Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Health and Human Services
Signed December 28, 2001·George W. Bush·67 FR 1597
Source
Everything on this page is drawn from the Federal Register, the official daily journal of the United States government. Where this page and the source disagree, the source governs.
Plain-language summary
Establishes an order of succession for the office of Secretary of Health and Human Services, to take effect if both the Secretary and Deputy Secretary die, resign, or become unable to serve. Under the order, the role would pass first to the Senate-confirmed Assistant Secretaries of Health and Human Services, in the sequence they took office, then to the Department's General Counsel, and then to other Senate-confirmed officers within the department, again in order of when they took office. It specifies that anyone serving in one of these listed positions only in an acting capacity cannot become acting Secretary under this order. It also notes that the President retains discretion, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, to name a different acting Secretary than this order of succession would otherwise indicate.
Not written or reviewed by a person. Read the full order below for anything you intend to rely on.
Report a problem with this summary
Legal standing
Not yet published. Court challenges, injunctions and rulings tied to individual orders will appear here once each can be linked to its source record.
Nothing appears in this space without a citation to a court action or a cited precedent. An order with no such record is described as untested, never as likely or unlikely to survive.
Claimed authority
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered
Quoted from the order as written. Many orders cite nothing more specific than “the Constitution and the laws”; this reproduces what the order claims, not an assessment of whether it holds.
Disposition
Amended by: EO 13261, March 19, 2002; Revoked by: EO 13461, February 15, 2008
Compiled after the fact by the National Archives, so recent orders often have none yet. An empty disposition means no record, not no activity.
The order, in full
Executive Order 13250 of December 28, 2001
Providing an Order of Succession Within the
Department of Health and Human Services
By the authority vested in me as President by the
Constitution and laws of the United States of America,
including the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5
U.S.C. 3345 et seq., it is hereby ordered that:
Section 1. Subject to the provisions of section 3 of
this order, the officers named in section 2, in the
order listed, shall act as and perform the functions
and duties of the Office of the Secretary of Health and
Human Services (Secretary) during any period when both
the Secretary and the Deputy Secretary of Health and
Human Services (Deputy Secretary) have died, resigned,
or become otherwise unable to perform the functions and
duties of the office of Secretary.
Sec. 2. Order of Succession.
(a) The Assistant Secretaries of Health and Human
Services appointed by the President and confirmed by
the Senate, in the order in which they shall have taken
the oath of office as such;
(b) The General Counsel of the Department of Health
and Human Services; and
(c) Other officers within the Department of Health
and Human Services who have been appointed by the
President by and with the consent of the Senate, in the
order in which they shall have taken the oath of office
as such.
Sec. 3. Exceptions.
(a) No individual who is serving in an office listed
in section 2(a)-(c) of this order in an acting capacity
shall act as Secretary pursuant to this order.
(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of this order, the
President retains discretion, to the extent permitted
by the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, 5 U.S.C.
3345 et seq., to depart from this order in designating
an acting Secretary.
(Presidential Sig.)B
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 28, 2001.Reproduced from the Federal Register plain-text record, signed December 28, 2001. Typesetting artifacts are removed; no wording is changed.