Presidential reorganization authority is a term used to refer to a major statutory power that has sometimes been temporarily extended by the United States Congress to the President of the United States. It permits the president to divide, consolidate, abolish, or create agencies of the U.S. federal government by presidential directive, subject to limited legislative oversight.^[1] First granted in 1932, presidential reorganization authority has been extended to nine presidents on 16 separate occasions. As of 2017, it was most recently granted to Ronald Reagan.

Presidential reorganization authority is designed to allow periodic refinement of the organizational efficiency of the government through significant and sweeping modifications to its architecture that might otherwise be too substantial to realistically implement through a parliamentary process.

The U.S. Constitution establishes an Executive Branch of government. It is, therefore, left to normal statute law to establish inferior offices and agencies, under the President, by which the government can operate.

Despite the broad authority granted by the United States Constitution to the president, he does not have "unilateral and unrestrained authority over the Executive Branch" and "congressional action is required to create Executive Branch departments, to fund them, to determine the nature and scope of their duties and to confirm the appointment of their top leaders".^[2] While the president manages the conduct of executive branch offices, "it is Congress, not the President, that establishes departments and agencies, and to whatever degree it chooses, the internal organization of agencies".^[7]

The creation of presidential reorganization authority was foreshadowed with the passage of the Overman Act in 1918, which allowed the president to consolidate government agencies, though abolishing any specific department was prohibited.^[6] First fully extended in 1932, presidential reorganization authority has been authorized on 16 occasions.^[3] The Reorganization Act of 1949 was the last full statute enacted from scratch until the Reorganization Act of 1977; reorganizations occurring between the 1949 and 1977 statutes took the form of amendment and extension of the 1949 law.^[3]

The Reorganization Act of 1939 defined the reorganization plan as its own kind of presidential directive. Previously, the delegated authority had been exercised using executive orders.^[11]

As of 2017, the last major reorganization of the government using presidential reorganization authority was during the administration of Dwight Eisenhower. All subsequent cases of the invocation of presidential reorganization authority has been to make more minor, corrective adjustments.^[12]

As discussed above, in 1983 in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the one-house legislative veto was unconstitutional,^[5][10] causing Congress the following year to enact legislation (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 98–532) retroactively approving all previous reorganizations.^[3]

The last reorganization authority was passed by Congress in 1984, although there have been proposals to reinstate it since then.^[3]

In 2002 George W. Bush requested the president be granted permanent reorganization authority. No such authorization was extended.^[13] Also in 2002, the National Commission on the Public Service proposed extending presidential reorganization authority to substantially restructure the executive branch which, it contended, had become incoherent in the level of overlapping jurisdiction and different management structures.^[12]

During the presidency of Barack Obama, Obama requested reorganization authority from Congress which he said he would use to restructure the Department of Commerce, followed by less specific modifications to other agencies. Under Obama's plan, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would have been transferred to the Department of the Interior while the rest of the Department of Commerce would be merged with the Small Business Administration and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and renamed.^[14] The authorization was not granted.^[15]

• Imperial Presidency
• Separation of powers under the United States Constitution