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6  NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. 

OSHA 
Per Curiam 

vast number of employees.  “We expect Congress to speak 
clearly  when  authorizing  an  agency  to  exercise  powers  of 
vast economic and political significance.”  Alabama Assn. of 
Realtors  v.  Department  of  Health  and  Human  Servs.,  594 
U. S.  ___,  ___  (2021)  (per curiam)  (slip  op.,  at  6)  (internal 
quotation  marks  omitted).    There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
OSHA’s mandate qualifies as an exercise of such authority.
The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes 
the Secretary’s mandate.  It does not.  The Act empowers 
the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad 
public health measures.  See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing 
the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health stand-
ards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secre-
tary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary
to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace). 
Confirming  the  point,  the  Act’s  provisions  typically  speak 
to  hazards  that  employees  face  at  work.    See,  e.g.,  §§651,
653,  657.  And  no  provision  of  the  Act  addresses  public 
health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere 
of expertise.

The dissent protests that we are imposing “a limit found 
no place in the governing statute.”  Post, at 7 (joint opinion 
of BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ.).  Not so.  It is the 
text of the agency’s Organic Act that repeatedly makes clear
that OSHA is charged with regulating “occupational” haz-
ards and the safety and health of “employees.”  See, e.g., 29 
U. S. C. §§652(8), 654(a)(2), 655(b)–(c).

The Solicitor General does not dispute that OSHA is lim-
ited to regulating “work-related dangers.”  Response Brief 
for OSHA in No. 21A244 etc., p. 45 (OSHA Response).  She 
instead argues that the risk of contracting COVID–19 qual-
ifies as such a danger.  We cannot agree.  Although COVID–
19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an oc-
cupational hazard in most.  COVID–19 can and does spread
at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere
else that people gather.  That kind of universal risk is no