Reading Room Document
The Vacancies Act
The Vacancies Act is not the exclusive authority for temporarily assigning the duties of a Senate-confirmed office. Statutes vesting an agency's powers in the agency head and allowing delegation to subordinate officials also may be used to assign, on an interim basis, the duties of certain vacant Senate-confirmed offices. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/19706/download.
The OLC's Opinions
Opinions published by the OLC, including those released in response to our FOIA lawsuit