President Joe Biden’s administration will no longer try to implement a federal mandate that sought to require employees of companies with 100 or more workers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly tests to confirm they don’t have coronavirus.

Biden’s administration was officially withdrawing the mandate on Wednesday, Jan. 26, about two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decided, in a split 6-3 vote that fell along partisan lines with the conservative majority prevailing, to temporarily block the mandate. The majority opinion from the court was that Biden’s administration had likely exceeded its legal authority by trying to impose the rules.

The Supreme Court ruling came after 27 Republican-led states and a coalition of businesses legally challenged the mandate for large employers. The Biden administration this week asked the court to have the legal challenges dismissed as it would not pursue trying to impose the vaccinate-or-test requirement.

“The federal government respectfully moves to dismiss the petitions challenging the Vaccination and Testing emergency temporary standard (Vaccination and Testing ETS) issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to address the grave danger of COVID-19 in the workplace,” the administration said in a motion.

The withdrawal means that promotional products companies with 100 or more employees, along with other U.S.-based firms of that size across industries, do not have to comply with the vaccinate-or-test rules that the administration had sought to enact.

Companies could still potentially try to implement their own internal vaccination policies if desired, though some promo products executives are skeptical if that would be a good idea in the wake of the Biden administration’s mandate being defeated.

“A well-publicized Supreme Court ruling would likely make the enforcement of such a standard very difficult among employees, and could raise subsequent questions on personal liberties, HIPPA, etc.,” an executive at a Top 40 promo firm, who wished to remain anonymous given the controversial subject, recently told ASI Media.

Big news for larger employers in the #promoproducts market and other industries: https://t.co/tfoygBNC1j @ASI_MBell @asicentral

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) January 13, 2022

The Biden administration felt that the mandate, which would have been enforced by OSHA, would have saved lives amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“OSHA estimates that this rule will save thousands of lives and prevent over 250,000 hospitalizations during the six months after implementation,” an official said in November.

Some promo executives said they would have liked to see the mandate enacted.

Kathy Finnerty Thomas, president of Chandler, AZ-based distributorship Stowebridge Promotion Group (asi/337500), felt the mandate “makes total sense for companies where people are working in offices or production environments together, so they have some level of assurance for their own safety and protection and the comfort of knowing that they won’t be exposed at work with the risk of taking it home to other family members. I don’t think it is necessary to require this of employees working from home.”

A C-suite leader at another Top 40 firm opined: “I see this (mandate) as a much-needed step in the fight against COVID and as critical to the recovery of the U.S. economy. While this is understandably a hot-button issue and federal requirements should be a last resort solution, we are unfortunately left with few alternatives.”

Other promo leaders were pleased to see the mandate kiboshed.

Said a Top 40 executive: “I have grave concerns that, in this case, forcing the perceived cure (a vaccine) on employees/citizens, while well-intentioned, has far greater potential for negative long-term consequences, than the problem (a virus) they were seeking to address.”

“This is a step in the right direction,” Gregg Emmer, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people and vice president/chief marketing officer at Top 40 distributor Kaeser & Blair (asi/238600), told ASI Media in reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling. He added that he was glad the court had “delivered the smackdown to Biden’s illegal actions.”