Florida Governor Ron DeSantis today announced a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s unconstitutional Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) employer vaccine mandate. As soon as the unlawful emergency temporary standard (ETS) is published in the Federal Register tomorrow, the lawsuit will be immediately filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. For more information on the court action, click here.
“We started with 15 days to slow the spread and now it’s get jabbed or lose your job,” said Governor Ron DeSantis. “We’re supposed to be a government of laws, not a government of men. This OSHA rule is 500 pages of a government of bureaucracy, a government that is being run by executive edict, not a government bound by constitutional constraints. The State of Florida will immediately challenge the OSHA rule in court because it’s inconsistent with the Constitution and not legally authorized through Congressional statutes. There is no federal police power and the federal government cannot unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation. Individuals should make informed choices about their own healthcare. It is important to stand up for people’s individual ability to make decisions for themselves. And the practical result is that this is going to exacerbate a lot of the existing problems that we are seeing with the economy.”
“The Biden administration continues to violate our constitution and punish hard working Americans for making their own choices,” said Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nuñez. “As I’ve said before, Governor DeSantis and I will fight these un-American vaccine mandates, including the latest OSHA rule, to prevent tyrannical overreach from encroaching on our freedoms.”
“The remarkable ease at which this president will abandon the rule of law and separation of powers is astonishing and devastating to the autonomy of American workers,” said Attorney General Ashley Moody. “For this reason, I will take swift legal action to stop this unprecedented overreach by the federal government — to protect Florida and our workers from the unlawful edicts emanating from President Biden and his handlers. The president does not have the power to force health policy through a workplace safety department. That’s not what Congress intended when they created OSHA and it’s not a lawful use of the U.S. Department of Labor.”
Throughout the 490 pages of governmental overreach in the form of the OSHA rule, some of the most atrocious aspects include:
On page 4: OSHA shall issue an ETS “if the agency determines that employees are subject to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new hazards, and an ETS is necessary to protect employees from such danger.”
If this was such a “grave danger,” why did it take 57 days from the announcement by President Biden to publish the rule and why won’t it take effect until January 4 – another 60 days?
On page 5: “The ETS protects these workers through the most effective and efficient control available – vaccination – and further protects workers who remain unvaccinated through required regular testing, use of face coverings, and removal of all infected employees from the workplace.”
A recent study from Sweden published in The Lancet found that within 200 days, mRNA vaccines had no ability to prevent transmission whatsoever.
On page 15: The agency is not required to support its conclusions “with anything approaching scientific certainty and has the “prerogative to choose between conflicting evidence.”
The CDC recently released a review of research studies and its own unpublished data indicating that both infection-induced and vaccine-induced immunity are durable for at least six months. This rule should account for natural immunity.
On page 20: The agency does not believe it appropriate to impose the costs of testing on an employer where an employee has made an individual choice to pursue a less protective option. For the same reasons, OSHA has also determined that it is not appropriate to require employers to pay for face coverings for employees who choose not to be vaccinated.
Employees will have a direct financial penalty for making a medical decision of which they have every right to be in control.
This rule, if allowed to be implemented, will impact nearly 9,000 employers in Florida and the 4.5 million Floridians they employ who make up 60% of our workforce. Nationally, it will cost $2.9 billion. This OSHA rule must be deemed unconstitutional and Florida will be leading the way in taking the Biden Administration to court.
The video of the press conference is available here, courtesy of the Governor’s Press Office.
