The Supreme Courts conservative justices looked ready to void President Joe Biden s targeted student loan relief plan during arguments on Tuesday, although the debt relief could live on if two conservatives side with the liberal justices and deny the plaintiffs standing to sue.

At least five of the six conservative justices appeared skeptical of arguments made by Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar that the student loan relief program was legal. They questioned Secretary of Education Miguel Cardonas authority under the HEROES Act to cancel student loan debt and implied that such an action violated the courts so-called major questions doctrine, which forbids executive regulatory actions of vast economic or political significance that were not expressly authorized by Congress.

The only seeming hope for the more than 40 million student loan borrowers scheduled for up to $20,000 in debt relief is for the court to deny standing to the six states and two individuals suing to block the program. The courts three liberal justices were clearly opposed to granting the plaintiffs standing, while conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared highly skeptical of standing arguments made by the states.

In questioning the legality of the student loan program, conservative justices first focused on the definitions of the words waive and modify in the 2003 HEROES Act, the law used to authorize the program. That law enables the secretary of education to waive or modify elements of federal student loan debts during a declared national emergency. Conservatives questioned whether the programs cancellation of up to $20,000 in debt exceeded the definition of waive or modify.

At least one prior court definition of modify suggested only moderate change, Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out.

It might be good English to say that the French Revolution modified the status of the French nobility, but only because there is a figure of speech called understatement and a literary device known as sarcasm, Roberts said, quoting from a prior opinion by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Were talking about half a trillion dollars and 43 million Americans, Roberts added. How does that fit under the normal understanding of modify?

Instead of a waiver or modification, the program amounted to a grant that should have gone through the congressional appropriations process, Justice Clarence Thomas argued, citing friend-of-the-court briefs submitted by opponents of the program.

Prelogar countered these questions by noting that the HEROES Act authorizes any modification or waiver of elements of federal student loan debt and that the cancellation of debt simply amounted to both a waiver and modification of the terms of eligible loans. And since no money is pulled from the Treasury, the program does not run afoul of the Constitutions Appropriations Clause, she said.