A federal judge on Monday blocked President Joe Biden's administration from enforcing a coronavirus vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states, including New Hampshire, that brought the first legal challenge against the requirement.The court order said that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for providers participating in the two government health care programs for the elderly, disabled and poor. The preliminary injunction by St. Louis-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp applies to a coalition of suing states that includes Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Similar lawsuits also are pending in other states.The federal rule requires COVID-19 vaccinations for more than 17 million workers nationwide in about 76,000 health care facilities and home health care providers that get funding from the government health programs. Workers are to receive their first dose by Dec. 6 and their second shot by Jan. 4"This is a big win for New Hampshire’s health care system," said New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. "Nursing homes were at risk of closure if the Biden mandate remained in place. This helps maintain the staff New Hampshire needs to care for our loved ones."The court order against the health care vaccine mandate comes after Biden's administration suffered a similar setback for a broader policy. A federal court previously placed a hold on a separate rule requiring businesses with more than 100 employees to ensure their workers get vaccinated or else wear masks and get tested weekly for the coronavirus.A federal appeals court on Nov. 12 issued an order halting the Biden administration’s rule requiring private businesses with 100 or more workers to ensure that their workers are vaccinated by Jan. 4 or potential fines of as much as $14,000 daily.Earlier Monday, Sununu released a letter he had sent last week to a top official of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration seeking clarification of the Biden administration’s message to employers to move ahead with the 100-employee vaccination mandate despite the court order.Sununu wrote to Assistant Secretary of Labor Douglas Parker that the administration’s statement that employers should move forward with the mandate implies that if the court-ordered stay is lifted, then, “prior to January 4, 2022, OSHA will seek to implement and enforce the (rule) on its original timeline.”“Absent sufficient time, there is a real potential that employers would not be able to come into compliance should the Court rescind the Stay, including the draconian requirement that businesses lay off employees during the holidays if they are unwilling or unable to get fully vaccinated on the (OSHA rule) timeline,” Sununu wrote.Sununu asked for the deadline for compliance to be extended by “at least two months after any stay is potentially lifted.”Biden's administration contends federal rules supersede state policies prohibiting vaccine mandates and are essential to slowing the pandemic.But the judge in the health care provider case wrote that federal officials likely overstepped their legal powers."CMS seeks to overtake an area of traditional state authority by imposing an unprecedented demand to federally dictate the private medical decisions of millions of Americans. Such action challenges traditional notions of federalism," Schelp wrote in his order.Even under an exceedingly broad interpretation of federal powers, "Congress did not clearly authorize CMS to enact the this politically and economically vast, federalism-altering, and boundary-pushing mandate," Schelp wrote.WCVB sister station WMUR contributed to this report.