During consideration of the fiscal 2024 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (H.R. 5894), Representative Mary Miller (R-Ill.) offered an amendment to defund the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) by $536,922,000 — its total earmarked budget for fiscal 2024.
The House rejected Miller’s amendment on November 14, 2023 by a vote of 131 to 300 (Roll Call 648). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution does not authorize Congress to establish a federal regulatory agency, such as OSHA, to inspect workplace conditions. Nor does the Constitution empower the federal government to require Americans to take vaccines, especially experimental mRNA injections, as a condition of their employment, as OSHA tried to do.