Not surprisingly, particularly after a recent oral argument on January 7, 2022, the Supreme Court reinstated the national stay of OSHA’s ETS today. In doing so, the Court found that the petitioners were “likely to succeed on the merits.” As also expected, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer dissented from the decision. Many practitioners, including the co-authors of this blog, questioned OSHA’s authority to issue the ETS for reasons discussed in prior blogs.  

The Court also issued a separate decision which permits the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ vaccine mandate to move forward by granting the Government’s request to stay injunctions issued by two district courts.