“That being said they don’t have the authority to make any laws ...”
That is true. But this morphs from black and white to gray, and there is a lot of judicial precedent since the rise of the administrative state under FDR. The genie is out of the bottle. “Regulations” made by an agency sure feel like laws, don’t they?, because one can get fined and in some cases go to federal prison. But regulations are not laws according to the judiciary in the purest sense ... they mechanism to implement the law passed by Congress. If an agency acts outside of what Congress passed, then the regulation has no force.
Congress passed the “OSH Act” and good Republican Nixon signed it into law. Under the Commerce Clause, the feral givernment preempts states in workplace safety. Therein OSH Act is a provision that the Sec’y of Labor may protect workers against “grave dangers” that exist in the workplace through emergency rulemaking. That rulemaking suspends the more demanding requirements spelled out in the Administrative Procedures Act for “normal rulemaking”.
I’ll stop here, with one fundamental question. When Congress passed the OSH Act, and provided the grave danger mechanism, did it intend for OSHA to implement a regulation for disease during a pandemic that persons can be exposed to outside the workplace as well as inside the workplace? I would argue the agency is well outside its legal authority on this point.
“Under the Commerce Clause, the feral givernment preempts states in workplace safety. Therein OSH Act is a provision that the Sec’y of Labor may protect workers against “grave dangers” that exist in the workplace through emergency rulemaking.”
And Biden with his OSHA mandate is attempting to nullify the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the holy grail for liberals. The civil rights act is legislation created by Congress. A president or executive agency can’t magically cancel or alter a law passed by congress with an order.
Go read Rapanos v US or SWANNC v US. In both cases, executive agencies tried to redefine what a navigable body of water is. The USSC ruled that the agencies exceeded their authority.