Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan, along with Mike Lee of Utah, and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, have introduced the Restoring Trust in Public Health Act, requiring that nominees for director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The thinking behind the bill is that the CDC has impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans through its Covid-19 guidelines and eviction moratorium, all events occurring through CDC directors who have not been confirmed by the Senate.
“President Biden, Speaker Pelosi, CDC Director Walensky, White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki, and Dr. Anthony Fauci have each explicitly stated the federal government could not, or would not, be issuing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. Yet, on Friday, the Biden administration abruptly changed its tune, issuing a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate impacting millions of Americans,” Sullivan said.
“Similarly, the Biden administration claimed for weeks it did not have the legal authority to extend a nationwide CDC-directed eviction moratorium. Yet, again, the President and the CDC tried to charge ahead in defiance of the law, only to be stopped by the Supreme Court. Finally, after the CDC began onerously regulating the entire cruise ship industry, I encountered weeks of mixed messages and unresponsiveness from the CDC director that nearly wiped out another tourism season in Alaska that thousands of hard-working Alaskans rely on. It’s time for Congress to restore greater control and oversight over the unelected officials, most especially the CDC director, who wield such enormous power over our day-to-day lives,” he said.
Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Mike Braun (R-Ind.) have also signed on as cosponsors.
As the House is controlled by Democrats, it is unlikely that the bill will make it through both houses of Congress, and even less likely that President Joe Biden would sign the bill, but it’s sure to create some conversation around the vast powers of the CDC, which is now an agency that has lost significant credibility with the public over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The full text of the bill can be read here. A one-page summary of the bill is available here.
