Judge Blocks Contractor Mandate; Most DOE Site Contracts Already Contain Mandate

A federal judge in Georgia this week blocked the Joe Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for contractors, almost exactly three months after Biden issued an executive order requiring shots for workers doing the government’s business.

Most prime contractors at Department of Energy defense-nuclear sites had had their contracts modified to include a vaccine mandate well before Tuesday’s preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. The injunction blocks enforcement of the vaccine mandate while the court case proceeds.

Asked about the district court’s injunction on Wednesday morning, William (Ike) White, senior advisor for DOE’s Office of Environmental Management, told the Exchange Monitor that he had not had a chance to look at the federal judge’s ruling.

Meanwhile, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force this week updated its guidance to agencies to clarify that the government will no longer enforce vaccine mandates arising from Biden’s executive order.

At DOE nuclear sites, deadlines to get vaccinated or get fired, unless exempted from the now-enjoined mandate for religious or medical reasons, ranged from Nov. 30 to January 18. The Biden administration’s Safer Federal Worker Task Force moved the deadline to Jan. 18 from Dec. 8 on Nov. 4.

Though it is the exception and not the rule, contractors can and have adopted their own vaccine mandates. Triad National Security, the NNSA’s operations contractor for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, put a vaccine mandate in place in August, before Biden’s executive order came down. That mandate has so far survived court challenges.