HELENA – Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen is continuing to fight the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “unprecedented masking mandate regulating every breath of millions of Americans.” The CDC issued the mandate days after President Biden’s inauguration.

An amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit with 22 other states makes it clear the agency does not have the authority to implement such mandate and the mandate infringes on each state’s ability to enact its own public health rules.

“Throughout the pandemic, this administration has turned to novel, expansive, and dubious readings of its authorities. CDC has been among the worst offenders,” the brief states. “As CDC advances still another novel interpretation of section 264 in support of an unprecedented masking mandate regulating every breath of millions of Americans.”

The CDC’s unlawful mandate exceeds the agency’s authority in several ways. First, the CDC grounds its authority to issue a mask mandate in its power to require “sanitation” measures under 42 U.S.C. § 264(a). That authority cannot support the mandate. Also, according to the statute, 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 without any individualized suspicion.

Click here to read the brief.