President Joe Biden’s Department of Labor has withdrawn its coronavirus vaccine-or-test mandate for large US employers after the Supreme Court blocked his order.
On Tuesday – 12 days after the high court’s decision – the Biden filed a motion to have lawsuits against the mandate for businesses dismissed
‘The US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is withdrawing the vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard issued on Nov. 5, 2021, to protect unvaccinated employees of large employers with 100 or more employees from workplace exposure to coronavirus,’ the administration stated in a motion.
‘The withdrawal is effective January 26, 2022.’
It asks for existing lawsuits against the mandate to be considered moot.
The mandate created by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under Biden’s guidance required businesses with at least 100 workers to require them to be vaccinated or provide regular tests and wear masks. It would have applied to 84million people.
In the federal register, OSHA said it was withdrawing the emergency temporary standard, but that it would stay as a proposal for a requirement to become permanent.
‘OSHA strongly encourages vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by COVID-19 in the workplace,’ the agency stated.
The Supreme Court struck down Biden’s mandate in a 6-3 vote on January 13, with three liberal justices dissenting.
‘Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given that agency the power to regulate public health more broadly,’ the court stated in its opinion.
‘Requiring the vaccination of 84million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category.’
It represented a blow to a key component of the Biden administration’s plan to fight Covid-19, and one that the White House has now backed off of.
The mandate published in early November was quickly hit with legal challenges from more than two dozen Republican attorneys general and others who argued that the Biden administration did not have constitutional authority to implement it.
It was stayed temporarily by a 5th Circuit panel, then revived by another federal court before the Supreme Court ruled against it.
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 850,000 people in the US and the Omicron variant outbreak around the holidays further damaged the country’s economy.
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