Biden to extend loan pause as battle drags on

WASHINGTON » President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will extend the pause on federal student loan payments while the White House fights a legal battle to save his plan to cancel portions of the debt.

“It isn’t fair to ask tens of millions of borrowers eligible for relief to resume their student debt payments while the courts consider the lawsuit,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter.

The moratorium was slated to expire Jan. 1, a date that Biden set before his debtcancellation plan stalled in the face of legal challenges from conservative opponents.

Now it will extend until 60 days after the lawsuit is resolved. If the lawsuit has not been resolved by June 30, payments would resume 60 days after that.

The Justice Department last week asked the Supreme Court to examine the issue and reinstate Biden’s debtcancellation plan.

The Biden administration warned that Americans will face financial strain if the plan remains stalled in court.

The Justice Department is fighting to keep Biden’s plan alive after it was halted by two federal courts in recent weeks. The agency is asking for quick action to block both rulings and allow the plan to take effect even as it plays out in the nation’s courts.

In a legal filing, the administration announced plans to appeal one of those rulings, by a federal appeals court in St. Louis, to the nation’s highest court. And it says it is prepared to appeal the other case if needed.

The White House has said it will prevail, but even some supporters of the plan worry about its chances before a conservative Supreme Court that has scaled back Biden’s authority in other ways, including in a June decision curbing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to limit power-plant emissions.