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6  NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. 

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

Standard would. 

OSHA’s  determinations  are  “conclusive  if  supported  by 
substantial evidence.”  29 U. S. C. §655(f ).  Judicial review 
under that test is deferential, as it should be.  OSHA em-
ploys, in both its enforcement and health divisions, numer-
ous scientists, doctors, and other experts in public health, 
especially as it relates to work environments.  Their deci-
sions, we have explained, should stand so long as they are 
supported by “ ‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind 
might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’ ”  Amer-
ican Textile Mfrs. Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490, 
522 (1981) (quoting Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 
U. S. 474, 477 (1951)).  Given the extensive evidence in the 
record supporting OSHA’s determinations about the risk of 
COVID–19  and  the  efficacy  of  masking,  testing,  and  vac-
cination, a court could not conclude that the Standard fails 
substantial-evidence review. 

B 
The Court does not dispute that the statutory terms just
discussed, read in the ordinary way, authorize this Stand-
ard.  In  other  words,  the  majority  does  not  contest  that
COVID–19  is  a  “new  hazard”  and  “physically  harmful
agent”; that it poses a “grave danger” to employees; or that
a testing and masking or vaccination policy is “necessary” 
to prevent those harms.  Instead, the majority claims that
the Act does not “plainly authorize[ ]” the Standard because
it  gives  OSHA  the  power  to  “set  workplace  safety  stand-
ards”  and  COVID–19  exists  both  inside  and  outside  the 
workplace.  Ante,  at  6.  In  other  words,  the  Court  argues
that  OSHA  cannot  keep  workplaces  safe  from  COVID–19 
because  the  agency  (as  it  readily  acknowledges)  has  no 
power to address the disease outside the work setting. 

But nothing in the Act’s text supports the majority’s lim-
itation on OSHA’s regulatory authority.  Of course, the ma-