Ron DeSantis: OSHA Rule Created ‘Under the Guise of Emergency Power’

The Occupational Safety and Public Health (OSHA) rule forcing businesses with more than 100 employees to implement vaccine and testing requirements on workers was created “under the guise of emergency power,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said on Thursday, announcing the state’s forthcoming lawsuit challenging the federal mandate.

“The federal government can’t just unilaterally impose medical policy under the guise of workplace regulation. And that is exactly what they’re trying to do here,” DeSantis said on Thursday.

“This is an attempt to shoehorn policy through the bureaucracy in a way that will be difficult for some of these individuals and private parties to resist,” he continued, asserting the rule is being presented under the “guise of emergency power.”

“I think it’s interesting that this is being done under the guise of emergency power. This was announced two months ago, and it said, this is an emergency, and that this is grave danger,” DeSantis noted:

Then why did it take you two months to issue the rule? And then of course the rule doesn’t take effect until January, which is convenient because it’s not going to it’ll minimize workforce disruptions over the holiday season, which we know we’re likely to see anyways, and then this would only exacerbate that.

So this is not consistent with a government of limited and enumerated powers. There is no general police power. There’s no power to mandate on the American people from the federal government. People will sometimes point out about state mandates and how those have been imposed through the years. And have the constitutionality has been upheld states clearly have a general police power, whatever the wisdom of a particular mandate is, is much different when the federal government is imposing that on tens of millions of Americans, particularly without any legislative sanction, the end of the day, individuals should make informed choices about their own healthcare. They shouldn’t be coerced into getting a jab in this situation.

“Ultimately, people should be able to make these decisions,” the governor added, warning that the OSHA mandate is just the “tip of the iceberg”:

I don’t think people want this decision yanked away from them. I don’t think they want to allow a precedent where the federal government could come in and just force you to do what it wants you to do and make no mistake about it, those individuals who have gone through a normal vaccination series for COVID — you will be determined to be unvaccinated very soon. They will do that. They are going to tell you you’re unvaccinated and you have to get a booster. Otherwise you could potentially face loss of employment or other types of penalties. So that is going to happen. They’re not putting that in the rule, but they’re already asking for feedback on how to do this going forward. So this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s going to get more restrictive.

“There’s going to be more power brought to bear, going forward if we don’t stand up now, and fight back. I just think people are so sick of constantly being bossed around restricted, mandated all these different things,” he continued.

“We have had enough of it, and we want people to be able to make their own decisions. So it is important to stand up for people’s individual ability to make decisions for themselves,” the governor added.

OSHA released the rule on Thursday, which imposes vaccine and testing requirements on private businesses with over 100 employees. Notably, the rule, which goes into effect January 4, places what amounts to a “work tax” on unvaccinated employees, as OSHA “does not require employers to pay for any costs associated with testing.”