Attorney General Cameron Joins 23-State Amicus Brief Supporting Challenge to CDC’s Mask Mandate for Airports, Transportation Hubs

Ensure this mandate is not reinstated

FRANKFORT, Ky. (August 9, 2022) – Attorney General Cameron today joined 22 other states in filing an amicus brief before a federal appellate court to support a district court’s ruling, which ended the Biden Administration’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mask mandate at public transportation hubs.

“The district court’s ruling here correctly ended the Biden Administration’s mandate requiring all travelers to wear masks at airports, train stations, and other transportation hubs,” said Attorney General Cameron. “We joined this brief to support the court’s important ruling and ensure this mandate is not reinstated.”

In their brief, the attorneys general argue that the district court correctly ended the CDC’s mandate. They explain that the CDC’s unlawful mandate exceeds the agency’s authority in several ways. First, the mandate exceeds the CDC’s statutory authority to impose “sanitation” measures. Additionally, according to the relevant statute, the CDC cannot demand that domestic travelers be examined without evidence that they are carrying disease—but that is what the mandate requires, a visual inspection of every traveler.

The attorneys general also contend the mandate is invalid because it violates the agency’s own regulations. They write, “CDC regulations say that it cannot act unless it finds local measures inadequate. But here, CDC never even studied local measures, much less developed a method to determine whether those measures are adequate.”

Attorney General Cameron joins the attorneys general of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia in filing the brief.

To read the full brief, click here.

In March, Attorney General Cameron joined a 21-state coalition in a multistate lawsuit against the same unlawful CDC mask mandate. The attorneys general argued that the mandate exceeded the authority of the CDC, noting that the Biden Administration continues to use a failed interpretation of a quarantine statute—that has been ruled against in court several times—to authorize the CDC’s rule. A U.S. district judge ended the federal mandate in April.

To learn more, click here.