Biden team advances COVID-19 workplace mask rules after Democrats demand explanation
National COVID-19 workplace mask rules and other protections that had been stalled for over a month past a deadline set by President Joe Biden moved forward this week after congressional Democrats demanded an explanation for the delay.
Inside the administration, officials acknowledged that a delay in releasing the new standards — which Biden said on his second day in office would come down no later than March 15 — had caused surprising blowback from congressional allies, who this week issued statements and letters and scheduled open hearings on the delay.
The standards would set enforceable, temporary rules across the country for employees on wearing masks at work, a policy that Democrats have called for since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year.
But the new rules would also come at a point when the Biden administration is preparing the country for a return to some normalcy by the Fourth of July holiday, touting the success of its national vaccination campaign, and releasing more guidance each day on what activities fully vaccinated Americans can safely resume.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday issued new guidance declaring it safe for fully vaccinated Americans to go without a mask in uncrowded outdoor settings.
The draft rules, which are not yet public, are expected to be highly technical and variable based on specific workplace conditions such as ventilation and an employee’s proximity to colleagues.
Three Democratic congressional sources and two former U.S. officials told McClatchy that the workplace mask rule had been held up at the White House, not at the Labor Department, despite officials stating publicly that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was continuously tweaking with its draft standards over the past several weeks.
Four of the sources said that Labor Department officials were prepared to submit the emergency standards for review in early March.
The Labor Department submitted its new standards to the Office of Management and Budget for review on Monday, after the House Education and Labor Committee scheduled a hearing for Friday on the delay.
“On Monday, OSHA sent draft standards to the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for review,” a Labor Department spokesperson told McClatchy. “OSHA has been working diligently on its proposal and has taken the appropriate time to work with its science-agency partners, economic agencies, and others in the U.S. government to get this proposed emergency standard right.”
The review process is expected to take about two weeks. The draft standards will not be public until the review is complete.
“It’s my understanding that OSHA has completed its work and it’s been held up by the White House,” said David Michaels, a former member of Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board during the presidential transition and a professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University.
“Given that millions of workers spend eight to ten hours a day in enclosed facilities, indoors, many of which have poor ventilation, the failure to control indoor workplace exposures is slowing our response to the pandemic,” said Michaels, who was the longest serving administrator in OSHA’s history from 2009 to 2017.
Two administration sources said the rule was delayed because OSHA was reviewing standards in a fast-changing environment for workers, with vaccines becoming readily available and with new variants emerging.
Democratic lawmakers and labor advocates saw these explanations as an effort to stall the release of the standards, which could cause controversy in Republican-led states averse to imposing mask mandates.
Throughout the health crisis, Americans have not had a common set of workplace safety standards on masks, instead relying on a patchwork of state and local guidelines and rules.
Biden campaigned for the presidency pledging to issue a national standard shortly after taking office. On Jan. 21, he signed an executive order directing OSHA to prepare emergency standards by March 15.
That deadline came and went without any action taken.
A Senate letter signed on Monday by a third of the Democratic caucus called on Biden to end the delay in issuing new rules.
“The consequences of each day of delay are dire — and potentially fatal — for frontline workers who have toiled without enforceable health or safety standards specific to COVID-19 since the beginning of this pandemic,” Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, said in a statement late Monday.
“We urge you to issue this necessary standard without further delay,” the senators wrote.
A similar letter was sent to the president by Democrats in the House.
Labor Department officials asked members of the House Education and Labor Committee if agency leaders would still have to participate in the hearing if they sent the new standards over to the Office of Management and Budget for review, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
The committee has postponed the hearing as it awaits the conclusion of the OMB review, a spokesperson for the committee said on Thursday.
“We urge swift issuance of the rule,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement this week. “As working people continue to keep our country afloat more than a year into this pandemic, the Biden administration must continue to prioritize our safety and ensure we are protected from this virus on the job.”
Updated with House Education and Labor Committee hearing postponed.
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 9:30 AM with the headline "Biden team advances COVID-19 workplace mask rules after Democrats demand explanation."
