Three Former Heads Of OSHA, Including One Under Bush 43, Filed As Amici, In SUPPORT Of Authority For Vaccine Standards In Workplaces.

It may seem a little repetitive, but this is vitally important -- that the Supremes get it right, here. I cannot go as far as some employment lawyers, in their brief, and claim that all of the past 70 years of workplace law will be invalidated if this COVID-19 vaccine standard cannot be sustained as lawful exercise of the agency's charter. . . but I will say that it is clear beyond doubt that the statute, by its terms, and Congress, in enacting it -- expected the agency would have this authority -- if needed.

And now, it is needed. If one disagrees with the level of perceived "need" -- one's remedy is the ballot box: vote in a new Congress, or a different president. . . next time. In the mean time, a very solid majority of us voted Mr. Biden into office, and asked him to make these judgment calls. Full stop. Here's that fine amicus brief -- well argued, to be sure -- and a bit:

. . .The OSH Act authorizes OSHA to issue health and safety standards “to serve the objectives of” the Act. 29 U.S.C. § 655(b)(1). Those objectives include protecting workers from “illnesses arising out of work situations,” id. § 651(a), and assuring “healthful working conditions” by reducing “health hazards” at “places of employment,” id. § 651(b)(1). The Act’s protections are explicitly aimed at “diseases” connected to work environments, id. § 651(b)(6) & (13), and the development of “medical criteria which will assure insofar as practicable that no employee will suffer diminished health, functional capacity, or life expectancy as a result of his work experience,” id. § 651(b)(7).

Section 6 of the OSH Act, 29 U.S.C. § 655, grants OSHA ample authority to carry out the Act’s purposes by issuing standards aimed at preventing workplace outbreaks of communicable diseases caused by viruses and other infectious agents. OSHA’s authority expressly extends to setting standards addressing “toxic materials or harmful physical agents,” id. § 655(b)(5) (emphasis added), so as to “adequately assure[], to the extent feasible, on the basis of the best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity” resulting from “exposure to the hazard,” id. Section 6(c) authorizes OSHA to issue emergency temporary standards to protect employees from “grave danger” resulting “from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful,” and from “new hazards,” id. § 655(c)(1) (emphasis added).

These provisions unambiguously grant OSHA authority to protect workers from workplace exposure to a virus that causes severe and often fatal illness. . . .

Onward, grinning into the warm Arizona night air, now. . . .

नमस्ते