On Thursday the Biden administration announced a new regulation on businesses. According to the new rule, businesses with more than 100 employees must require either weekly testing or vaccination by Jan. 4… under penalty of a hefty fine.
Business-minded Americans have slammed the administration’s new rule. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a rising star in the GOP, announced in a statement that he will sue the Biden administration “first thing tomorrow morning.”
The rule was drafted not by President Joe Biden himself, but by unelected bureaucrats in Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The Labor Department released the text of the new rule on Thursday, and later the department submitted it to the Office of the Federal Register. The rule is still pending publication, and Schmitt intends to wait until then.
However, some attorneys general have already sued. By announcing a lawsuit, Schmitt joined the chorus of more than 20 attorneys general. On the day of Schmitt’s announcement, more lawsuits were announced by the attorneys general of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Some Republicans have argued that only Congress can regulate businesses in this way. Schmitt went one step further.
Schmitt argued that this power doesn’t belong to the federal government at all. Schmitt is running for U.S. Senate in 2022, despite facing frequent criticism for politicizing the attorney general’s office. So, naturally, he has been boosting his national profile and thinking about the limits of federal power.
He wrote in a statement:
The federal government does not have the authority to unilaterally force private employers to mandate their employees get vaccinated or foot the bill for weekly testing.
I’ve been in discussions with businesses in Missouri, including a trailer manufacturing company in mid-Missouri, who say that this vaccine mandate will crush their business.
We will be on file first thing tomorrow morning to halt this illegal, unconstitutional attempt by the Biden Administration and the federal government to impose their will on thousands of Missouri businesses and millions of Missourians.
Missouri will not roll over, we will not back down – we will file suit imminently.
The White House preemptively disagreed. The Biden administration has already imposed similar rules on federal contractors and healthcare workers, and it now claims the authority to impose this new rule on businesses with more than 100 employees.
“The new Emergency Temporary Standard is well within OSHA’s authority under the law and consistent with OSHA’s requirements to protect workers from health and safety hazards, including infectious diseases,” one administration official said in a press briefing. “There is well-established legal precedent for OSHA’s authority to evaluate existing scientific evidence and apply data to develop safety and health standards.”
Looking for examples of the law, the officials mentioned the 1970 Occupational Safety and Health Act but neglected to cite the text.
In time, because of Schmitt’s lawsuit, the courts may decide whether the Biden administration does indeed have the authority for this new rule.
We are leading a lawsuit with @OhioAG and @tnattygen challenging the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional vaccine mandate for federal contractors. The overbroad mandate threatens the livelihoods of Kentuckians and Kentucky businesses that contract with the federal government. pic.twitter.com/yPe2l3eXAI
— Attorney General Daniel Cameron (@kyoag51) November 4, 2021
The Horn editorial team