Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 7

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

Per Curiam 

different  from  the  day-to-day  dangers  that  all  face  from
crime,  air  pollution,  or  any  number  of  communicable  dis-
eases.  Permitting OSHA  to regulate the hazards of daily
life—simply  because  most  Americans  have  jobs  and  face 
those same risks while on the clock—would significantly ex-
pand  OSHA’s  regulatory  authority  without  clear  congres-
sional authorization. 

The dissent contends that OSHA’s mandate is compara-
ble to a fire or sanitation regulation imposed by the agency.
See post, at 7–9.  But a vaccine mandate is strikingly unlike
the  workplace  regulations  that  OSHA  has  typically  im-
posed.  A  vaccination,  after  all,  “cannot  be  undone  at  the 
end of the workday.”  In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 274 
(Sutton, C. J., dissenting).  Contrary to the dissent’s conten-
tion, imposing a vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans
in response to a worldwide pandemic is simply not “part of
what the agency was built for.”  Post, at 10. 

That is not to say OSHA lacks authority to regulate occu-
pation-specific risks related to COVID–19.  Where the virus 
poses a special danger because of the particular features of 
an  employee’s  job  or  workplace,  targeted  regulations  are
plainly  permissible.  We  do  not  doubt,  for  example,  that
OSHA  could  regulate  researchers  who  work  with  the 
COVID–19 virus.  So too could OSHA regulate risks associ-
ated with working in particularly crowded or cramped en-
vironments.  But the danger present in such workplaces dif-
fers  in  both  degree  and  kind  from  the  everyday  risk  of 
contracting  COVID–19  that  all  face.    OSHA’s  indiscrimi-
nate approach fails to account for this crucial distinction—
between occupational risk and risk more generally—and ac-
cordingly the mandate takes on the character of a general
public health measure, rather than an “occupational safety
or health standard.”  29 U. S. C. §655(b) (emphasis added). 
In looking for legislative support for the vaccine mandate,
the dissent turns to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, 
Pub. L. 117–2, 135 Stat. 4.  See post, at 8.  That legislation,