Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 28.0

12  NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. 

OSHA 
BREYER, J., dissenting 
BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

risen  tenfold.  See  CDC,  COVID  Data  Tracker  (Jan.  12,
2022),  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_ 
dailycases  (reporting  a  7-day  average  of  71,453  new  daily 
cases on Nov. 5, 2021, and 751,125 on Jan. 10, 2022).  And 
the  number  of  hospitalizations  has  quadrupled,  to  a  level
not seen since the pandemic’s previous peak.  CDC, COVID 
Data  Tracker  (Jan.  12,  2022),  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-
data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions  (reporting  a  7-day 
average of 5,050 new daily hospital admissions on Nov. 5, 
2021, and 20,269 on Jan. 10, 2022).  And as long as the pan-
demic  continues,  so  too  does  the  risk  that  mutations  will 
produce yet more variants—just as OSHA predicted before
the rise of Omicron.  See 86 Fed. Reg. 61409 (warning that 
high transmission and insufficient vaccination rates could
“foster the development of new variants that could be simi-
larly, or even more, disruptive” than those then existing).
Far from diminishing, the need for broadly applicable work-
place protections remains strong, for all the many reasons
OSHA gave.  See id., at 61407–61419, 61424, 61429–61439, 
61445–61447. 

These considerations weigh decisively against issuing a 
stay.  This Court should decline to exercise its equitable dis-
cretion  in  a  way  that  will—as  this  stay  will—imperil  the
lives of thousands of American  workers and the health of 
many more. 

* 

* 

* 
Underlying  everything  else  in  this  dispute  is  a  single,
simple question: Who decides how much protection, and of
what  kind,  American  workers  need  from  COVID–19?  An 
agency with expertise in workplace health and safety, act-
ing as Congress and the President authorized?  Or a court, 
lacking any knowledge of how to safeguard workplaces, and 
insulated from responsibility for any damage it causes? 

Here, an agency charged by Congress with safeguarding
employees from workplace dangers has decided that action