6th Circuit Vacates Penalty Against NCLA Client; SCOTUS Should Reject Student Loan Cancellation Plan

Sixth Circuit Vacates Penalty Against NCLA Client

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has issued a ruling in Polyweave Packaging v. U.S. Dept. of Transportation to vacate the civil penalty against Polyweave Packaging, Inc. and remand back to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). NCLA, which represents Polyweave, petitioned for review a decision of PHMSA’s Chief Safety Officer—a career civil servant who is not politically accountable and thus lacks appropriate authority—after he issued a Final Decision affirming alleged violations against Polyweave and assessing a civil penalty of $14,460. The agency has since conceded that the Chief Safety Office was not properly appointed at the time of the decision in October 2021.

NCLA Litigation Counsel Sheng Li joins the show to discuss NCLA’s victory in Polyweave v. Dept. of Transportation.

SCOTUS Should Reject Student Loan Cancellation Plan

NCLA has filed an amicus curiae brief, supporting two separate Supreme Court cases challenging the Biden Administration’s unlawful student loan debt cancellation plan. Biden, et al. v. Nebraska, et al. and Department of Education, et al. v. Brown, et al. contest the government’s invocation of the HEROES Act to rewrite statutory provisions and cancel hundreds of billions of dollars owed to the Treasury, which violates both the Vesting and Appropriations Clauses. NCLA is challenging the same Loan Cancellation Program on behalf of the Cato Institute in a separate case pending in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. NCLA offers the Court an alternative basis to find standing. The States involved in this litigation—Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, and South Carolina—would suffer concrete injuries because the government’s unlawful conduct deprives the States of benefits guaranteed by the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program.