Supreme Court 6-3 shoots down mutt Biden mandates

The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private businesses but decided to let a separate regulation that requires health care workers to get a vaccine take effect.

In a 6–3 ruling, justices halted the mandate for all private employers with 100 or more workers, ruling the states and companies that challenged the rule were likely to succeed.

Biden administration officials had argued that the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) of 1970 gave them the authority to impose the mandate, but a majority of justices disagreed.

“Applicants are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary lacked authority to impose the mandate. Administrative agencies are creatures of statute. They accordingly possess only the authority that Congress has provided. The Secretary has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a COVID–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no ‘everyday exercise of federal power.’ It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees,” the majority wrote in a slip opinion.

The ruling came from Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, George W. Bush nominees; Clarence Thomas, a George H. W. Bush nominee; and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, all Trump nominees.

Justices Breyer, a Clinton nominee, and Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both Obama nominees, dissented.

They wrote in their dissent that the law in question did not limit the labor secretary’s powers.

The majority “impose[d] a limit found no place in the governing statute,” they asserted.

“Not so,” the majority rejoined. “It is the text of the agency’s Organic Act that repeatedly makes clear that OSHA is charged with regulating ‘occupational’ hazards and the safety and health of ’employees.'”

While Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in an earlier brief did not dispute that OSHA is limited in regulating “work-related dangers,” she claimed that the risk of contracting COVID-19 qualifies as such a danger.

“We cannot agree,” the majority continued. “Although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most. COVID-19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases. Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life—simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock—would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”

The ruling means the mandate is blocked while the case goes back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, which overturned a stay that had been imposed by a different appeals court.

OSHA is part of the Department of Labor.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who brought one of the challenges against the mandate, said in a statement the ruling was “a massive win for millions of workers and businesses across the country, including Doolittle Manufacturing here in Missouri, who would’ve had to shutter their doors if this mandate was not halted.”

“While we’re disappointed in the Supreme Court’s ruling on our lawsuit against the health care worker vaccine mandate, that fight is far from over, and the case is still ongoing,” he added.
...
https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-blocks-business-vaccine-rule-declines-to-stay-healthcare-worker-mandate_4211577.html