states successfully urged the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the SAVE Plan last month.
Following the emergency appeal, U.S. states filed a “brief reminding the Court that they already sided with us on this issue once,” Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote on X.
The filing calls for the court to “reject the Government’s aggressive attempt to use an emergency application to vacate the Eighth Circuit’s sound ruling.”
“Indeed, given the Government’s failure to follow settled legal principles, this Court would be justified in issuing a quick opinion that rejects the Government’s statutory position, just like the Court did in Alabama Association of Realtors. Otherwise, the States do not oppose certiorari before judgment.”
