WASHINGTON – Following oral argument in the Supreme Court in NFIB v. OSHA, Constitutional Accountability Center Chief Counsel Brianne Gorod issued the following reaction:

This morning’s oral argument in the challenge to OSHA’s vaccinate-or-test policy was extraordinary. Even as the nation experiences a massive surge of COVID-19 infections, and even as the Supreme Court itself has adopted a testing and masking policy to guard against the virus, the policy’s challengers repeatedly insisted that OSHA did not have authority to impose protections for the nation’s workers.

That argument is simply wrong. Congress has given OSHA the authority to take necessary actions to protect workers in circumstances like this, and there is no question that Congress’s decision to grant OSHA that authority is constitutional, regardless of whether one looks to Supreme Court precedent or constitutional text and history. Indeed, since the nation’s birth, Congress has delegated broad authority to the executive branch to address the nation’s most pressing problems. If Congress could not do that, it would significantly impair the federal government’s ability to act in the public interest.

Here, OSHA’s vaccinate-or-test policy is a critically important tool for protecting American workers from the grave dangers of COVID-19. The Supreme Court should allow the policy—and the essential protections that it provides to American workers—to remain in place.

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Resources:

CAC case page in NFIB v. OSHA (In Re: OSHA Rule on COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing): https://www.theusconstitution.org/litigation/cac-brief-in-re-osha-rule-on-covid-19-vaccination-and-testing/

RELEASE: Federal Appeals Court Allows OSHA Vaccinate-Or-Test Policy to Take Effect, December 17, 2021: https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/release-federal-appeals-court-allows-osha-vaccinate-or-test-policy-to-take-effect/

RELEASE: CAC Tells Court: Dissolve Fifth Circuit Stay of Vaccinate-or-Test Policy, November 23, 2021: https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/release-cac-tells-court-dissolve-fifth-circuit-stay-of-vaccinate-or-test-policy/

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Constitutional Accountability Center is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history. Visit CAC’s website at www.theusconstitution.org.

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