WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI) recently joined his House Republican colleagues in sending a letter demanding the Biden Administration immediately rescind its arbitrary extension of the federal transportation mask mandate. Last Tuesday, the Senate voted 57-40 to overturn the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requirements that most people wear masks on public transportation, including trains, airplanes, and buses. Both actions come after the Biden Administration extended the transit mask mandate until April 18, 2022.
Highlights from the letter:
- Across America, masks are coming off as both Republican and Democratic-led state governments are dropping mask mandates in the face of delayed, confusing, and contradictory CDC guidance.
- The transportation mask mandate extension came on the same day that the CDC announced that more than 98 percent of the U.S. population lives in areas where wearing masks indoors is no longer advised as a necessary preventative measure.
- The airline industry is fighting to recover from the pandemic and high fuel prices and has taken extraordinary measures to keep passengers safe, including the use of effective onboard High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filtration systems and strong disinfection practices and policies.
- The CDC failed to do the necessary work to harmonize its policies between the CDC’s February 25th announcement of its new Community Level framework and the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) March 10th extension of the transportation mask mandate – applying one standard to most Americans and another to transportation users and workers.
