The Supreme Court late Thursday blocked the Centers for Disease Control from enforcing a federal moratorium on evicting renters during the Covid pandemic, a defeat for the Biden administration’s effort to continue the moratorium despite an earlier signal from the court that the government’s action lacked the proper legal basis.

Imposed in early August, the current moratorium was due to expire in early October. It was challenged by a group of landlords who argued that the CDC had no authority to impose such a restriction on its own.

They said the nation’s landlords have been losing as much as $19 billion a month. “Congress never gave the CDC the staggering amount of power it claims,” the landlords argued in their filing in the Supreme Court.

In an unsigned opinion, six Supreme Court justices agreed. “It would be one thing if Congress had specifically authorized the action that the CDC has taken. 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.” Click to read more at www.cnbc.com.