Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/21a23_ap6c.pdf
Page Number: 11

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

43251. 

The CDC issued this modified moratorium order (like its 
prior  moratorium  order)  pursuant  to  its  powers  under 
§361(a)  of  the  Public  Health  Service  Act.    That  provision
“authorize[s]” the CDC: 

“[T]o make and enforce such regulations as in [its] judg-
ment are necessary to prevent the introduction, trans-
mission,  or  spread  of  communicable  diseases  [inter-
state].  For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such 
regulations, the Surgeon General may provide for such
inspection,  fumigation,  disinfection,  sanitation,  pest
extermination, destruction of animals or articles found 
to  be  so  infected  or  contaminated  as  to  be  sources  of 
dangerous  infection  to  human  beings,  and  other 
measures,  as  in  his  judgment  may  be  necessary.” 
42 U. S. C. §264(a). 

The statute’s first sentence grants the CDC authority to
design measures that, in the agency’s judgment, are essen-
tial  to  contain  disease  outbreaks.    The  provision’s  plain
meaning includes eviction moratoria necessary to stop the 
spread of diseases like COVID–19.  When Congress enacted 
§361(a),  public  health  agencies  intervened  in  the  housing 
market by regulation, including eviction moratoria, to con-
tain infection by preventing the movement of people.  See, 
e.g., 5,589 New Cases in One Day Break Influenza Record,
N. Y. Times, Jan. 29, 1920, section 1, pp. 1–2, col. 1 (“ ‘[T]he 
Health Department . . . instruct[s] all landlords that no per-
son  suffering  from  [influenza  and  pneumonia]  can  be  re-
moved under any condition whatever without the sanction
of the Health Department . . . ’ ”).  If Congress had meant to
exclude these types of measures from its broad grant of au-
thority, it likely would have said so. 

Section 361(a)’s second sentence is naturally read to ex-
pand  the  agency’s  powers  by  providing  congressional  au-
thorization to act on personal property when necessary.  See