[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 39, Number 17 (Monday, April 28, 2003)]
[Pages 460-461]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Signing the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding 
Reform Act of 2003

April 23, 2003

    Today I have signed into law S. 380, the Postal Civil Service 
Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003. The Act reforms the 
funding of benefits under the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) for 
employees of the United States Postal Service.
    Under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, including as 
construed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 in Edmond v. United States, 
statutory authority to make decisions for the United States that are 
final must be exercised by, or subject to the control of, a principal 
officer of the United States. Sections 2(c) and 3(b) of the Act vest in 
certain circumstances in the CSRS Board of Actuaries (Board) authority 
to reconsider, review, and make adjustments with finality in certain 
determinations, redeterminations, and computations made by the Director 
of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Yet, Board members are not 
principal officers because they have not been appointed by the 
President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, as the 
Appointments Clause requires. They have instead been appointed by the 
Director of OPM in accordance with law. Moreover, the Board is not 
subject to the control of a principal officer in conducting the review, 
reconsideration, and adjustments for which sections 2(c) and 3(b) of the 
Act provide, because those sections make such Board action final. 
Accordingly, to the extent that sections 2(c) and 3(b) make the actions 
of the Board under those sections final, they are inconsistent with the 
Appointments Clause.
    The Director of OPM shall prepare forthwith for submission to the 
Congress recommended legislation to conform statutes related to the CSRS 
Board of Actuaries to the Appointments Clause. While awaiting enactment 
of corrective legislation, I instruct the Director of OPM, who is a 
principal officer, to receive any results of reconsideration, review, or 
adjustments by the Board under sections 2(c) and 3(b) of the Act as 
advice and opinion for the Director's approval, modification, or 
disapproval. This instruction gives the fullest effect to the Act that 
is consistent with the Appointments Clause.
    Sections 2(e)(1), 3(e)(1), and 3(f)(1)(B) of the Act purport to 
require officials in the executive branch to submit recommendations to 
the Congress or an agent of the Congress. The executive branch shall 
construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional 
authority of the President to submit for the consideration of the 
Congress

[[Page 461]]

such measures as the President judges necessary and expedient.
                                                George W. Bush
 The White House,
 April 23, 2003.

Note: S. 380, approved April 23, was assigned Public Law No. 108-18.