Federal vaccine mandate temporarily halted

Governor Mark Gordon has indicated that the state remains committed to fighting back against federal vaccine mandates, though the possibility of them being enforced has ebbed for the time being.

The Occupational and Safety Health Administration (OSHA) announced last week that it has, “suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of the [COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS)] pending future developments in the litigation.”

On November 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a motion to stay the ETS, ordering that OSHA take no steps to implement or enforce it “until further court order.”

The ETS, which has caused significant consternation across the U.S., would have required all private employers of more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing. The deadline to begin doing so was set for January 4, 2022.

However, the same day as the mandate was published – November 5 – a diverse group of petitioners that included employers, states, religious groups and citizens moved to stay the mandate in federal courts of appeal across the nation.

“Finding ‘cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate,’ we intervened and imposed a temporary stay,” states the 22-page finding from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Governor Gordon was quick to express his displeasure with what he described as “federal overreach” and, with the backing of the Wyoming State Legislature, now has additional funds with which to do so.

The governor announced on November 10 that Wyoming was challenging the vaccine mandates in a three-pronged approach. This included a lawsuit filed on October 29 against the Biden Administration for imposing a vaccine mandate on federal contractors and federally contracted employees; a lawsuit to halt OSHA’s ETS; and action to prevent the Biden Administration from enforcing a mandate on healthcare workers.

Meanwhile, only one bill made it all the way through the legislature’s recent special session. HB1002 was signed into law on November 12 and supports the governor’s continued actions while also appropriating $4 million in additional funds to aid them.