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THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 2022
CORONAVIRUS
Supreme Court halts vaccine rule for large businesses
Court allows vaccine mandate
for most health care workers
By MARK SHERMAN
and JESSICA GRESKO
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court
has stopped a major push by the Biden admin-
istration to boost the nation’s COVID-19 vac-
cination rate, a requirement that employees at
large businesses get a vaccine or test regularly
and wear a mask on the job.
At the same time, the court is allowing
the administration to proceed with a vac-
cine mandate for most health care workers in
the U.S. The court’s orders Thursday came
during a spike in coronavirus cases caused by
the omicron variant.
The court’s conservative majority con-
cluded the administration overstepped its
authority by seeking to impose the Occupa-
tional Safety and Health Administration’s
vaccine-or-test rule on U.S. businesses with
at least 100 employees. More than 80 million
people would have been aff ected and OSHA
had estimated that the rule would save 6,500
lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations
over six months.
“OSHA has never before imposed such a
mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although
Congress has enacted signifi cant legislation
addressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has
declined to enact any measure similar to what
OSHA has promulgated here,” the conserva-
tives wrote in an unsigned opinion.
In dissent, the court’s three liberals argued
that it was the court that was overreaching by
substituting its judgment for that of health
experts. “Acting outside of its competence
and without legal basis, the court displaces
the judgments of the government offi cials
given the responsibility to respond to work-
place health emergencies,” Justices Stephen
Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor
wrote in a joint dissent.
President Joe Biden said he was “disap-
pointed that the Supreme Court has chosen
to block common-sense life-saving require-
ments for employees at large businesses that
were grounded squarely in both science and
the law.”
Biden called on businesses to institute
their own vaccination requirements, noting
that a third of Fortune 100 companies already
have done so.
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee on Thurs-
day announced that members of the Washing-
ton National Guard will help staff hospitals
and testing sites across the state, as the health
care system struggles with surging COVID-
Elaine Thompson/AP Photo
Registered nurse Jessalynn Dest looks across the room while treating a COVID-19 patient in
the acute care unit of Harborview Medical Center on Friday in Seattle.
THE COURT’S CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY CONCLUDED
THE ADMINISTRATION OVERSTEPPED ITS AUTHORITY
BY SEEKING TO IMPOSE THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY
AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION’S VACCINE-OR-
TEST RULE ON U.S. BUSINESSES WITH AT LEAST
100 EMPLOYEES. MORE THAN 80 MILLION PEOPLE
WOULD HAVE BEEN AFFECTED.
19 caseloads.
In an echo of the early months of the pan-
demic, Inslee ordered a four-week pause on
nonemergency procedures at hospitals and
encouraged retired health care workers to
consider helping out.
Inslee said for now he is not planning for a
vaccine mandate for private businesses.
Oregon is calling off its work toward
adopting a vaccine-or-test rule for large
employers.
In a statement on its website, Oregon
OSHA said it would suspend work on its rule.
“Oregon OSHA will continue to moni-
tor federal OSHA activities and respond as
needed,” the agency said. “In light of the
Supreme Court decision, however, Oregon
OSHA will not move forward with adopting
the same or similar standard in Oregon.”
When crafting the OSHA rule, White
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House offi cials always anticipated legal chal-
lenges — and privately some harbored doubts
that it could withstand them. The administra-
tion nonetheless still views the rule as a suc-
cess at already driving millions of people to
get vaccinated and encouraging private busi-
nesses to implement their own requirements
that are unaff ected by the legal challenge.
The OSHA regulation had initially been
blocked by a federal appeals court in New
Orleans, then allowed to take eff ect by a fed-
eral appellate panel in Cincinnati.
Both rules had been challenged by Repub-
lican-led states. In addition, business groups
attacked the OSHA emergency regulation as
too expensive and likely to cause workers to
leave their jobs at a time when fi nding new
employees already is diffi cult.
The National Retail Federation, the
nation’s largest retail trade group, called the
Supreme Court’s decision “a signifi cant vic-
tory for employers.”
The vaccine mandate that the court will
allow to be enforced nationwide scraped by
on a 5-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts
and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the lib-
erals to form a majority. The mandate covers
virtually all health care workers in the coun-
try, applying to providers that receive federal
Medicare or Medicaid funding. It aff ects 10.4
million workers at 76,000 health care facili-
ties as well as home health care providers. The
rule has medical and religious exemptions.
Biden said that decision by the court “will
save lives.”
In an unsigned opinion, the court wrote:
“The challenges posed by a global pandemic
do not allow a federal agency to exercise
power that Congress has not conferred upon
it. At the same time, such unprecedented cir-
cumstances provide no grounds for limiting
the exercise of authorities the agency has long
been recognized to have.” It said the “latter
principle governs” in the health care arena.
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in dissent
that the case was about whether the admin-
istration has the authority “to force health
care workers, by coercing their employers,
to undergo a medical procedure they do not
want and cannot undo.” He said the adminis-
tration hadn’t shown convincingly that Con-
gress gave it that authority.
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and
Amy Coney Barrett signed onto Thomas’
opinion. Alito wrote a separate dissent that
the other three conservatives also joined.
Decisions by federal appeals courts in
New Orleans and St. Louis had blocked the
mandate in about half the states. The admin-
istration already was taking steps to enforce
it elsewhere.
More than 208 million Americans, 62.7%
of the population, are fully vaccinated, and
more than a third of those have received
booster shots, according to the federal Cen-
ters for Disease Control and Prevention. All
nine justices have gotten booster shots.
The courthouse remains closed to the pub-
lic, and lawyers and reporters are asked for
negative test results before being allowed
inside the courtroom for arguments, though
vaccinations are not required.
The justices heard arguments on the chal-
lenges last week. Their questions then hinted
at the split verdict that they issued Thursday.
A separate vaccine mandate for fed-
eral contractors, on hold after lower courts
blocked it, has not been considered by the
Supreme Court.
Associated Press writer Zeke Miller, the
Seattle Times and The Oregonian contributed
to this report.