Senate ratifies rail deal to stop strike, Supreme Court takes student debt case

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman discusses the U.S. Senate passing legislation that will prevent a rail strike and the Supreme Court agreeing to take up a case on Biden's student debt plan.

Video transcript

[AUDIO LOGO]

JULIE HYMAN: The US Senate has passed legislation to prevent a rail strike in a series of hurried negotiations just days before crucial shipments were said to be sidelined. Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman has been tracking all of this action. Good morning, Rick. How are you doing?

So it seems like that they have averted this. It seems like the president is set to sign it here. And I believe the sick leave provisions were kept out of this final agreement, correct?

RICK NEWMAN: Right, so basically what both Houses of Congress have now done is basically ratified the deal, ordered both sides to accept the deal that was negotiated, what, a couple of months ago at this point.

There was a small chance-- and Congress could have done this. They could have actually changed the deal and said-- given the railway unions what they were asking for, which is instead of one sick day per year raise that to seven sick days per year. But it looks as if there were not the votes in the Senate to do that. The House actually did pass that but it looked like the Senate just didn't have the votes. And let's keep in mind, that would have required 60 to overcome the filibuster in the Senate.

But there were large numbers that voted in favor of just ratifying the deal that was there. And President Biden's gonna sign this. And that's the end of the story. We're not going to have to-- we are just not gonna have to deal with a rail strike. And I think everybody's pretty relieved about that.

BRAD SMITH: All right, well, since it's the end of the story there. What about for the Supreme Court? They've agreed to hear President Biden's case on student loan debt forgiveness. Rick, what can we expect?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, the plot thickens there. Totally different story. So the courts have stopped in place Biden's debt forgiveness plan for up to $20,000 in student debt forgiveness. I think everybody following this knew there were going to be court challenges because Congress did not do this by passing a law. Biden did it by executive order. And there are real questions about whether he has the authority to do that.

So legal action against it was inevitable. That happened. There were some appeals courts, at least two of them said, OK, we're putting the whole thing on hold while it goes through the legal process. The Biden administration went straight to the Supreme Court and said, instead of making this go through the courts for years, can you just-- can the Supreme Court just take this case? And yesterday, the Supreme Court said, yes, they are gonna take the case. They will hear it in February with a decision likely by the end of June, which is when the court's term ends.

And I think there is considerable likelihood that the Supreme Court is gonna say, no, the president does not have the authority to do this and strike the whole thing down. This Supreme Court does not worry about upsetting anybody with unpopular opinions, as we know from the overturn of Roe v Wade last summer. So it is very possible the Supreme Court could say, no, the president can't do this. And it would not happen at that point.

BRAD SMITH: Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman, thanks for breaking this down. And of course--

RICK NEWMAN: Bye, guys.

BRAD SMITH: --tracking all the moving parts. Appreciate it, Rick.