The student loan case is out: "The court agrees with the states that the HEROES Act does not authorize the debt forgiveness plan."

I'm quoting SCOTUSblog.

Here's the opinion: Biden v. Nebraska.

Another 6-3 conservative liberal split. The Chief Justice writes the main opinion, there's a Barrett concurrence, and Justice Kagan dissents, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson.

Excerpt from the majority opinion:

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”...). 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 spend- ing 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.

Justice Kagan's dissent, arguing for a narrow view of standing, quotes Chief Justice Roberts's dissenting opinion in the 2007 case, Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the majority went quite far in giving the states standing to sue:

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 seri- ously 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 1970s-era standing decision in question is United States v. SCRAP.)