ALEC in Kaiser Health News: Judge’s Ruling on the CDC Mask Mandate Highlights the Limits of the Agency’s Power
“The CDC used its authority or at least argued that its authority should extend to much more broad public health emergency responses than was actually granted."
The role that the federal government plays in containing future epidemics will hinge on the outcome of an appeal of this week’s court ruling that overturned the mask mandate for travelers on airlines, trains, and the nation’s mass transit systems.
The role that the federal government plays in containing future epidemics will hinge on the outcome of an appeal of this week’s court ruling that overturned the mask mandate for travelers on airlines, trains, and the nation’s mass transit systems.
A federal court judge in Florida said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had overstepped its authority in requiring masks on public transportation, a mandate that legal experts considered well within the bounds of the agency’s charge to prevent the spread of covid-19 across the nation.
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It isn’t the first time during the pandemic that the CDC has had its authority questioned. The agency suffered a blow last year when the Supreme Court said it overstepped its bounds by imposing an eviction ban during the pandemic.
Jonathon Hauenschild, with the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council policy group, sees connections between the eviction and mask mandate cases. “The CDC used its authority or at least argued that its authority should extend to much more broad public health emergency responses than was actually granted,” he said. The recent ruling, Hauenschild argued, simply offers further definition of the powers the CDC and local jurisdictions have — even during an emergency.
“What this case does is it kind of establishes a baseline that says, ‘We’re going to keep the public health authorities to their statutory grant of authority,” he said. “That’s an important distinction because state legislatures or even Congress have weighed the policy implications. They’ve realized there’s a balance here.”