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ICYMI: OSHA’s authoritarian vaccine mandate is likely unlawful

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 28, 2021

Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to help ensure safe and healthful conditions for Americans in the workplace.

But by ordering OSHA to enact a federal vaccine mandate, the Biden administration is bypassing congressional intent to impose a public health edict under the guise of workplace safety. This is simply an authoritarian power grab to control every aspect of the American life.

In Case You Missed it via the Daily Signal, OSHA has no such power to impose a federal vaccine mandate.

Congress Didn’t Give OSHA Authority to Impose Vaccine Mandates

By: Doug Badger and Paul J. Larkin Jr.

October 26, 2021

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is about to require 80 million working Americans to get vaccinated. You may be among them.

There’s just one catch: OSHA lacks the legal authority to impose a vaccine mandate.

Declaring that his patience was “wearing thin” with unvaccinated Americans, President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced that OSHA would require companies with at least 100 employees to mandate that workers either get vaccinated or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests.

OSHA sent a draft mandate to the White House on Oct. 8. Once the White House completes its review, OSHA will issue the order.

And then get sued.

…

Congress did not place vaccines within OSHA’s purview. OSHA is establishing the vaccine mandate through an “emergency temporary standard.” This highly unusual process allows OSHA to bypass public notice and comment. Federal agencies, including OSHA, typically must submit major rules to public scrutiny before finalizing them.

To take the “emergency temporary standard” shortcut, the agency must persuade a court that workers are in “grave danger” and that it is “necessary” to protect them against that danger.

The “grave danger” that an emergency temporary standard must address must come from “exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or new hazards.” A toxic substance or agent is a poisonous element or compound. A substance or agent can be “physically harmful” because it is flammable, explosive, or carcinogenic.

The danger a virus causes, by contrast, derives from its ability to replicate within a living organism.

…

In short, Congress has not given OSHA license to mandate COVID-19 vaccines.

Lawmakers needn’t prohibit OSHA from imposing a mandate that they never authorized the agency to issue in the first place.

On the contrary, if Congress wants a general vaccine mandate, it must pass a law establishing one.

Read the full article here.
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