Attorney General Moody Will Challenge Biden’s Use of OSHA to Force Unlawful Health Policy on Florida Workers and Companies

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Attorney General Ashley Moody will take legal action to stop President Joe Biden’s unlawful vaccine mandate for workers at companies with 100 or more employees. President Biden is forcing the unlawful health policy through the U.S. Department of Labor’s OSHA. Biden’s unprecedented step of requiring millions of Americans to be vaccinated under the guise of regulating the workplace follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the president’s attempt to use the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to enact an eviction moratorium. It also comes after the Biden administration declared that mandating vaccines is “not the role of the federal government.”

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “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. 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.”

Governor Ron DeSantis said, “We started with 15 days to slow the spread and now it’s get jabbed or lose your job. 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.”

Attorney General Moody plans to file litigation as early as tomorrow to demand that a court immediately review OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard. The filing will also request the court find that the ETS exceeds the department’s authority, fails to comply with the standards of issuing an ETS, conflicts with the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and violates the U.S. Constitution.

Last week, Attorney General Moody filed a lawsuit seeking an immediate end to the unlawful requirement that federal government contractors ensure that all employees receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Florida companies, public and private, receive millions of dollars in federal contracts annually and will be negatively impacted by the unlawful requirements. For more information on the court action, click here.