Florida Judge Mizelle Overturns CDC's Transit Mask Mandate

Miami FL

20 April, 2022

10:00 AM

Description

By Miami Times Staff Report, the Miami Times Apr 18, 2022 A federal judge in Florida has struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's national mask mandate for all forms of public transportation, including planes, trains and ferries. This means the order is no longer in effect. The Biden administration is reviewing the decision and assessing potential next steps. It's unclear if the Justice Department will seek an order to halt the ruling and file an appeal. The ruling came five days after the federal Transportation Security Administration extended the mask requirement another 15 days to May 3. The requirement had been scheduled to expire Monday. In a statement Wednesday about the extension, the Transportation Security Administration pointed to increased COVID-19 cases, particularly involving the BA.2 subvariant of the coronavirus. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle said the CDC's order that went into effect Feb. 1, 2021, exceeds the agency's statutory authority under a law known as the Public Health Services Act, and refuted an argument by federal attorneys that the requirement was a legal "sanitation" measure. Her 59-page decision sided with the Health Freedom Defense Fund and two individual plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed last year. "The government interprets 'sanitation' and 'other measures' to include traditional techniques that impede the spread of disease," Mizelle wrote. "One definition it relies upon is even broader, defining 'sanitation' as the 'applying of measures for preserving and promoting public health.' If Congress intended this definition, the power bestowed upon the CDC would be breathtaking. And it certainly would not be limited to modest measures of 'sanitation' like masks." Mizelle also ruled that the CDC violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act, in part because it did not give the public proper time to review and comment on the mask rule before it was put in place. Also, she wrote that the requirement was "arbitrary and capricious" because the CDC didn't adequately explain its reasoning. She additionally said that the CDC didn't offer justification for the extension of its mask mandate and didn't follow proper procedure in doing so. Mizelle, who has served in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida since Sept. 8, 2020, was nominated to the seat by former President Donald Trump. A former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Mizelle had been rated "not qualified" by the American Bar Association for "the short time she has actually practiced law and her lack of meaningful trial experience." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.