The Biden administration is seeking to retain mask rules on airlines and other forms of public transportation in place, filing a lawsuit in federal court on Tuesday to reverse a U.S. Supreme Court decision. A District Court judge ruled in April that the CDC’s mask regulation was unconstitutional.
In April, Florida Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle stated that the U.S. By imposing a mask mandate on flights, buses, trains, and other types of public transportation and transportation hubs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went beyond its legal jurisdiction. She ordered the Biden administration to suspend enforcing the mask requirements, and the Department of Justice promised to fight the decision while the administration complied.
The DOJ submitted court documents on Tuesday stating that the CDC’s mask rule, which went into effect in January 2021, was within the agency’s legal power.
The Department of Justice contrasted the CDC’s mask mandate to how the Biden administration executed a vaccination mandate for some health-care employees, using the Supreme Court’s ruling that the vaccine mandate was legal to support the mask mandate.
Mizelle’s decision came only days before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention intended to extend the mask mandate on May 3. The mandate has been extended five times by the Biden administration, the most recent time alleging that the BA.2 coronavirus subvariant was causing an increase in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and fatalities, necessitating masking restrictions to prevent the virus’s transmission.
The CDC’s mask regulation for airlines is widely unpopular, which is why disruptive flying travelers have created disruptions on flights by refusing to wear a mask or mask their children. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the incidence of rowdy flight passenger incidents plummeted to its lowest level since late 2020 after the mask rule was repealed on April 18.
