OSHA's Emergency COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: Supreme Court Ruling and Implications, Summaries of Business

Download OSHA's Emergency COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate: Supreme Court Ruling and Implications and more Summaries Business in PDF only on Docsity! _________________ _________________ 1 (Slip Opinion) Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) Per Curiam NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Nos. 21A244 and 21A247 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A244 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. OHIO, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A247 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. ON APPLICATIONS FOR STAYS [January 13, 2022] PER CURIAM. The Secretary of Labor, acting through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, recently enacted a vac- cine mandate for much of the Nation’s work force. The mandate, which employers must enforce, applies to roughly 84 million workers, covering virtually all employers with at least 100 employees. It requires that covered workers re- ceive a COVID–19 vaccine, and it pre-empts contrary state laws. The only exception is for workers who obtain a medi- cal test each week at their own expense and on their own time, and also wear a mask each workday. OSHA has never before imposed such a mandate. Nor has Congress. Indeed, although Congress has enacted significant legislation ad- dressing the COVID–19 pandemic, it has declined to enact 2 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA Per Curiam any measure similar to what OSHA has promulgated here. Many States, businesses, and nonprofit organizations challenged OSHA’s rule in Courts of Appeals across the country. The Fifth Circuit initially entered a stay. But when the cases were consolidated before the Sixth Circuit, that court lifted the stay and allowed OSHA’s rule to take effect. Applicants now seek emergency relief from this Court, arguing that OSHA’s mandate exceeds its statutory authority and is otherwise unlawful. Agreeing that appli- cants are likely to prevail, we grant their applications and stay the rule. I A Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act in 1970. 84 Stat. 1590, 29 U. S. C. §651 et seq. The Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administra- tion (OSHA), which is part of the Department of Labor and under the supervision of its Secretary. As its name sug- gests, OSHA is tasked with ensuring occupational safety— that is, “safe and healthful working conditions.” §651(b). It does so by enforcing occupational safety and health stand- ards promulgated by the Secretary. §655(b). Such stand- ards must be “reasonably necessary or appropriate to pro- vide safe or healthful employment.” §652(8) (emphasis added). They must also be developed using a rigorous pro- cess that includes notice, comment, and an opportunity for a public hearing. §655(b). The Act contains an exception to those ordinary notice- and-comment procedures for “emergency temporary stand- ards.” §655(c)(1). Such standards may “take immediate ef- fect upon publication in the Federal Register.” Ibid. They are permissible, however, only in the narrowest of circum- stances: the Secretary must show (1) “that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or from 5 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) Per Curiam nearly 60 in all—requested initial hearing en banc. Second, OSHA asked the Court of Appeals to vacate the Fifth Cir- cuit’s existing stay. The Sixth Circuit denied the request for initial hearing en banc by an evenly divided 8-to-8 vote. In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th 264 (2021). Chief Judge Sut- ton dissented, joined by seven of his colleagues. He rea- soned that the Secretary’s “broad assertions of administra- tive power demand unmistakable legislative support,” which he found lacking. Id., at 268. A three-judge panel then dissolved the Fifth Circuit’s stay, holding that OSHA’s mandate was likely consistent with the agency’s statutory and constitutional authority. See In re MCP No. 165, 2021 WL 5989357, ___ F. 4th ___ (CA6 2021). Judge Larsen dis- sented. Various parties then filed applications in this Court re- questing that we stay OSHA’s emergency standard. We consolidated two of those applications—one from the Na- tional Federation of Independent Business, and one from a coalition of States—and heard expedited argument on Jan- uary 7, 2022. II The Sixth Circuit concluded that a stay of the rule was not justified. We disagree. A Applicants are likely to succeed on the merits of their claim that the Secretary lacked authority to impose the mandate. Administrative agencies are creatures of statute. They accordingly possess only the authority that Congress has provided. The Secretary has ordered 84 million Amer- icans to either obtain a COVID–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.” In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 272 (Sutton, C. J., dissenting). It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a 6 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA Per Curiam vast number of employees. “We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). There can be little doubt that OSHA’s mandate qualifies as an exercise of such authority. The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes the Secretary’s mandate. It does not. The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health stand- ards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secre- tary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace). Confirming the point, the Act’s provisions typically speak to hazards that employees face at work. See, e.g., §§651, 653, 657. And no provision of the Act addresses public health more generally, which falls outside of OSHA’s sphere of expertise. The dissent protests that we are imposing “a limit found no place in the governing statute.” Post, at 7 (joint opinion of BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ.). Not so. It is the text of the agency’s Organic Act that repeatedly makes clear that OSHA is charged with regulating “occupational” haz- ards and the safety and health of “employees.” See, e.g., 29 U. S. C. §§652(8), 654(a)(2), 655(b)–(c). The Solicitor General does not dispute that OSHA is lim- ited to regulating “work-related dangers.” Response Brief for OSHA in No. 21A244 etc., p. 45 (OSHA Response). She instead argues that the risk of contracting COVID–19 qual- ifies as such a danger. We cannot agree. Although COVID– 19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an oc- cupational hazard in most. COVID–19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. That kind of universal risk is no 7 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) Per Curiam different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable dis- eases. Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life—simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock—would significantly ex- pand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congres- sional authorization. The dissent contends that OSHA’s mandate is compara- ble to a fire or sanitation regulation imposed by the agency. See post, at 7–9. But a vaccine mandate is strikingly unlike the workplace regulations that OSHA has typically im- posed. A vaccination, after all, “cannot be undone at the end of the workday.” In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 274 (Sutton, C. J., dissenting). Contrary to the dissent’s conten- tion, imposing a vaccine mandate on 84 million Americans in response to a worldwide pandemic is simply not “part of what the agency was built for.” Post, at 10. That is not to say OSHA lacks authority to regulate occu- pation-specific risks related to COVID–19. Where the virus poses a special danger because of the particular features of an employee’s job or workplace, targeted regulations are plainly permissible. We do not doubt, for example, that OSHA could regulate researchers who work with the COVID–19 virus. So too could OSHA regulate risks associ- ated with working in particularly crowded or cramped en- vironments. But the danger present in such workplaces dif- fers in both degree and kind from the everyday risk of contracting COVID–19 that all face. OSHA’s indiscrimi- nate approach fails to account for this crucial distinction— between occupational risk and risk more generally—and ac- cordingly the mandate takes on the character of a general public health measure, rather than an “occupational safety or health standard.” 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (emphasis added). In looking for legislative support for the vaccine mandate, the dissent turns to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117–2, 135 Stat. 4. See post, at 8. That legislation, _________________ _________________ 1 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) GORSUCH, J., concurring SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Nos. 21A244 and 21A247 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A244 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. OHIO, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A247 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. ON APPLICATIONS FOR STAYS [January 13, 2022] JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS and JUSTICE ALITO join, concurring. The central question we face today is: Who decides? No one doubts that the COVID–19 pandemic has posed chal- lenges for every American. Or that our state, local, and na- tional governments all have roles to play in combating the disease. The only question is whether an administrative agency in Washington, one charged with overseeing work- place safety, may mandate the vaccination or regular test- ing of 84 million people. Or whether, as 27 States before us submit, that work belongs to state and local governments across the country and the people’s elected representatives in Congress. This Court is not a public health authority. But it is charged with resolving disputes about which au- thorities possess the power to make the laws that govern us under the Constitution and the laws of the land. 2 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA GORSUCH, J., concurring * I start with this Court’s precedents. There is no question that state and local authorities possess considerable power to regulate public health. They enjoy the “general power of governing,” including all sovereign powers envisioned by the Constitution and not specifically vested in the federal government. National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U. S. 519, 536 (2012) (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.); U. S. Const., Amdt. 10. And in fact, States have pur- sued a variety of measures in response to the current pan- demic. E.g., Cal. Dept. of Public Health, All Facilities Let- ter 21–28.1 (Dec. 27, 2021); see also N. Y. Pub. Health Law Ann. § 2164 (West 2021). The federal government’s powers, however, are not gen- eral but limited and divided. See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 405 (1819). Not only must the federal gov- ernment properly invoke a constitutionally enumerated source of authority to regulate in this area or any other. It must also act consistently with the Constitution’s separa- tion of powers. And when it comes to that obligation, this Court has established at least one firm rule: “We expect Congress to speak clearly” if it wishes to assign to an exec- utive agency decisions “of vast economic and political sig- nificance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per cu- riam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). We sometimes call this the major questions doctrine. Gundy v. United States, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (GORSUCH, J., dis- senting) (slip op., at 20). OSHA’s mandate fails that doctrine’s test. The agency claims the power to force 84 million Americans to receive a vaccine or undergo regular testing. By any measure, that is a claim of power to resolve a question of vast national significance. Yet Congress has nowhere clearly assigned so much power to OSHA. Approximately two years have passed since this pandemic began; vaccines have been 3 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) GORSUCH, J., concurring available for more than a year. Over that span, Congress has adopted several major pieces of legislation aimed at combating COVID–19. E.g., American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117–2, 135 Stat. 4. But Congress has chosen not to afford OSHA—or any federal agency—the authority to issue a vaccine mandate. Indeed, a majority of the Sen- ate even voted to disapprove OSHA’s regulation. See S.J. Res. 29, 117th Cong., 1st Sess. (2021). It seems, too, that the agency pursued its regulatory initiative only as a legis- lative “ ‘work-around.’ ” BST Holdings, L.L.C. v. OSHA, 17 F. 4th 604, 612 (CA5 2021). Far less consequential agency rules have run afoul of the major questions doctrine. E.g., MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 512 U. S. 218, 231 (1994) (eliminating rate- filing requirement). It is hard to see how this one does not. What is OSHA’s reply? It directs us to 29 U. S. C. § 655(c)(1). In that statutory subsection, Congress author- ized OSHA to issue “emergency” regulations upon deter- mining that “employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful” and “that such emergency standard[s] [are] necessary to protect employees from such danger[s].” According to the agency, this provision supplies it with “al- most unlimited discretion” to mandate new nationwide rules in response to the pandemic so long as those rules are “reasonably related” to workplace safety. 86 Fed. Reg. 61402, 61405 (2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court rightly applies the major questions doctrine and concludes that this lone statutory subsection does not clearly authorize OSHA’s mandate. See ante, at 5–6. Sec- tion 655(c)(1) was not adopted in response to the pandemic, but some 50 years ago at the time of OSHA’s creation. Since then, OSHA has relied on it to issue only comparatively modest rules addressing dangers uniquely prevalent inside the workplace, like asbestos and rare chemicals. See In re: MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th 264, 276 (CA6 2021) (Sutton, C. J., 6 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA GORSUCH, J., concurring 417 (CADC 2017) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc); see also N. Richardson, Keeping Big Cases From Making Bad Law: The Resurgent Major Ques- tions Doctrine, 49 Conn. L. Rev. 355, 359 (2016). Whichever the doctrine, the point is the same. Both serve to prevent “government by bureaucracy supplanting gov- ernment by the people.” A. Scalia, A Note on the Benzene Case, American Enterprise Institute, J. on Govt. & Soc., July–Aug. 1980, p. 27. And both hold their lessons for to- day’s case. On the one hand, OSHA claims the power to issue a nationwide mandate on a major question but cannot trace its authority to do so to any clear congressional man- date. On the other hand, if the statutory subsection the agency cites really did endow OSHA with the power it as- serts, that law would likely constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. Under OSHA’s reading, the law would afford it almost unlimited discretion—and certainly impose no “specific restrictions” that “meaning- fully constrai[n]” the agency. Touby v. United States, 500 U. S. 160, 166–167 (1991). OSHA would become little more than a “roving commission to inquire into evils and upon discovery correct them.” A. L. A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U. S. 495, 551 (1935) (Cardozo, J., con- curring). Either way, the point is the same one Chief Jus- tice Marshall made in 1825: There are some “important subjects, which must be entirely regulated by the legisla- ture itself,” and others “of less interest, in which a general provision may be made, and power given to [others] to fill up the details.” Wayman v. Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 43 (1825). And on no one’s account does this mandate qualify as some “detail.” * The question before us is not how to respond to the pan- demic, but who holds the power to do so. The answer is clear: Under the law as it stands today, that power rests 7 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) GORSUCH, J., concurring with the States and Congress, not OSHA. In saying this much, we do not impugn the intentions behind the agency’s mandate. Instead, we only discharge our duty to enforce the law’s demands when it comes to the question who may govern the lives of 84 million Americans. Respecting those demands may be trying in times of stress. But if this Court were to abide them only in more tranquil conditions, decla- rations of emergencies would never end and the liberties our Constitution’s separation of powers seeks to preserve would amount to little. BREYER, J., dissenting _________________ _________________ 1 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Nos. 21A244 and 21A247 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A244 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. OHIO, ET AL., APPLICANTS 21A247 v. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, ET AL. ON APPLICATIONS FOR STAYS [January 13, 2022] JUSTICE BREYER, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN, dissenting. Every day, COVID–19 poses grave dangers to the citizens of this country—and particularly, to its workers. The dis- ease has by now killed almost 1 million Americans and hos- pitalized almost 4 million. It spreads by person-to-person contact in confined indoor spaces, so causes harm in nearly all workplace environments. And in those environments, more than any others, individuals have little control, and therefore little capacity to mitigate risk. COVID–19, in short, is a menace in work settings. The proof is all around us: Since the disease’s onset, most Americans have seen their workplaces transformed. So the administrative agency charged with ensuring health and safety in workplaces did what Congress com- manded it to: It took action to address COVID–19’s contin- uing threat in those spaces. The Occupational Safety and BREYER, J., dissenting 4 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting II The legal standard governing a request for relief pending appellate review is settled. To obtain that relief, the appli- cants must show: (1) that their “claims are likely to pre- vail,” (2) “that denying them relief would lead to irreparable injury,” and (3) “that granting relief would not harm the public interest.” Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (per curiam) (slip op., at 2). Moreover, because the applicants seek judicial interven- tion that the Sixth Circuit withheld below, this Court should not issue relief unless the applicants can establish that their entitlement to relief is “indisputably clear.” South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring in denial of ap- plication for injunctive relief ) (slip op., at 2) (internal quo- tation marks omitted). None of these requirements is met here. III A The applicants are not “likely to prevail” under any proper view of the law. OSHA’s rule perfectly fits the lan- guage of the applicable statutory provision. Once again, that provision commands—not just enables, but com- mands—OSHA to issue an emergency temporary standard whenever it determines “(A) that employees are exposed to grave danger from exposure to substances or agents deter- mined to be toxic or physically harmful or from new haz- ards, and (B) that such emergency standard is necessary to protect employees from such danger.” 29 U. S. C. §655(c)(1). Each and every part of that provision demands that, in the circumstances here, OSHA act to prevent work- place harm. The virus that causes COVID–19 is a “new hazard” as well as a “physically harmful” “agent.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 572 (11th ed. 2005) (defining “hazard” 5 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting as a “source of danger”); id., at 24 (defining “agent” as a “chemically, physically, or biologically active principle”); id., at 1397 (defining “virus” as “the causative agent of an infectious disease”). The virus also poses a “grave danger” to millions of em- ployees. As of the time OSHA promulgated its rule, more than 725,000 Americans had died of COVID–19 and mil- lions more had been hospitalized. See 86 Fed. Reg. 61408, 61424; see also CDC, COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review: Interpretive Summary for Nov. 5, 2021 (Jan. 12, 2022), https://cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019–ncov/covid-data/covidview/ past-reports/11052021.html. Since then, the disease has continued to work its tragic toll. In the last week alone, it has caused, or helped to cause, more than 11,000 new deaths. See CDC, COVID Data Tracker (Jan. 12, 2022), https:// covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_deathsinlast7days. And because the disease spreads in shared indoor spaces, it presents heightened dangers in most workplaces. See 86 Fed. Reg. 61411, 61424. Finally, the Standard is “necessary” to address the dan- ger of COVID–19. OSHA based its rule, requiring either testing and masking or vaccination, on a host of studies and government reports showing why those measures were of unparalleled use in limiting the threat of COVID–19 in most workplaces. The agency showed, in meticulous detail, that close contact between infected and uninfected individ- uals spreads the disease; that “[t]he science of transmission does not vary by industry or by type of workplace”; that test- ing, mask wearing, and vaccination are highly effective— indeed, essential—tools for reducing the risk of transmis- sion, hospitalization, and death; and that unvaccinated em- ployees of all ages face a substantially increased risk from COVID–19 as compared to their vaccinated peers. Id., at 61403, 61411–61412, 61417–61419, 61433–61435, 61438– 61439. In short, OSHA showed that no lesser policy would prevent as much death and injury from COVID–19 as the BREYER, J., dissenting 6 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting Standard would. OSHA’s determinations are “conclusive if supported by substantial evidence.” 29 U. S. C. §655(f ). Judicial review under that test is deferential, as it should be. OSHA em- ploys, in both its enforcement and health divisions, numer- ous scientists, doctors, and other experts in public health, especially as it relates to work environments. Their deci- sions, we have explained, should stand so long as they are supported by “ ‘such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.’ ” Amer- ican Textile Mfrs. Institute, Inc. v. Donovan, 452 U. S. 490, 522 (1981) (quoting Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474, 477 (1951)). Given the extensive evidence in the record supporting OSHA’s determinations about the risk of COVID–19 and the efficacy of masking, testing, and vac- cination, a court could not conclude that the Standard fails substantial-evidence review. B The Court does not dispute that the statutory terms just discussed, read in the ordinary way, authorize this Stand- ard. In other words, the majority does not contest that COVID–19 is a “new hazard” and “physically harmful agent”; that it poses a “grave danger” to employees; or that a testing and masking or vaccination policy is “necessary” to prevent those harms. Instead, the majority claims that the Act does not “plainly authorize[]” the Standard because it gives OSHA the power to “set workplace safety stand- ards” and COVID–19 exists both inside and outside the workplace. Ante, at 6. In other words, the Court argues that OSHA cannot keep workplaces safe from COVID–19 because the agency (as it readily acknowledges) has no power to address the disease outside the work setting. But nothing in the Act’s text supports the majority’s lim- itation on OSHA’s regulatory authority. Of course, the ma- 9 Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting others, any one of whom could represent a source of expo- sure to” the virus. Id., at 61408. The agency backed up its conclusions with hundreds of reports of workplace COVID– 19 outbreaks—not just in cheek-by-jowl settings like fac- tory assembly lines, but in retail stores, restaurants, medi- cal facilities, construction areas, and standard offices. Id., at 61412–61416. But still, OSHA took care to tailor the Standard. Where it could exempt work settings without ex- posing employees to grave danger, it did so. See id., at 61419–61420; supra, at 3. In sum, the agency did just what the Act told it to: It protected employees from a grave dan- ger posed by a new virus as and where needed, and went no further. The majority, in overturning that action, substi- tutes judicial diktat for reasoned policymaking. The result of its ruling is squarely at odds with the stat- utory scheme. As shown earlier, the Act’s explicit terms au- thorize the Standard. See supra, at 4–6. Once again, OSHA must issue an emergency standard in response to new hazards in the workplace that expose employees to “grave danger.” §655(c)(1); see supra, at 2–4. The entire point of that provision is to enable OSHA to deal with emer- gencies—to put into effect the new measures needed to cope with new workplace conditions. The enacting Congress of course did not tell the agency to issue this Standard in re- sponse to this COVID–19 pandemic—because that Con- gress could not predict the future. But that Congress did indeed want OSHA to have the tools needed to confront emerging dangers (including contagious diseases) in the workplace. We know that, first and foremost, from the breadth of the authority Congress granted to OSHA. And we know that because of how OSHA has used that authority from the statute’s beginnings—in ways not dissimilar to the action here. OSHA has often issued rules applying to all or nearly all workplaces in the Nation, affecting at once many tens of millions of employees. See, e.g., 29 CFR §1910.141. It has previously regulated infectious disease, including by BREYER, J., dissenting 10 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS v. OSHA BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting facilitating vaccinations. See §1910.1030(f ). And it has in other contexts required medical examinations and face cov- erings for employees. See §§1910.120(q)(9)(i), 1910.134. In line with those prior actions, the Standard here requires employers to ensure testing and masking if they do not de- mand vaccination. Nothing about that measure is so out- of-the-ordinary as to demand a judicially created exception from Congress’s command that OSHA protect employees from grave workplace harms. If OSHA’s Standard is far-reaching—applying to many millions of American workers—it no more than reflects the scope of the crisis. The Standard responds to a workplace health emergency unprecedented in the agency’s history: an infectious disease that has already killed hundreds of thou- sands and sickened millions; that is most easily transmit- ted in the shared indoor spaces that are the hallmark of American working life; and that spreads mostly without re- gard to differences in occupation or industry. Over the past two years, COVID–19 has affected—indeed, transformed— virtually every workforce and workplace in the Nation. Em- ployers and employees alike have recognized and responded to the special risks of transmission in work environments. It is perverse, given these circumstances, to read the Act’s grant of emergency powers in the way the majority does— as constraining OSHA from addressing one of the gravest workplace hazards in the agency’s history. The Standard protects untold numbers of employees from a danger espe- cially prevalent in workplace conditions. It lies at the core of OSHA’s authority. It is part of what the agency was built for. IV Even if the merits were a close question—which they are not—the Court would badly err by issuing this stay. That is because a court may not issue a stay unless the balance of harms and the public interest support the action. See 11Cite as: 595 U. S. ____ (2022) BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., dissenting Trump v. International Refugee Assistance Project, 582 U. S. ___, ___ (2017) (per curiam) (slip op., at 10) (“Before issuing a stay, it is ultimately necessary to balance the eq- uities—to explore the relative harms” and “the interests of the public at large” (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted)); supra, at 4. Here, they do not. The lives and health of the Nation’s workers are at stake. And the majority deprives the Government of a measure it needs to keep them safe. Consider first the economic harms asserted in support of a stay. The employers principally argue that the Standard will disrupt their businesses by prompting hundreds of thousands of employees to leave their jobs. But OSHA ex- pressly considered that claim, and found it exaggerated. According to OSHA, employers that have implemented vac- cine mandates have found that far fewer employees actu- ally quit their jobs than threaten to do so. See 86 Fed. Reg. 61474–61475. And of course, the Standard does not impose a vaccine mandate; it allows employers to require only masking and testing instead. See supra, at 3. In addition, OSHA noted that the Standard would provide employers with some countervailing economic benefits. Many employ- ees, the agency showed, would be more likely to stay at or apply to an employer complying with the Standard’s safety precautions. See 86 Fed. Reg. 61474. And employers would see far fewer work days lost from members of their work- forces calling in sick. See id., at 61473–61474. All those conclusions are reasonable, and entitled to deference. More fundamentally, the public interest here—the inter- est in protecting workers from disease and death—over- whelms the employers’ alleged costs. As we have said, OSHA estimated that in six months the emergency stand- ard would save over 6,500 lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations. See id., at 61408. Tragically, those esti- mates may prove too conservative. Since OSHA issued the Standard, the number of daily new COVID–19 cases has