Supreme Court blocks Biden's COVID-19 eviction moratorium in a blow to renters
Supreme Court blocks Biden's COVID-19 eviction moratorium in a blow to renters
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WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s eviction moratorium, allowing property owners to begin the process of evicting millions of Americans who are behind on rent because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over a dissent from the court's three liberal justices, the court ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not have authority to impose the freeze. "It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken," the court's majority wrote in an unsigned opinion.

 "But that has not happened. Instead, the CDC has imposed a nationwide moratorium on evictions in reliance on a decades-old statute that authorizes it to implement measures like fumigation and pest extermination. It strains credulity to believe that this statute grants the CDC the sweeping authority that it asserts." Associate Justice Stephen Breyer asserted that the court should not have set aside the moratorium on an expedited basis.

"Applicants raise contested legal questions about an important federal statute on which the lower courts are split and on which this court has never actually spoken," Breyer wrote. "These questions call for considered decision making, informed by full briefing and argument. Their answers impact the health of millions." In addition to raising questions about the CDC's authority to impose the moratorium, real estate groups in Georgia and Alabama told the high court that the freeze caused significant financial hardship – requiring property owners to pay expenses while not receiving income from some of their renters.

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