Delegated authority

Topics

• OBBBA student loan caps take effect, ending Grad PLUS for new borrowers
• Senators ask Fed watchdog to probe Bowman Wall Street dinner
• US declines to renew USMCA, begins annual reviews of $2 trillion trade deal

Bills

No direct record in this edition.

Court cases

• Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump

  Learning Resources asks whether the challenged tariffs remained within the authority Congress delegated through IEEPA.

Practice questions

• As of July 1, 2026, the federal Grad PLUS Loan Program no longer exists for new graduate borrowers. What was the primary borrowing limit under Grad PLUS before it was eliminated?
• The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) created two separate federal borrowing tiers for graduate students starting July 1, 2026. A student in a master's program in social work and a student in a law school program face different annual caps. What are those caps?
• Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) through the budget reconciliation process, not through regular Senate floor procedure. What is the most important procedural difference between reconciliation and regular Senate legislation?
• During the Senate debate over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) in June and July of 2025, the Senate Parliamentarian struck several student loan provisions from the bill during what is called the "Byrd bath." What does the Byrd Rule prohibit in a reconciliation bill?
• On July 1, 2025, the Senate passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) by a vote of 51 to 50. Three Republican senators voted against the bill: Rand Paul of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine. What role did Vice President JD Vance play in that result?
• The OBBBA loan caps affect a larger share of master's degree students than professional degree students, even though professional programs are more expensive.
• The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the OBBBA's graduate loan caps will save taxpayers $44 billion over ten years. Supporters also say the caps will pressure schools to lower tuition. Critics counter that the savings come at the cost of degree access. What is the core mechanism by which loan caps could push down graduate tuition?
• The Department of Education published the RISE (Reimagining and Improving Student Education) Final Rule on May 1, 2026, to implement the OBBBA's loan caps. A coalition of 25 states and the District of Columbia sued the Department, not over the loan caps themselves, but over how the Department defined "professional degree program." What legal argument did the states make?
• Judge Howell's June 24, 2026, order stopped the OBBBA's student loan caps from taking effect on July 1, 2026.
• The Grad PLUS Loan Program was created by Congress in 2005 through the Deficit Reduction Act, which was itself a budget reconciliation bill. What problem was Congress trying to solve when it created Grad PLUS, and why is it significant that reconciliation was also used to eliminate it in 2025?
• On July 1, 2026, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed, and Chris Van Hollen sent a letter to Federal Reserve Inspector General Michael Horowitz. What did the letter ask Horowitz to do?
• The Federal Reserve's FOMC blackout period runs from two Saturdays before a meeting until midnight the day after the meeting concludes, prohibiting officials from publicly discussing monetary policy with anyone who could profit from that information.
• Former Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank President Patrick Harker, who spent a decade subject to FOMC blackout rules, said the rules about Bowman's Bank of America dinner "left no room for interpretation." What was Harker's specific reasoning?
• The Inspector General of the Federal Reserve has the authority to fire officials found to have violated ethics rules.
• As Vice Chair for Supervision, Michelle Bowman has direct authority over which institutions? Why does her attendance at a Bank of America-hosted dinner make that significant?
• Kevin Warsh was confirmed as Federal Reserve Chair on May 13, 2026, by a 54-45 Senate vote. What made that vote historically significant?
• In September 2021, Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan and Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren both resigned after reporting exposed their personal stock trades during 2020, when they were setting pandemic-era monetary policy. What does the 2021 trading scandal teach about how Fed ethics accountability actually works?
• The Fed's external communications policy explicitly bans senior officials from attending any closed-door event hosted by a for-profit organization at any time of year, not just during the FOMC blackout period.
• Place these events from the Bowman-Bank of America dinner story in the correct chronological order.
• The Standing Repo Facility (SRF) is a Federal Reserve monetary policy tool the FOMC established in July 2021. Why does Bowman reportedly discussing the SRF at the Bank of America dinner make the ethics concern more serious?
• On July 1, 2026, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced that the United States would not renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement in its current form. What immediate legal consequence did that decision trigger?
• True or False: USMCA Article 34.7 requires that all three parties — the US, Mexico, and Canada — unanimously confirm they want to extend the agreement in order for the extension to take effect.
• Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations" and "to lay and collect... Duties." The USMCA was implemented through a congressional statute in 2020. What does this constitutional structure mean for any USMCA replacement agreement the Trump administration negotiates?
• Place these events in the order they occurred in the USMCA tariff and review timeline from 2020 to 2026.
• On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that IEEPA — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — doesn't authorize the president to impose tariffs. Within hours of that ruling, Trump issued a new proclamation. What statutory authority did he invoke?
• NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, entered into force on January 1, 1994, after President George H.W. Bush signed it in December 1992 and Congress approved it in November 1993. Trump called NAFTA "the worst trade deal ever made" during his 2016 campaign. By 2020 he had replaced it with USMCA, calling it "the best trade deal ever signed." How did the US auto sector's employment pattern change between 1994 and 2020 under NAFTA?
• USMCA requires that 40 percent of a passenger vehicle's value be produced by workers earning at least $16 per hour — a rule designed to narrow the wage gap between Mexican and US auto workers. In 2025, about 550,000 Mexican workers were employed in the auto sector. Why did the US negotiate this Labor Value Content rule into USMCA, and what does it aim to prevent?
• Jamieson Greer was confirmed by the Senate as the 20th U.S. Trade Representative on February 27, 2025. He personally hosted the July 1, 2026 virtual trilateral meeting at which the US declined to renew USMCA. What was Greer's prior connection to the USMCA?
• The USMCA was implemented through a "congressional-executive agreement" — an act of Congress approved by simple majorities in both chambers. A formal treaty under Article II of the Constitution requires a two-thirds Senate vote. The USMCA implementing act passed the Senate 89-10. Why do free trade agreements get structured as congressional-executive agreements rather than Article II treaties?
• In the months before the July 1, 2026 USMCA joint review, Canada and Mexico pursued sharply different strategies with the United States. Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on US goods; Mexico entered bilateral USMCA talks with USTR as early as March 2026. A third round of US-Mexico talks was scheduled for the week of July 20. What risk does Canada's retaliatory posture create for its negotiating position?
• Which institution writes the statutes that delegate tariff authority?
• The Supreme Court held that IEEPA authorized the tariff program challenged in Learning Resources.
• Which branch receives the Constitution's power to regulate commerce with foreign nations?
• What gives an executive agency delegated tariff authority?
• After one statutory basis fails in court, what must a new executive tariff action do?
• The administration's reported Section 122 tariff route was described as what kind of measure?
• What longer-lived route did the administration reportedly pursue after the IEEPA decision?
• Presidential administration of a tariff statute permanently transfers Congress's foreign-commerce power to the president.