On Monday a federal judge blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) mask mandate on airlines and other forms of public transportation (Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Biden).
Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the CDC exceeded its statutory authority and never clearly explained its justification for the broad mask mandate, among other legal infirmities. It’s an opinion based in a reading of the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which was the basis for the CDC’s order.
Judge Mizelle says the CDC stretched the meaning of the word “sanitation” in the law, which was never intended to justify such sweeping control over the behaviour of millions of Americans. She quoted Jeff Sutton, Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, in the vaccine mandate case that ‘this is no “everyday exercise of federal power.’”
National injunctions should be rare, but it would be hard to narrow, by geography or type of transportation, a nationwide mask requirement for all public transportation.
The ruling comes when the mask mandate is a waning health necessity. The CDC recently extended it until 3 May, and it is increasingly unpopular with passengers and airline executives as Covid-19 becomes endemic and less lethal.
The courts are looking more closely at sweeping federal orders that lack clear statutory justification. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration lost its vaccine mandate case at the Supreme Court.