A federal judge in Florida overturned the Biden administration’s national transportation mask mandate on Monday, determining that the CDC overstepped its authority by requiring masks on planes, trains, buses, and other forms of public transportation.

The order handed down by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle found that the CDC’s masking requirement violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) because it was implemented “without allowing public participation through the APA’s notice and comment procedures.”

The mandate is also full of contradictions and lacks specificity, the judge wrote. For instance, it “did not differentiate between kinds of masks based on their efficacy at blocking transmission.” The rule did not discriminate between cloth masks or N-95 medical grade masks, including only a footnote directing readers to CDC guidance on “attributes of acceptable masks.”

The ruling comes days after the Biden administration again extended the transportation mask mandate for two weeks, marking the fifth time the mandate has been extended since it was initially enacted.

Mizelle found that the CDC’s power to impose the mandate had to be derived from a specific line of the Public Health Services Act, which allows public health measures that provide for “inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction, …and other measures.” The government claimed the mask mandate fell under the umbrella “sanitation” clause, an assessment the plaintiffs disputed and Mizelle ultimately rejected, adding that “sanitation” is strictly limited to cleaning measures.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the convenance. Because the CDC required mask wearing as a measure to keep something clean-explaining that it limits the spread of Covid-19 through prevention, but never contending that it actively destroys or removes it- the Mask Mandate falls outside of §264(a),” the order reads.

The lawsuit was filed in July on behalf of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, an advocacy group that opposes public health mandates, along with Ana Daza, and Sarah Pope, who claim their travel anxiety was exacerbated by the mask requirement. The suit originally named President Biden, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, top CDC officials, and the CDC generally. Biden was later dropped as a defendant in the case.

In their amended complaint, the plaintiffs argued that the mandate exceeded the CDC’s power but even if it were statutorily authorized, that Congress inappropriately transferred legislative power to the CDC. Their third allegation was that the CDC had no grounds to invoke “the good cause exception to avoid the notice and comment procedures required under the APA.”

In March, a number of major airline CEOs called on the Biden administration to lift the transportation mask mandate as well as the Covid-test requirement for air travel, citing low case numbers and severity nationwide.

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Federal Judge Overturns Biden Administration’s Transportation Mask Mandate

The mandate exceeds the CDC’s authority, is full of contradictions, and lacks specificity, the judge ... READ MORE

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