Biden's workplace vaccine mandate challenged legally

The Biden administration was given until Monday to defend its workplace vaccine mandate by a federal appeals court that issued a temporary injunction against the plan that would require employees at private companies with 100 or more workers to show proof of a COVID-19 vaccine or face weekly testing.

There are potentially "grave statutory and constitutional" questions involved with President Joe Biden's mandate, said the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans, which issued the injunction Saturday.

The three-judge panel stated that "the Mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court".

Biden announced on Thursday that the mandate would take effect Jan 4.

The court gave the government until Monday at 5 pm to respond to the plaintiffs' motion for a permanent injunction.

Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah were the states challenging the mandate's legality in the 5th Circuit Court.

More than half of all US states have filed or joined lawsuits in opposition in different federal appeals courts around the country.

The White House vaccine mandate applies to 84.2 million workers at 1.9 million private sector employers. Another 18.5 million workers are exempt because they either work remotely or outside, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said.

The wider mandate also would impact about 17 million healthcare workers employed by hospitals that accept federal Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, along with federal employees and contractors.

Some Republican politicians have argued that OSHA lacks the statutory authority to enforce such a rule.

Benjamin Noren, a New York-based labor lawyer, said he believes the rule is likely to be struck down because OSHA was intended to deal with workplace hazards such as chemicals, not a virus. He said OSHA has made 10 emergency rules in the last five decades. Of the six that were challenged, only one was kept intact.

"It's an innovative use by the Biden administration to figure out some way to mandate vaccination in the private sector," Noren told The Associated Press. "I hope it works. I have doubts."

Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization's center on health law and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, told AP that the mandate "is on rock-solid legal ground".

The administration says it is confident that the requirement, which includes penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation, will withstand legal challenges in part because federal safety rules pre-empt state laws.

"We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court," Seema Nanda, solicitor for the US Department of Labor, said in a statement Friday.

The mandate "will cause injuries and hardship to working families, inflict economic disruption and staffing shortages on the States and private employers, and impose even greater strains on struggling labor markets and supply chains," the filing in the 8th Circuit Court from a coalition of 11 attorneys general led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt stated.

A lawsuit led by Florida, Alabama, and Georgia in the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit argues that the mandate clashes with the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

"This unlawful mandate is yet another example of the Biden administration's complete disregard for the Constitutional rights afforded to our state and our citizens," said Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr in a statement.

The OSHA rule does provide exemptions for medical and religious reasons, as well as for people who work entirely outdoors or remotely.

While most of the court challenges are coming from Republican-led states, some Democratic-run states have signed on to the challenges.

"States have been leading the fight against COVID-19 from the start of the pandemic," said Kansas Democratic Governor Laura Kelly. "It is too late to impose a federal standard now that we have already developed systems and strategies that are tailored for our specific needs."

The coronavirus pandemic has been attributed to 750,000 deaths in the US in less than two years. It also has upended the global economy and supply chains. Resurgent economic demand emerging from the pandemic has led to soaring gasoline prices, as oil production, slowed at the height of the outbreak, has not kept up with the burst of consumer activity. Inflation in the US also has been hovering around 5 percent.

"What I hear time and time again from small businesses, large businesses and workers, is that what's really hurting the economy is actually COVID itself," Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Sunday on ABC's This Week.

"It's important we take every measure possible to make our workplaces safer," he said in defending the mandate. "It's good for people's health, it's good for the economy, and that's why these requirements make so much sense."

Other states that filed lawsuits Friday were Kansas, Kentucky, Idaho, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia in the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. Later Friday, Indiana filed in the 7th Circuit in Chicago.

"Congress has not given the president the power to make personal health-care decisions for all Americans who just so happen to work at a company with at least 100 employees," Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.