The enabling law for this policy was the 2003 HERO's Act, which has been used prior to Biden's student loan forgiveness plan to modify loan conditions.
The Biden administration used the emergency of the pandemic to justify loan forgiveness under the Heroes Act.
…Except the exact same week student loan forgiveness was announced, Biden went on 60 minutes and announced that the pandemic was over.
So even if you accept the argument that the Heroes act justified widescale forgiveness, the Biden administration did itself no favors selling that argument.
The cited reason in statute for the ability to waive or modify student loan provisions was to provide relief for hardship during a national emergency. Just because the emergency was technically near completion doesn't mean that there wasn't broad hardship that could be given relief.
Just like, say, the official national emergency of katrina ended waaaayyy before many of those affected no longer faced hardship from the emergency.
> Before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, Governor Katherine Babineaux Blanco declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on August 26, 2005, and asked President Bush to do the same at the federal level the next day, a request with which he complied. This authorized FEMA to organize and mobilize resources as it saw fit to help the residents of New Orleans (Office of the Press Secretary 2005).
…Except the exact same week student loan forgiveness was announced, Biden went on 60 minutes and announced that the pandemic was over.
So even if you accept the argument that the Heroes act justified widescale forgiveness, the Biden administration did itself no favors selling that argument.