Federal Judge Strikes Down Biden Administration’s Mask Mandate on Public Transportation
By Fox News // April 18, 2022
White House did not immediately respond for comment
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(FOX NEWS) – A federal judge on Monday voided the Biden administration’s mask mandate for travelers using public transportation such as trains and airplanes.
The mandate from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention applies to people as young as 2 years old, and had been set to expire a number of times but was recently extended to May 3 before Monday’s ruling.
The ruling from U.S.. District Court Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, came in a case brought in Florida federal court by Health Freedom Defense Fund, Inc. and frequent air travelers Ana Daza and Sarah Pope against the administration. Judge Mizelle determined that the mandate violated the Administrative Procedure Act by being outside the scope of the CDC’s authority, was “arbitrary” and “capricious” and not going through the required notice and comment period for federal rulemaking.
Mizelle examined the section of the Public Health Services Act of 1944 that was the basis for the mandate.
That law allows the CDC “to make and enforce such regulations” deemed “necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States[.]” To achieve this, the law says that CDC can utilize “inspection, fumigation disinfection sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infect or contaminated as to be sources of dangerous infection to human beings, and other measures[.]” The administration, the judge noted, has claimed that the mask mandate falls under “sanitation.”
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