Biden’s Justice Department is fighting to reinstate a mask mandate for air travel.
Justice Department lawyers on Tuesday made the argument at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal judge last April struck down the federal travel mask mandate.
“The Department continues to believe that the order requiring masking in the transportation corridor is a valid exercise of the authority Congress has given CDC to protect the public health. That is an important authority the Department will continue to work to preserve,” DOJ said in a statement last April.
A reporter asked Biden if people should continue to wear masks on planes after a Trump-appointed federal judge declared his mandate unlawful last spring.
“That’s up to them,” Biden said last year.
The DOJ is now fighting to reinstate the mask mandate even though Joe Biden previously said mask-wearing is a personal choice and declared the “pandemic is over.”
Fox News reported:
The Biden administration is fighting to maintain a federal mask mandate for air travel and other methods of transportation even after President Biden said months ago the pandemic is “over,” and despite calls from travel associations to end mask mandates.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments on Tuesday from the Biden Justice Department on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to reinstate a mask mandate for air travel, after a federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate last April.
The Health Freedom Defense Fund (HDFD), a medical rights advocacy group that initially sued the Biden administration in July 2021, will make the argument in court Tuesday that the order requiring all travelers to wear masks “lacks not only any rooting in federal statutes, but it also violated existing federal law in how it was promulgated. The mandate also suffers from an inconsistent application of sound science.”
“The Biden administration is trying to paper over an illegal, sweeping mandate on Americans that is full of massive legal and scientific holes,” HFDF founder and President Leslie Manookian said in a press statement. “That a federal agency should be able to just usurp the power of Congress, and violate fundamental individual rights is not only at odds with the law – it defies basic common sense.”