Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21a244_hgci.pdf
Page Number: 29.0

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

13 

BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting 

is needed.  The agency has thoroughly evaluated the risks
that the disease poses to workers across all sectors of the 
economy.  It has considered the extent to which various pol-
icies will mitigate those risks, and the costs those policies
will entail.  It has landed on an approach that encourages
vaccination, but allows employers to use masking and test-
ing  instead. 
It  has  meticulously  explained  why  it  has
reached its conclusions.  And in doing all this, it has acted 
within  the  four  corners  of  its  statutory  authorization—or
actually  here,  its  statutory  mandate.    OSHA,  that  is,  has 
responded in the way necessary to alleviate the “grave dan-
ger”  that  workplace  exposure  to  the  “new  hazard[ ]”  of 
COVID–19  poses  to  employees  across  the  Nation.  29 
U. S. C. §655(c)(1).  The agency’s Standard is informed by a
half century of experience and expertise in handling work-
place health and safety issues.  The Standard also has the 
virtue of political accountability, for OSHA is responsible to 
the President, and the President is responsible to—and can 
be held to account by—the American public. 

And then, there is this Court.  Its Members are elected 
by,  and  accountable  to,  no  one.    And  we  “lack[]  the  back-
ground,  competence,  and  expertise  to  assess”  workplace 
health  and  safety  issues.  South  Bay  United  Pentecostal 
Church, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.) (slip 
op., at 2).  When we are wise, we know enough to defer on 
matters like this one.  When we are wise, we know not to 
displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere 
Congress  marked  out  and  under  Presidential  control,  to 
deal with emergency conditions.  Today, we are not wise.  In 
the  face  of  a  still-raging  pandemic,  this  Court  tells  the
agency charged with protecting worker safety that it may
not  do  so  in  all  the  workplaces  needed.  As  disease  and 
death continue to mount, this Court tells the agency that it 
cannot respond in the most effective way possible.  Without 
legal basis, the Court usurps a decision that rightfully be-
longs to others.  It undercuts the capacity of the responsible