Month: April 2022

The Department of Justice announced that it would consider an appeal of the recent ruling that voided the federal mask mandate on public transit, if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deems it necessary.  The Justice Department said in a statement Tuesday: “The Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disagree with the district court’s decision and will appeal, subject to CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health. If CDC concludes that a mandatory order remains necessary for the public’s health after that assessment, the Department of Justice will appeal the district court’s decision.”  Though the federal government was expected to appeal the decision, neither President Joe Biden nor White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated which way the DOJ was leaning until the announcement on Tuesday evening.

On Monday, a Florida judge struck down a federal mask mandate that applied to public transportation, effectively lifting the requirement on planes, trains and buses, as well as inside airports across the United States. In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Kathryn Mizelle said the mandate, established by the CDC, exceeds “statutory authority and violates the procedures required for agency rulemaking under the [Administrative Procedure Act].”  The judge’s decision was effective immediately.

Whether the CDC still thinks the mandate on public transit is an important public health tool remains to be seen.   Just last week, the agency extended the travel mask mandate until May 3 to monitor an uptick in cases from the BA.2 variant, a more transmissible strain of omicron. If the CDC does move to reimpose the mandate, it’s unclear whether action from the Justice Department at this point will lead to change before the mandate was set to expire.

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The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change. A certification and bidding process was opened Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Energy for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, making it the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors.

Owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down for economic reasons can apply for funding to avoid closing prematurely. The first round of awards will prioritize reactors that have already announced plans to close. The second round will be opened up to more economically at-risk facilities. The program was funded through President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure deal, which he signed into law in November.

Most US nuclear plants were built between 1970 and 1990; the only nuclear plant under construction in the United States is in Georgia. Shuttered reactors include Indian Point Energy Center in New York, Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, Fort Calhoun Nuclear Generating Station in Nebraska and Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa. New York officials sought the shutdown of Indian Point, saying the plant 24 miles north of Manhattan posed too great a risk to millions of people who live and work nearby.

There are 55 commercial nuclear power plants with 93 nuclear reactors in 28 US states.  If reactors do close before their licenses expire, fossil fuel plants will likely fill the void and emissions will increase, which would be a substantial setback

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Official said on Monday that the launch of NASA’s new moon rocket has been pushed back by nearly a month after the Space Launch System failed to complete necessary prelaunch testing.

NASA’s SLS moon rocket had been estimated to blast off sometime between June 6 through 16, however, NASA said that launching during that window would now be challenging after issues during the SLS’s wet dress rehearsal prevented teams from finishing their system tests. Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for common exploration systems development at NASA, said: “I think that at this point, making the June launch window will be a bit of a challenge, with all the work we have to do. The next launch opportunity runs from June 29 to July 9.”

NASA said its teams will roll the SLS back to the Vehicle Assembly Building to troubleshoot hardware issues that thwarted planned prelaunch testing.  The behemoth will begin its roll back to the VAB next week, on April 26. NASA plans to return to the moon with the help of SLS, a heavy-lift rocket that’s been in development for more than a decade and so far has cost the agency $30 billion. The rocket is currently preparing for its maiden flight, called Artemis-1, which will see it fly around the moon.

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A federal judge in Florida overturned the national mask mandate covering airlines and other public transportation ‘as exceeding the authority of U.S. health officials in their response to the coronavirus pandemic.’

The mask mandate was recently extended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and covered transportation including airplanes, trains, city subways and even ride-sharing vehicles, such as Uber. The decision by U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa said the CDC improperly failed to justify its decision and did not follow proper rule making procedures that left it fatally flawed. In her 59-page ruling, Mizelle said the only remedy was to vacate the rule entirely across the country because it would be impossible to end it for the limited group of people who objected in the lawsuit.

The Justice Department declined to comment Monday when asked if the government planned to appeal the ruling. The CDC also declined to comment. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that federal agencies were still assessing the court decision Monday afternoon. Said Psaki: “This is obviously a disappointing decision. The CDC is recommending wearing a mask on public transit.”

The CDC recently extended the mask mandate, which was set to expire Monday, until May 3 to allow more time to study the BA.2 omicron sub-variant of the coronavirus that is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the U.S. The mandate covered all types of transportation in the U.S. as well as requiring masks in any transportation hub, such as an airport, seaport or bus terminal. It wasn’t immediately clear Monday whether or not some of these entities would continue to require masks on their own.

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