The Supreme Court’s COVID rulings produced a clear pattern: the Court blocked most of the sweeping federal pandemic measures that relied on stretched readings of older statutes, while allowing narrower actions tied directly to programs Congress already controlled. Between late 2020 and mid-2023, the justices struck down the OSHA workplace vaccine-or-test rule, the CDC eviction moratorium, and the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness plan. They upheld the vaccination requirement for healthcare workers at Medicare- and Medicaid-funded facilities. And in a line of religious liberty cases, they held that states could not treat worship services worse than comparable secular activities. Running through almost all of these decisions was one question — did Congress actually authorize what the executive branch did? — and the answers reshaped federal agency power well past the pandemic.
The OSHA Workplace Vaccine-or-Test Rule Was Struck Down
In January 2022, the Court blocked an emergency rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that would have required businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure workers were either vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly and masked at work. In National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, a 6–3 per curiam decision found that OSHA had exceeded its authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.1Supreme Court of the United States. National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA
The majority’s reasoning was that OSHA regulates workplace-specific hazards, not universal risks of daily life. COVID-19, the Court said, is a danger people face at grocery stores, sporting events, and family dinners just as much as at work. A rule covering roughly 84 million workers was, in the Court’s view, a broad public health measure dressed up as a workplace safety regulation.1Supreme Court of the United States. National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA
Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan dissented. They pointed to statutory text requiring OSHA to act against “grave danger” from “new hazards” or “physically harmful” agents, and noted that OSHA has long regulated hazards like fire and electrical risks that also exist outside workplaces.1Supreme Court of the United States. National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA
What Private Employers Can Still Do
The ruling blocked a nationwide federal mandate. It did not prohibit private employers from setting their own vaccination policies. Federal antidiscrimination law still permits companies to require vaccines as a condition of employment, so long as they offer reasonable accommodations for employees with medical conditions covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act or sincerely held religious beliefs protected under Title VII. More than ten states, however, passed laws restricting private employer vaccine mandates, typically by requiring employers to accept broad medical or religious exemptions. If you work for a private company with a vaccination policy, your state’s law may provide protections beyond the federal baseline.
The Healthcare Worker Mandate Was Upheld
On the same day it blocked the OSHA rule, the Court reached the opposite result for healthcare workers. In Biden v. Missouri, a 5–4 majority allowed a vaccination requirement issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for staff at hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding. Exemptions were available for medical reasons and sincerely held religious beliefs.2Supreme Court of the United States. Biden v. Missouri
The difference came down to statutory fit. Congress had expressly authorized the Secretary of Health and Human Services to impose requirements “necessary in the interest of the health and safety of individuals who are furnished services” at participating facilities. Protecting elderly, disabled, and low-income patients from a highly contagious virus fell within that authority. The CMS rule targeted a program Congress already controlled through funding conditions, rather than reaching across the entire economy.2Supreme Court of the United States. Biden v. Missouri
The mandate itself is no longer in force. CMS stopped enforcement on June 5, 2023, and a final rule ending the requirement took effect August 5, 2023.3Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Revised Guidance for Staff Vaccination Requirements
The CDC Eviction Moratorium Was Struck Down
In August 2021, the Court ended the CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services. The policy had prevented landlords from evicting tenants who declared financial hardship in counties with substantial or high transmission levels. The government argued that keeping people housed slowed disease spread; the Court found no legal basis for the order.4Supreme Court of the United States. Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services
The CDC relied on a provision of the Public Health Service Act authorizing regulations “necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases.” But the 6–3 majority focused on the next sentence, which listed the kinds of measures Congress had in mind: inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, and destruction of contaminated articles. An eviction ban, the Court wrote, resembled none of these. The applicants, the majority said, “not only have a substantial likelihood of success on the merits — it is difficult to imagine them losing.”4Supreme Court of the United States. Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services
The decision also pointed out that Congress had passed a temporary moratorium earlier in the pandemic and declined to extend it. When Congress chooses not to authorize a policy, an agency cannot fill that gap on its own.
What Happened to Rental Assistance
The moratorium paused evictions but did not forgive the rent tenants owed. Congress appropriated roughly $46 billion in emergency rental assistance across two rounds of funding, producing more than 10 million payments to renters at risk of eviction. The second round closed on September 30, 2025, and no further federal pandemic-related rental assistance is currently available.5U.S. Department of the Treasury. Emergency Rental Assistance Program
Student Loan Forgiveness Was Struck Down
In June 2023, the Court ended the Biden administration’s plan to cancel federal student loan debt. The program, challenged in Biden v. Nebraska, would have forgiven up to $20,000 for borrowers who received Pell Grants and up to $10,000 for other eligible borrowers. The administration pointed to the COVID-19 national emergency as its basis for action.6Legal Information Institute. Biden v. Nebraska
The legal authority was the HEROES Act of 2003, passed after September 11th, which lets the Secretary of Education “waive or modify” student financial aid rules during a national emergency so that affected borrowers are “not placed in a worse position financially.”7GovInfo. Public Law 108-76 – Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act of 2003
Writing for a 6–3 majority, Chief Justice Roberts held that “waive or modify” carries “a connotation of increment or limitation” — moderate adjustments to existing rules, not a wholesale rewrite. Canceling $430 billion in debt was not a modification but “effectively the introduction of a whole new regime,” requiring far clearer authorization from Congress.8Supreme Court of the United States. Biden v. Nebraska
Where Student Loan Relief Stands Now
The administration then tried a different route through the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) income-driven repayment plan, which lowered monthly payments and shortened the timeline to forgiveness. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit struck down SAVE in March 2026. As of July 1, 2026, the Repayment Assistance Plan created under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is scheduled to replace it, using a sliding scale of 1% to 10% of a borrower’s total adjusted gross income across a 30-year repayment period. The older Income-Based Repayment plan, with payments of 10% to 15% of discretionary income over 20 to 25 years, remains available.
Religious Gathering Restrictions Faced Strict Scrutiny
The Court heard several challenges to state restrictions on religious services, and the key decisions were Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo and Tandon v. Newsom. Together they established that public health orders cannot single out religious gatherings for harsher treatment than comparable secular activities.
In Roman Catholic Diocese, decided November 2020, New York had imposed strict capacity limits on houses of worship in designated “red” and “orange” zones while letting various secular businesses operate under looser rules. The Court found this was not neutral treatment. Because the regulations singled out religious services for “especially harsh treatment,” they had to satisfy strict scrutiny: the state needed to show the restrictions were narrowly tailored to a compelling interest. New York’s rules failed that test.9Legal Information Institute. Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo
Tandon, decided in April 2021, challenged California’s ban on indoor home gatherings that swept in Bible studies and prayer groups. The 5–4 per curiam opinion sharpened the test. Government regulations trigger strict scrutiny “whenever they treat any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise,” and whether activities are comparable “must be judged against the asserted government interest that justifies the regulation at issue.” The question is not whether a worship service resembles a store in the abstract, but whether the state is letting similarly risky secular activities operate more freely.10Supreme Court of the United States. Tandon v. Newsom
The Shift Away From Deference
These outcomes were not inevitable. In May 2020, Chief Justice Roberts had sided with California’s church capacity limits in the first South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom case, writing that federal courts owe “significant deference” to politically accountable officials assessing public health risks. By February 2021, when the same case returned, the majority had moved the other way. Justice Gorsuch wrote that when a state “so obviously targets religion for differential treatment, our job becomes that much clearer,” faulting lower courts for not following the Court’s guidance in Roman Catholic Diocese.11Supreme Court of the United States. South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom
Why These Rulings Still Matter: The Major Questions Doctrine
The single legal idea connecting most of these cases is the major questions doctrine. The OSHA mandate, the eviction moratorium, and the student loan forgiveness plan were all struck down on the same core logic: when an agency claims authority to make a decision of vast economic and political significance, it needs clear authorization from Congress, not a creative reading of an older statute.
The doctrine did not stay confined to pandemic cases. In June 2022, the Court applied it in West Virginia v. EPA to block the Clean Power Plan, which would have set greenhouse gas caps for power plants based on industry-wide generation shifting. The majority cited both the OSHA case and the eviction moratorium case as part of a pattern of “agencies asserting highly consequential power beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.”12Supreme Court of the United States. West Virginia v. EPA
Then in June 2024, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturned the Chevron doctrine, which had required courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. The majority described the major questions doctrine as one of several “preconditions and exceptions” courts had developed because Chevron forced them to yield their independent judgment. With Chevron gone, courts decide for themselves what Congress authorized.13Supreme Court of the United States. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
The practical result is that federal agencies now face a much harder path when they try to meet emerging problems with existing statutory authority. If a regulation carries major economic consequences and the authorizing statute does not clearly contemplate the specific action, courts are far more likely to strike it down. The COVID-era rulings were the proving ground, and every significant federal regulation proposed since lives in their shadow.