Chamber of Commerce tells businesses to implement

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday recommended that businesses implement President Joe Biden’s vaccine and testing requirements, despite a federal court order that has temporarily halted the rules.

“Ultimately the courts are going to decide, but employers still need to take this as a live ETS until it is definitively shut down,” Marc Freedman, the Chamber’s vice president of employment policy, said of the emergency temporary standard. “They should not bank on the preliminary actions of the 5^th Circuit,” he told CNBC in a statement.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which polices workplace safety for the Labor Department, issued the rules through a rarely used fast-track process.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Friday reaffirmed its decision to pause the requirements, telling the Biden administration to refrain from implementation or enforcement until further notice. The appellate court is considered one of the most conservative in the nation.

The court-ordered pause, which the three-judge panel originally issued on Nov. 6, came in response to lawsuits by the Republican attorneys general of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah, as well as several private companies.

Circuit Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, in an opinion issued Friday, called Biden’s requirements “fatally flawed” and “staggeringly overbroad.” While the court has not yet ruled on their constitutionality, Engelhardt made clear that he believes the lawsuits seeking to overturn Biden’s policy are likely to succeed.

Engelhardt, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018, criticized the requirements as “a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers).”

The Biden administration last week asked the court to lift the pause, warning that failure to implement the requirements “would likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day” as Covid spreads. The Justice and Labor Departments maintain that OSHA acted well within its authority as established by Congress.”

Industry groups such as the National Retail Federation, the American Trucking Associations and the National Federation of Independent Business have also sued in the Fifth Circuit to overturn the requirements. The industry groups have argued that the mandates would cause staffing and supply chain disruptions during the busy holiday season.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that the new rules will encourage people to return to the workplace by creating a safer environment where they are less likely to contract Covid, thereby alleviating staffing issues created by employees falling ill.

The…