(Washington Insider Magazine) -he Supreme Court will hear arguments on two Biden administration initiatives aimed at preventing the spread of Covid inside the nation’s workspaces in an unusual session on Friday.
The judges weren’t slated to come back to the courtroom until January 10, but they decided last month to hear emergency challenges concerning federal vaccination and testing requirements for major companies, as well as the vaccination requirement for some healthcare personnel.
The court will examine if the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has the lawful authority to require organisations with 100 or more employees to ensure that their workers are vaccinated or to require unvaccinated workers to wear masks and show a negative Covid test report at least once a week. Employees who work from home, alone, or outside are excluded from the law.
States and businesses who objected to the regulation filed a lawsuit, claiming that Congress never granted OSHA the power to adopt such a broad national standard. In a flurry of legal documents to the Supreme Court, they claimed that the regulation would push thousands of employees to quit and seek employment with smaller businesses to dodge the vaccine and testing requirements.
During Friday’s argument session, the justices will also hear arguments to a different federal rule requiring immunizations for health care employees who serve Medicare and Medicaid patients. Two federal appeals courts have stopped the law’s implementation in 24 states, but it is still in effect in the other 26.
States opposing the requirement argue that a federal law gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to establish general health and safety requirements for facilities such as hospitals, but not the authority to require employees to get vaccinated They claim that the agency in charge of Medicare and Medicaid never has required immunizations previously.
In a report published by the NBC News, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, emphasised on Thursday that the administration’s Covid restrictions are critical instruments in the pandemic fight.
In a statement, Psaki said, “The need and the urgency for these policies is greater than ever, and we are confident in the legal authority for both policies,”
The third Biden vaccination mandate, for government contractors, has been put on hold across the country, thanks to a federal court injunction.
