Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

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

7 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

jority is correct that OSHA is not a roving public health reg-
ulator, see ante, at 6–7: It has power only to protect employ-
ees from workplace hazards.  But as just explained, that is
exactly what the Standard does.  See  supra, at 5–6.  And 
the Act requires nothing more: Contra the majority, it is in-
different to whether a hazard in the workplace is also found 
elsewhere.  The statute generally charges OSHA with “as-
sur[ing]  so  far  as  possible  . . .  safe  and  healthful  working
conditions.”  29 U. S. C. §651(b).  That provision authorizes
regulation to protect employees from all hazards present in 
the workplace—or, at least, all hazards in part created by
conditions there.  It does not matter whether those hazards 
also exist beyond the workplace walls.  The same is true of 
the provision at issue here demanding the issuance of tem-
porary  emergency  standards.    Once  again,  that  provision 
kicks  in  when  employees  are  exposed  in  the  workplace  to
“new hazards” or “substances or agents” determined to be
“physically harmful.”  §655(c)(1).  The statute does not re-
quire  that  employees  are  exposed  to  those  dangers  only 
while  on  the  workplace  clock.   And  that  should  settle  the 
matter.  When Congress “enact[s] expansive language offer-
ing no indication whatever that the statute limits what [an 
agency]  can”  do,  the  Court  cannot  “impos[e]  limits  on  an
agency’s discretion that are not supported by the text.”  Lit-
tle Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Penn-
sylvania, 591 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (slip op., at 16) (altera-
tion and internal quotation marks omitted).  That is what 
the majority today does—impose a limit found no place in
the governing statute.

Consistent  with  Congress’s  directives,  OSHA  has  long
regulated  risks  that  arise  both  inside  and  outside  of  the
workplace.  For example, OSHA has issued, and applied to
nearly all workplaces, rules combating risks of fire, faulty 
electrical installations, and inadequate emergency exits—
even though the dangers prevented by those rules arise not