OSHA’s ETS, formally issued on November 5, called on companies with 100 or more employees to ensure that workers are either vaccinated against COVID-19 or tested weekly and masked up while on the job. There were exceptions for remote workers and those whose jobs keep them outdoors, among others.

The mandate had been challenged by dozens of states, businesses, and organizations, and on January 13 the Supreme Court, with a 6-3 vote, put a stay on it pending challenges filed in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati. The Supreme Court’s majority found that OSHA had likely overstepped its authority in issuing the rule.

The withdrawal of the ETS means that the cases challenging it will be closed.

“Notwithstanding the withdrawal of the Vaccination and Testing ETS, OSHA continues to strongly encourage the vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by COVID-19 in the workplace,” the agency’s memo said.

OSHA noted that the vaccinate-or-test ETS remains a proposal for a standard that could yet be adopted. “As a proposed rule the requirements of the ETS could come back as a regulation in the future,” said Alex Ayers, director of government affairs at the Heating, Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International, or HADRI, an HVAC trade association, told members in a January 26 update.

President Joe Biden, in responding to the January 13 Supreme Court decision, suggested that despite the court’s stay of the mandate for large employers, federal mandates had motivated many people to get vaccinated since his administration began discussing them last summer.