The Biden administration today filed an emergency motion to reinstate its vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more employees. OSHA suspended enforcement of the new standard last week after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit voted to continue the temporary stay it had issued on November 6.
The stay was issued based on challenges to the mandate claiming that it represents overreach by OSHA. Today’s motion questions that assertion:
“[The] court’s principal rationale was that OSHA allegedly lacked statutory authority to address the grave danger in the workplace on the ground that COVID-19 is caused by a virus and also exists outside the workplace. That rationale has no basis in the statutory text. Congress charged OSHA with addressing grave dangers in the workplace, without any carve-out for viruses or dangers that also happen to exist outside the workplace.”
OSHA believes that the standard will save over 6,500 worker lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations over the next six months.
