Photo Courtesy of Susan Walsh/AP
The U.S. federal appeals court issued a stay on November 6, freezing the Biden administration’s mandate to require workers at U.S. companies with at least 100 employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested weekly.
According to Reuters, the court stated that there are “grave statutory and constitutional” problems with the rule.
The ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit surfaces after several Republican-led states decided to legally challenge the new rule, which is supposed to begin on January 4.
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In a statement, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said the Labor Department was “confident in its legal authority” to mandate the rule, which is set to be enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
“The Occupational Safety and Health Act explicitly gives OSHA the authority to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger, and a new standard is necessary to protect them,” she said. “We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court.”
The court freezing the rule comes only two days after the Biden administration announced the rule, which faced controversy immediately and was met with threats of legal action from Republican governors and others, who argue that it is against the administration’s legal authority.
Biden’s rule would apply to 84.2 million employees at 1.9 million private-sector employers, according to OSHA.
According to the White House, the administration’s vaccine rules encompass 100 million employees, making up approximately two-thirds of the U.S. workforce.
The court order also came as a response to a joint petition from several businesses, advocacy groups, and the states of Texas, Utah, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana. Besides that, the rule is facing numerous other legal challenges from different courts.
The two-page order asks the Biden administration to respond to the request for a permanent injunction against the mandate by 5 p.m. on November 8.