Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

8  NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. 

OSHA 
Per Curiam 

signed into law on March 11, 2021, of course said nothing 
about OSHA’s vaccine mandate, which was not announced 
until six months later.  In fact, the most noteworthy action
concerning  the  vaccine  mandate  by  either  House  of  Con-
gress has been a majority vote of the Senate disapproving
the  regulation  on  December  8,  2021.    S. J.  Res.  29,  117th 
Cong., 1st Sess. (2021).

It is telling that OSHA, in its half century of existence, 
has never before adopted a broad public health regulation
of this kind—addressing a threat that is untethered, in any 
causal sense, from the workplace.  This “lack of historical 
precedent,” coupled with the breadth of authority that the 
Secretary now claims, is a “telling indication” that the man-
date  extends  beyond  the  agency’s  legitimate  reach.    Free 
Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight 
Bd.,  561  U. S.  477,  505  (2010)  (internal  quotation  marks 
omitted).* 

B 
The equities do not justify withholding interim relief.  We 
are told by the States and the employers that OSHA’s man-
date will force them to incur billions of dollars in unrecov-
erable  compliance  costs  and  will  cause  hundreds  of  thou-
sands of employees to leave their jobs.  See Application in 
No. 21A244, pp. 25–32; Application in No. 21A247, pp. 32–
33; see also 86 Fed. Reg. 61475.  For its part, the Federal
Government  says  that  the  mandate  will  save  over  6,500
lives  and  prevent  hundreds  of  thousands  of  hospitaliza-
tions.  OSHA Response 83; see also 86 Fed. Reg. 61408.

It is not our role to weigh such tradeoffs.  In our system 
of government, that is the responsibility of those chosen by 

—————— 

* The dissent says that we do “not contest,” post, at 6, that the mandate 
was otherwise proper under the requirements for an emergency tempo-
rary standard, see 29 U. S. C. §655(c)(1).  To be clear, we express no view 
on issues not addressed in this opinion.