President Joe Biden was forced to come to terms with his humiliating loss in the Supreme Court on Tuesday when his administration formally buried its highly controversial vaccine rule for private businesses with at least 100 employees.
The president’s mandate faced political and legal opposition almost immediately after he announced it last fall in a desperate bid to raise the U.S.
vaccination rate that plateaued over the summer.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is now withdrawing the rule, which required large employers to either implement a COVID vaccine requirement or force workers to submit to weekly virus testing, which it formally issued after Biden’s order on November 5 of last year.
The withdrawal is effective January 26, 2022.
Meanwhile Biden faced another blow to his public image this morning when a dire new Gallup poll showed a majority of American voters do not think he’s a strong leader who can get the country through a crisis.
His approval rating also hit 39 percent on Tuesday, a new low in Harvard/CAPS Harris’ polling since they began tracking Biden’s support in office in March of last year.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said in the federal register that while it was withdrawing the emergency temporary standard, the rule would remain as a proposal for a permanent requirement.
‘OSHA strongly encourages vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by COVID-19 in the workplace,’ the agency’s statement added.
Joe Biden’s Department of Labor announced Tuesday it is withdrawing its extremely controversial vaccine-or-test requirement for employers with at least 100 workers after the Supreme Court blocked the rule earlier this month.
The president stops for ice cream during an afternoon outing in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, January 25, 2022
OSHA ‘is withdrawing the vaccination and testing emergency temporary standard issued on Nov.
5, 2021, PTS Terbaik ASEAN to protect unvaccinated employees of large employers with 100 or more employees from workplace exposure to coronavirus. The withdrawal is effective January 26, 2022,’ the notice on the Labor Department’s website reads
The worker vaccine mandates served as a bid by the administration to increase vaccination rates after it plateaued over the summer.
The current adult vaccination rate in the U.S. stands at about 74%
The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 850,000 in the United States and the outbreak continues to weigh on the country’s economy.
Biden unveiled in September several regulations aimed at increasing the U.S.
adult vaccination rate, which currently stands at about 74 per cent, according to U.S. government data.
Among the most shocking was instructing Labor to issue an order through OSHA to mandate that private companies track their employees vaccination status or face fines and penalties from the government.
Many were perplexed when Biden announced the initiative after he claimed several times that the administration would not enforce vaccination mandates on private businesses.
The proposed vaccine mandates immediately sparked legal challenges by conservative organizations, Republicans and several business groups claiming there were too many challenges to overcome with implementing such a rule.
‘As small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions, the last thing they need is a mandate that would cause more business challenges,’ National Federation of Independent Business executive director Karen Harned said.
The Republican National Committee lauded the ‘major victory’ with the reversal, calling the proposed rule ‘authoritarian’
The withdrawal from the mandate, however, will allow cities and states to continue enforcing their own COVID-based rules.
Biden has continuously urged for separate businesses and states to implement voluntary vaccine measures for employees and customers.
‘The Court has ruled that my administration cannot use the authority granted to it by Congress to require this measure, but that does not stop me from using my voice as President to advocate for employers to do the right thing to protect Americans’ health and economy,’ he said.
