Murphy: “Biden has abused his authority – it’s time to end the Public Health Emergency”
By Rep. Greg Murphy, M.D.
The Trump administration succeeded in deploying the Public Health Emergency in 2020 as an effective and genuine policy response to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. The Public Health Emergency, first declared by the secretary of health and human services on Jan. 31, 2020, granted various authorities to the executive branch in response to COVID-19.
Unfortunately, what began as a necessary and steadfast policy measure under President Donald Trump has devolved into an unprecedented, dictatorial abuse of power under the Biden administration.
The Trump administration effectively used the Public Health Emergency executive powers to lead the world in the fight against COVID-19, forge an unprecedented public-private partnership to fund the development of therapeutics, and safeguard healthcare workers. There was a time and a place for such executive power, as with any catastrophic event.
Contrast this with today. More than two and a half years later, COVID-19 has been in an endemic phase for many months, with high vaccination rates, decreasing hospitalizations, and plummeting death rates. Yet President Joe Biden has nonetheless continued the Public Health Emergency long past its first designated course. Biden's reason for this is not about science — it’s about opportunities to abuse power.
The Biden administration has routinely weaponized the PHE to overstep his constitutional authority — from his illegal extension of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's eviction moratorium to his unscientific forced masking requirements and vaccine mandates. The U.S. Supreme Court has already correctly ruled against Biden on both the CDC eviction moratorium and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration large employer vaccine mandate, finding that neither executive policy was within the legal bounds of Biden's pandemic emergency authority. Biden’s federal employee COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which he initially admitted may not be constitutional, also remains in judicial limbo, as an appeals court has agreed to rehear the case.
The PHE has also prevented states from auditing their Medicaid rolls, to the point that 1 in 4 Americans now relies on Medicaid. Biden touts the strongest economy in history, but then, he creates unprecedented governmental dependency. Medicaid is meant for deserving individuals. It is not to be used as another tool for handout addiction.
Years later, Biden continues to hijack the intent of these emergency designations to steamroll his radical domestic policy agenda. He recently invoked the national emergency declaration and used a law passed in the wake of Sept. 11 as the legal basis for his unconstitutional student loan giveaway.
The Public Health Emergency is set to expire on Oct. 15, but Biden will likely extend the authority of the federal government, as he is historically unwilling to concede his pandemic-era power.
This despite the fact that, in a shameless moment of brutal honesty, Biden recently told 60 Minutes, “The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. It’s — but the pandemic is over.”
With Biden’s emergency powers predicated on extending the pandemic, it’s no surprise that the White House is downplaying these remarks, telling CNN that Biden’s comments do not mark a change in policy. Biden’s Freudian slip comes on the heels of Dr. Anthony Fauci telling PBS NewsHour in April 2022 that the U.S. is “out of the pandemic phase.”
More than a year into the Biden administration, the Public Health Emergency remains in effect for all the wrong reasons. What once was a genuine, necessary, and effective policy measure to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has been weaponized into a disingenuous, counterfeit policy trick to let Biden overstep his legal authority and legislate from the executive branch. While COVID-19 lingers in an endemic phase, it is entirely wrong for the administration to be using a medical situation for political gain.
Biden must immediately rescind the Public Health Emergency. It’s far past time to let our military heroes serve, our children attend school without being masked, and our families and businesses be free from the perpetual state of Biden’s pandemic-era control.
Dr. Greg Murphy, a practicing surgeon of more than 30 years and vice chairman of the GOP Doctors Caucus, represents North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
