SCOTUS rulings are in: OSHA mandate blocked, Healthcare mandate upheld. Formal pinions in link.
(www.supremecourt.gov)
🔍 Notable
Comments (1)
sorted by:
"The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes the Secretary’s mandate. It does not. The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health stand- ards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secre- tary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace). Confirming the point, the Act’s provisions typically speak to hazards that employees face at work. See, e.g., §§651, 653, 657. And no provision of the Act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere of expertise. The dissent protests that we are imposing “a limit found no place in the governing statute.” Post, at 7 (joint opinion of BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ.). Not so. It is the text of the agency’s Organic Act that repeatedly makes clear that OSHA is charged with regulating “occupational” haz- ards and the safety and health of “employees.” See, e.g., 29 U. S. C. §§652(8), 654(a)(2), 655(b)–(c). The Solicitor General does not dispute that OSHA is lim- ited to regulating “work-related dangers.” Response Brief for OSHA in No. 21A244 etc., p. 45 (OSHA Response). She instead argues that the risk of contracting COVID–19 qual- ifies as such a danger. We cannot agree. Although COVID– 19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an oc- cupational hazard in most. COVID–19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. "