![handle is hein.crs/goveeei0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______
*Research Service
informrng the qeislative debate since 1914___________________
Litigation of the CDC's Eviction Moratorium
August 2, 2021
On August 1, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) order imposing a
nationwide, temporary federal moratorium on residential evictions for the nonpayment of rent expired.
The order was designed to prevent the further spread of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) by
preventing homelessness and overcrowded housing conditions that would result from evictions. The
action followed an Executive Order directing the CDC to consider such a measure in light of the
expiration of a narrower set of eviction protections provided by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and
Economic Security (CARES) Act (P.L. 116-136). The CDC originally issued the order on September 4,
2020, and it was set to expire December 31, 2020, but Congress extended the order through January 31,
2021, and the CDC extended it several times, resulting in the final expiration date of July 31, 2021. The
eviction moratorium represented a broad federal inroad into what is traditionally state and local
governance of landlord-tenant law and an unprecedented use of a public health authority for this purpose.
A number of courts have addressed challenges to the CDC's legal authority to issue the order and reached
conflicting conclusions on the order's legality.
This Legal Sidebar analyzes the court decisions on the CDC's eviction moratorium order and examines
ways in which Congress, if it determines that the CDC should be delegated such authority, might explore
means to increase clarity regarding the CDC's legal authority to halt evictions in response to a pandemic
in the future.
CDC Eviction Moratorium Order
The CDC Director, acting on authority delegated from the Secretary of Health and Human Services
(HHS), issued the eviction moratorium order pursuant to Section 361 of the Public Health Services Act
(PHSA). Section 361, which is codified at 42 U.S.C. @ 264, authorizes the CDC Director to make and
enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or
spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State
or possession into any other State or possession. Section 361 also includes a non-exhaustive list of
activities that the CDC can take to exercise this authority, as well as an open-ended category of activities.
These activities include the apprehension, detention, or conditional release of individuals, as well as the
inspection, fumigation, disinfection, [and] sanitation [of] ... sources of dangerous infection to human
beings, and other measures, as ... may be necessary (emphasis added). An eviction moratorium is not
one of the permissible activities expressly provided. As a result, the CDC Director relied on Section 361's
Congressional Research Service
https://crsreports.congress.gov
LSB10632
CRS Legal Sidebar
Prepared for Members and
Committees of Congress](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/goveeei0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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