The White House on Tuesday blamed Republican lead representatives in Texas and Florida of keeping lives from being saved by finding a way ways to go against COVID-19 immunization orders.
While addressing columnists at the daily press briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was questioned on what the Biden administration would do in response to Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott giving an order that goes against the federal government’s announced requirement that companies with 100 or more workers force their employees to be vaccinated. In particular, she was questioned if the administration would sue Texas for not agreeing with the federal vaccine mandate, and she didn’t give a direct answer.
“These requirements are promulgated by federal law, so when the president announced his vaccine mandates for businesses — that, of course, we’re waiting on OSHA regulations for as a next step — that was pursuant to federal law,” Psaki said.
“Our intention is to implement and continue to work to implement these requirements across the country, including in the states where there are attempts to oppose them,” she said.
Abbott on Monday gave an executive order banning entities in Texas from demanding that people get COVID-19 shots in the event they object “for any reason of personal conscience.” Similarly, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday let reporters know that his administration is thinking about a law that would protect employees from being terminated if they don’t submit to vaccine requirements.
Psaki blamed Abbott and DeSantis of “putting politics ahead of public health.”
“Over 700,000 American lives have been lost due to COVID-19, including more than 56,000 in Florida and over 68,000 in Texas, and every leader should be focused on supporting efforts to save lives and end the pandemic. Why would you be taking steps that prevent the saving of lives, that make it more difficult to save lives across the country or in any state?” she said.
Psaki added that President Biden would use “every lever at his disposal” to get individuals vaccinated and put an end to the pandemic.
However, actually speaking, there is no federal vaccine mandate switch for Biden to push, essentially not yet. Though the president had a press conference where he announced new vaccination requirements for private businesses with more than a hundred workers on Sept. 9, his administration has not yet put out any guidelines that would enact that requirement. Neither the White House, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, nor the Department of Labor has gave official guidance for the implied federal vaccine mandate, the Federalist said last week.
Biden did sign an executive order on Sept. 9 that asks the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force to create mandates that federal contractors “provide adequate COVID-19 safeguards to their workers performing on or in connection with a Federal Government contract or contract-like instrument.”
The executive order does not create a vaccine requirement directly; rather, it tells federal contractors to follow the direction that the task force will give. As for private companies that don’t contract with the federal government, the White House told the press that OSHA will give an emergency rule to require vaccination, but it has not done yet.
That is the reason Psaki didn’t say the central government would sue Texas. It’s likewise why no state lawyers general have documented a claim against the Biden organization to stop the vaccine mandate. There’s nothing to sue over.
In any case, numerous large organizations have utilized Biden’s announcement as cover to feel free to carry out antibody orders while pointing the fault at the federal government.
“Everybody loves this cover,” Minneapolis employment lawyer Kate Bischoff told Bloomberg Law in September. “Many were already looking down the road at doing this, but the fact that they get to blame Biden is like manna from heaven.”