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Floor Speech

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Mrs. FISCHER. Mr. President, I rise this evening to discuss President Biden's divisive and unprecedented vaccine mandate on private businesses.

I would like to make one thing clear at the start: I have encouraged Nebraskans to consider getting vaccinated since the day these vaccines were approved, and I hope more Americans will join me in choosing to get one, but that is their choice.

Through OSHA, the administration has issued an ``emergency rule'' to require, roughly, 84 million employees of private companies to get vaccinated or be subjected to weekly testing. If business owners fail to enforce this rule for their employees, they could be fined tens of thousands of dollars per violation.

The Biden administration is on entirely new ground here. There is simply no precedent for this kind of intrusion into Americans' private lives. Courts agree. The Fifth Circuit blocked the OSHA mandate almost immediately, citing ``grave statutory and constitutional issues.''

We in Congress have the power to push back too. In October, I joined nine of my Senate colleagues in sending a letter to President Biden that outlined our concerns about this abuse of Federal power. Under the Congressional Review Act, the House and Senate can vote to overturn executive Agency actions like this OSHA mandate, and I hope the Senate will do that when we vote on this later today. All 50 Senate Republicans signed on to this challenge. If our resolution passes both Chambers--and it looks like it may do that on a bipartisan basis-- President Biden will have to decide if he wants to keep defending this deeply unpopular policy.

The administration's decision to force private employees to get vaccinated is not just unprecedented; it is also counterproductive. It would apply to nearly 300,000 workers in my State of Nebraska alone-- more than 28 percent of our entire workforce. Businesses across Nebraska, from grocery chains to irrigation companies and family farms, have reached out to me about the damage this mandate will do to their companies. They come from very different industries, but their message is the same: We support the vaccines, and we have taken this pandemic seriously, but if the President goes through with this mandate, we could lose many of our employees.

At a time when millions of jobs need to be filled and we are seeing massive supply chain issues, Americans simply cannot afford this kind of Federal overreach. We need to stop this mandate in its tracks here in Congress because this could be the first step on the road to even stricter rules.

Let's just look at New York City. It has recently announced one vaccine requirement that will affect private employees and another that will affect children as young as 5 years old. Bill de Blasio's parting gift to New Yorkers is this: Get at least one shot by December 27, or you are going to lose your job.

Starting later this month, kindergartners are going to have to show vaccine cards to get into restaurants, movie theaters, and other public places.

I do not want to see policies like this even come close to being enacted at the Federal level, but I wouldn't put it past this President to try. The Senate must pass this resolution and prevent these kinds of mandates from being issued again in the future.

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