The Committee on Education and Labor has issued the following press release:
In the letter, the Members write: “Republican Members of the Committee on Education and Labor, which has jurisdiction over the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act), previously requested the Department immediately suspend work on the administration’s inappropriate, unprecedented, and unlawful ETS. We are very disappointed that the Department dismissed these concerns and moved forward with issuing the ETS.”
The Members also write: “In our view, the ETS grossly exceeds OSHA’s statutory authority, weaponizes the federal bureaucracy at the expense of job creators and their workers, and worsens the nation’s ongoing supply chain crisis and workforce shortages. For these reasons, and as explained more fully in this letter, we urge the Department to immediately withdraw this deeply flawed ETS and to suspend any plans to enact the requirements of the ETS in a permanent final regulation.”
The Members continue: “In promulgating the vaccination-and-testing ETS, OSHA grossly exceeds the authority delegated to it by Congress under the OSH Act. By ordering OSHA to enact a federal vaccine-and-testing mandate, the Biden administration is bypassing congressional intent to impose a public health edict under the guise of workplace safety.”
The Members conclude: “[W]e are deeply troubled that, despite the strong rebuke from a federal court, senior Biden administration officials continue to ignore the law by informing businesses that they should be complying with its illegal vaccine mandate. The administration’s actions are inappropriate, authoritarian, and ignore the Constitution’s separation of powers. In enacting the vaccination-and-testing ETS mandate, OSHA has blatantly disregarded congressional intent and has grossly overstepped its authority.”
Full text of the letter to Secretary Walsh is available here.
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