KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

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No. 24–316

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ROBERT F. KENNEDY, Jr., SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, et al., PETITIONERS v. Braidwood Management, Inc., et al.

on writ of certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fifth circuit

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 Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court.

 This case concerns the Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution. The U. S. Preventive Services Task Force, an entity within the Department of Health and Human Services, issues public recommendations about preventive healthcare services—for example, cancer and diabetes screenings. Before 2010, the Task Force’s recommendations were purely advisory. But the Affordable Care Act of 2010 now mandates that health insurers cover some of the recommended services at no cost to the insured.

 The Secretary of Health and Human Services appointed the 16 current members of the Task Force. The question in this case is whether appointment of Task Force members by the Secretary is consistent with the Appointments Clause in Article II. That question turns on whether the Task Force members are principal officers or inferior officers. Principal officers must be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. That process can be lengthy and therefore can hinder the Executive Branch’s ability to promptly fill offices—and thus also impede the President’s ability to execute the laws through his  subordinate executive officers. By contrast, inferior executive officers may be directly appointed by the President or by the head of a department, such as by the Secretary of HHS—a more efficient and expeditious process.

 The Executive Branch under both President Trump and President Biden has argued that the Preventive Services Task Force members are inferior officers and therefore may be appointed by the Secretary of HHS. We agree. The Task Force members are removable at will by the Secretary of HHS, and their recommendations are reviewable by the Secretary before they take effect. So Task Force members are supervised and directed by the Secretary, who in turn answers to the President, preserving the chain of command in Article II. See Edmond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651, 663 (1997). Therefore, under Article II and this Court’s precedents, the Task Force members are inferior officers. As a result, appointment of Task Force members by the Secretary of HHS is consistent with the Appointments Clause.

I

A

 In 1984, the Department of Health and Human Services created an advisory body known as the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force. The Task Force formulates and publishes evidence-based recommendations regarding preventive healthcare services.

 In 1999, Congress enacted legislation codifying the role of the Task Force. See §915, 113 Stat. 1659. That legislation established the Task Force as an entity within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which in turn is an agency in the Public Health Service within HHS.

 Under that 1999 statute, the Director of AHRQ “convene[s]” the Task Force, which is “to be composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.” Ibid.; see 42  U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1). The Task Force reviews “the scientific evidence related to the effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical preventive services for the purpose of developing recommendations for the health care community.” §299b–4(a)(1).

 As presently constituted, the Task Force consists of 16 members who are now appointed by the Secretary of HHS to staggered 4-year terms. Those members are “nationally recognized experts in prevention, evidence-based medicine, and primary care.” App. 39. They include researchers, professors, and practicing physicians with experience and expertise in public health and across a wide range of medical specialties. They serve on a volunteer basis, so they are not paid by the Federal Government for their service on the Task Force.

 Preventive services “can help people avoid acute illness, identify and treat chronic conditions, prevent cancer or lead to earlier detection, and improve health.” HHS, Issue Brief—Access to Preventive Services Without Cost-Sharing: Evidence From the Affordable Care Act 1 (Jan. 2022). A wide range of individuals and organizations rely on the Task Force’s preventive-services recommendations. They include “health care systems, professional societies, employers,” “Congress and other policy-makers, governmental public health agencies,” and those directly “delivering clinical services,” such as “primary care professionals.” §299b–4(a)(1).

 The Task Force develops recommendations through a standardized process. It selects a topic to study, reviews the relevant scientific evidence, formulates a draft recommendation statement, takes public comments, and then votes on the final recommendation.

 The Task Force uses a letter grading system for its recommendations. It assigns an “A” grade to services with a high certainty of substantial net benefit and a “B” grade  to services with at least a moderate certainty of a moderate net benefit. It also issues “C” and “D” grades to services with little to no net benefit, and an “I” grade to services for which the current evidence is “insufficient” to assess the balance of benefits and harms. App. 46. The Task Force can vote to change the grade that was assigned in a previous recommendation.

 The Task Force has given an “A” or “B” rating to more than 40 preventive services. Those services include screenings to detect lung, breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer; risk-reducing medications for women at high risk of breast cancer; nicotine patches for adults trying to quit smoking; statin medications to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke; physical therapy to help the elderly avoid falls; and diabetes screenings.

 For many years after its initial creation in 1984 and codification in 1999, the Task Force’s recommendations were purely advisory. That changed in 2010 when Congress passed and President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. 124 Stat. 119. That Act requires most health insurers and group health plans to cover certain preventive services without cost sharing—that is, without imposing copayments, deductibles, or other charges on patients.

 Rather than set forth a fixed list, the Act tied coverage for preventive services to the recommendations of several entities within the Federal Government, including the Preventive Services Task Force. Specifically, the Act mandates no-cost coverage of “evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of ‘A’ or ‘B’ in the current recommendations” of the Task Force. §300gg–13(a)(1).

 After the Task Force makes an “A” or “B” recommendation, the insurance coverage requirements for that preventive service do not take effect immediately. Rather, the law directs the Secretary of HHS to “establish  a minimum interval,” not less than one year, between when an “A” or “B” recommendation is issued by the Task Force and when insurers must cover the recommended service without cost sharing. §300gg–13(b). During that interval, the Secretary can review the Task Force’s recommendation and block it from going into effect.

 The Affordable Care Act also amended the statute governing the Task Force to describe the Task Force as “independent” and to provide that the members of the Task Force and their recommendations “shall be independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” §§299b–4(a)(1), (6).

B

 The question in this case is whether the Task Force members were appointed in a manner consistent with the Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution. §2, cl. 2.

 The plaintiffs are several individuals and small businesses who object to the Affordable Care Act’s preventive-services coverage requirements. The lead plaintiff, Braidwood Management, runs a health and wellness center. It offers health-insurance coverage to its approximately 70 employees through a self-insured plan. Braidwood wants to exclude coverage for certain drugs and to impose copays or deductibles for other covered services.

 The plaintiffs—collectively, Braidwood—sued in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Braidwood argued that the structure of the Task Force violated the Appointments Clause. In Braidwood’s view, Task Force members are principal officers who must be appointed by the President “with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Ibid.

 The District Court agreed. It recognized that there are no statutory removal restrictions on Task Force members, meaning that the Secretary of HHS may remove them at  will. But the court nonetheless concluded that Task Force members are unconstitutionally appointed principal officers because they “have no superior” who supervises and directs them. Braidwood Mgmt. Inc. v. Becerra, 627 F. Supp. 3d 624, 646 (ND Tex. 2022). The court enjoined the Government from enforcing against Braidwood any insurance coverage mandates based on Task Force recommendations issued after the 2010 enactment of the Affordable Care Act.¹

 The Government appealed to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Until that point, the Task Force members had been selected and appointed by the Director of AHRQ, an agency within the Public Health Service of HHS. But in June 2023, while the Government’s appeal was pending, the Secretary of HHS ratified the appointments of the existing Task Force members and re-appointed them on a prospective basis. And from then on, the Secretary has continued to appoint Task Force members.

 The Fifth Circuit affirmed in relevant part. In a thorough opinion, the court held that the Task Force members are principal officers who must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. Like the District Court, the Fifth Circuit understood the Task Force members to be removable at will by the Secretary of HHS. But the Fifth Circuit concluded that the Secretary cannot block Task Force recommendations before they take effect. The court pointed to 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(6), which provides that Task Force members “shall be independent  and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” The Task Force, according to the Fifth Circuit, “cannot be ‘independent’ and free from ‘political pressure’ on the one hand, and at the same time be supervised by the HHS Secretary, a political appointee, on the other.” Braidwood Mgmt., Inc. v. Becerra, 104 F. 4th 930, 944 (2024). So the court concluded that the Task Force is not supervised and directed by the Secretary—and that Task Force members are therefore principal officers and may not be appointed by the Secretary.

 We granted certiorari to consider whether appointment of Task Force members by the Secretary of HHS violates the Appointments Clause. 604 U. S. ___ (2025).

II

A

  The Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution specifies how “Officers of the United States,” as distinct from employees, must be appointed. §2, cl. 2. An officer exercises “ ‘significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States.’ ” Lucia v. SEC, 585 U. S. 237, 245 (2018). An employee, by contrast, does not exercise significant governmental authority. See ibid.

 The text of the Appointments Clause “very clearly divides all its officers into two classes”: principal officers and inferior officers. United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508, 509 (1879). Here, all agree that the Preventive Services Task Force members are officers. The question is whether they are principal or inferior.

 Principal officers must be appointed by the President “with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2. The constitutionally mandated joint participation of the President and Senate in the appointments process is designed to promote “a judicious choice” for “filling the offices of the Union.” The Federalist No. 76, p. 455 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). The President and the  Senate are accountable “ for both the making of a bad appointment and the rejection of a good one. ” Edmond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651, 660 (1997).

 Inferior officers may also be appointed via Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation. See Art. II, §2, cl. 2. The Framers, though, recognized that requiring all officers of the Federal Government to run the gauntlet of Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation would prove administratively unworkable as offices became “numerous” and “sudden removals” and prompt replacements became “necessary.” Germaine, 99 U. S., at 510. So on one of the last days of the Constitutional Convention—September 15, 1787—they authorized an additional and streamlined method of appointment for inferior officers. Specifically, Congress may “by Law vest” appointment of inferior officers “in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2. Congress therefore may provide that inferior executive officers be unilaterally appointed by the President or a Head of Department.

 The Appointments Clause is “more than a matter of ‘etiquette or protocol’ ”—it is “among the significant structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at 659. The Appointments Clause ensures that the President or his subordinate Heads of Departments play a central role in selecting the officers within the Executive Branch who will assist in exercising the “executive Power.” Art. II, §1, cl. 1. The Clause thereby helps protect the independence of the Executive Branch and maintain the Constitution’s separation of powers.

 How does a court determine whether an executive officer is principal (and must be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate) or inferior (and may be appointed by the President or Head of Department alone)?

 Principal officers in the Executive Branch encompass at  least the Heads of Departments, who report directly to the President. Examples include the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, and Attorney General.

 Inferior officers are most readily defined by their relationship to principal officers. “Generally speaking,” whether “one is an ‘inferior’ officer depends on whether he has a superior” other than the President, Edmond, 520 U. S., at 662, and how much power the officer “exercises free from control by a superior,” United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U. S. 1, 17 (2021). In Edmond v. United States, the Court summarized the governing principle: Inferior officers are those “whose work is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.” 520 U. S., at 663.

 As the author of Edmond, Justice Scalia, once explained: “It is perfectly obvious” that the language in Article II authorizing department heads to appoint inferior officers “was intended merely to make clear . . . that those officers appointed by the President with Senate approval could on their own appoint their subordinates, who would, of course, by chain of command still be under the direct control of the President.” Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654, 720–721 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting).

B

 Before 2010, members of the Preventive Services Task Force were not officers at all. The Task Force was an advisory body, and the Task Force members made only non-binding recommendations. As a result of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, however, the Task Force’s “A” and “B” recommended preventive services now must be covered by health insurers at no cost to the insured. For that reason, the parties here agree that the Task Force members exercise significant governmental authority and qualify as  “officers” of the United States. They disagree, however, over whether Task Force members are principal or inferior officers.

 We conclude that Task Force members are inferior officers because their work is “directed and supervised” by the Secretary of HHS, a principal officer. Edmond, 520 U. S., at 663. The Secretary’s ability to direct and supervise the Task Force derives from two main sources: the Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members at will; and the Secretary’s authority to review and block the Task Force’s recommendations before they can take effect.

1

 An officer such as a Task Force member who is removable at will by a principal officer (here, by the Secretary of HHS) typically qualifies as an inferior officer. So it is here.

 This Court has said that the authority to remove an officer at will is a “powerful tool for control.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at 664; see Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 510 (2010). The reason is straightforward: “ ‘Once an officer is appointed, it is only the authority that can remove him, and not the authority that appointed him, that he must fear and, in the performance of his functions, obey.’ ” Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 726 (1986). An officer’s “ ‘presumed desire to avoid removal’ ” generally creates a “ ‘here-and-now subservience.’ ” Id., at 727, n. 5. The prerogative of at-will removal of a subordinate, then, often carries with it the power to supervise and direct that subordinate. See Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Copyright Royalty Bd., 684 F. 3d 1332, 1341 (CADC 2012) (Williams, J.).

 Historical practice supports treating an officer who is removable at will by a principal officer as an inferior officer. Since the Founding, Congress has routinely tied inferior-officer status to at-will removability by Heads of  Departments. See Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230, 259–260 (1839). For example, in designating the “chief Clerk in the Department of Foreign Affairs” as an “inferior officer,” the First Congress made clear that the Clerk was “to be employed” as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs “shall deem proper.” Act of July 27, 1789, ch. 4, 1 Stat. 29. The same was true of the Chief Clerk of the Department of War. See Act of Aug. 7, 1789, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 49–50. In 1839 in Hennen, this Court explained that the First Congress had bestowed upon the Secretaries of various Departments the authority to “appoint all necessary clerks”; that those clerks were subject to at-will removal by the Secretaries; and that they fell “under that class of inferior officers.” 13 Pet., at 259–260; see, e.g., Act of Apr. 30, 1798, ch. 35, 1 Stat. 553–554 (clerks to the Secretary of the Navy); see also, e.g., Act of Sept. 2, 1789, ch. 12, 1 Stat. 65 (assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury); Act of Feb. 20, 1792, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 234 (deputy postmasters).

 On the other side of the ledger, Braidwood has not identified any instance where an executive officer was removable at will by someone other than the President and nonetheless deemed a principal officer.

 Here, because the Secretary of HHS appoints the Task Force members, he also has the authority to remove the Task Force members at will. See Braidwood Mgmt. Inc. v. Becerra, 627 F. Supp. 3d 624, 647 (ND Tex. 2022); Braidwood Mgmt., Inc. v. Becerra, 104 F. 4th 930, 943 (CA5 2024). When a statute empowers a department head to appoint an officer, the default presumption is that the officer holds his position “at the will and discretion of the head of the department,” even if “no power to remove is expressly given.” Hennen, 13 Pet., at 259–260. That is because the “power of removal of executive officers” is “incident to the power of appointment.” Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52, 119 (1926). As this Court recently summarized in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, when as here Congress vests appointment of inferior officers in “heads of departments,” “it is ordinarily the department head . . . who enjoys the power of removal.” 561 U. S., at 493.

 The Secretary of HHS has the power to appoint (and has appointed) the Task Force members. See Part III, infra. And no statute restricts removal of Task Force members. Therefore, “there can be no doubt” that the Secretary may remove Task Force members at will. Hennen, 13 Pet., at 259.

 The Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members at will in turn enables him to supervise and direct them. When a Task Force member makes a decision that the Secretary disagrees with, the Secretary may remove that member. In other words, the Secretary “may consider the decision after its rendition as a reason for removing” the Task Force member, “on the ground that the discretion regularly entrusted to” that member “has not been on the whole intelligently or wisely exercised.” Myers, 272 U. S., at 135.

 In addition, the Secretary can block a Task Force recommendation from taking effect by combining his at-will removal authority with his authority to determine when Task Force recommendations become binding.

 To explain: The Affordable Care Act expressly affords the Secretary the power to “establish a minimum interval” between when the Task Force issues an “A” or “B” recommendation and when insurers must cover the recommended service without cost sharing. 42 U. S. C. §300gg–13(b)(1). Congress specified that the minimum interval “shall not be less than 1 year,” leaving the Secretary with discretion to set a longer minimum interval. §300gg–13(b)(2).

 So during the minimum 1-year period after the Task Force makes a recommendation before it becomes binding, the Secretary can request that the Task Force reconsider or  withdraw a recommendation that he disfavors. He has plenty of time to remove and replace Task Force members who refuse. And he can then request that the reconstituted Task Force modify or rescind the recommendation. Therefore, in this statutory scheme, the Secretary can use his at-will removal power to stop any preventive-services recommendation contrary to his judgment from taking effect.

 In short, through the power to remove and replace Task Force members at will, the Secretary can exert significant control over the Task Force—including by blocking recommendations he does not agree with. The Secretary’s power to supervise and direct Task Force members in that way is a strong indication that the Task Force members are inferior officers.

2

 Regardless of whether the Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members at will suffices on its own to render them inferior officers, the Secretary also has statutory power to directly review and block Task Force recommendations before they take effect. That power confirms that the Task Force members are inferior officers.

 At-will removal is one means of ensuring supervision and direction. But in evaluating inferior-officer status, the Court has also examined whether the relevant officer has the “power to render a final decision on behalf of the United States” without review by a principal officer. Edmond, 520 U. S., at 665.

 That consideration has taken on particular importance in assessing whether adjudicative officers are principal or inferior. See id., at 664–665; Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 13–14. If an adjudicative officer’s decisions are reviewable by a superior, then the officer may be considered inferior even if not removable at will. See Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 16–17; id.,  at 25–26 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.).²

 Here, the Secretary’s power to supervise and direct the Task Force members derives from more than simply at-will removal authority. As explained, at-will removal provides the Secretary with a means of ensuring that no recommendation that he disapproves will take effect. But the Secretary also has the statutory authority to directly review—and, if necessary, block—Task Force recommendations before they take effect. So members of the Task Force cannot make any legally binding, final decision on behalf of the United States if the Secretary disagrees and wants to block it. As a result, the Secretary retains ultimate responsibility over whether Task Force recommendations become final decisions that mandate no-cost coverage by health insurers.

 To spell this out: A collection of statutes grants the Secretary general supervisory authority over the Task Force. That supervisory authority in turn enables the Secretary to review and, if he chooses, directly block a recommendation he disagrees with.

 First, 42 U. S. C. §202 provides that the Public Health Service, which houses the Task Force, “shall be administered . . . under the supervision and direction of the Secretary.”

 Second, Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 grants the Secretary authority to perform “all functions of the Public Health Service” and its “officers,” “employees,” and “agencies.” 80 Stat. 1610.³

  Third, 42 U. S. C. §300gg–92 states that the Secretary “may promulgate such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out the provisions of this subchapter”—including the section of the Affordable Care Act that requires no-cost coverage of Task Force “A” and “B” recommendations.

 The Affordable Care Act mandates coverage without cost sharing of “evidence-based items or services that have in effect a rating of ‘A’ or ‘B’ ” from the Task Force. §300gg–13(a)(1) (emphasis added). During the minimum 1-year interval, the Secretary can use his general supervisory authority under §202 and Reorganization Plan No. 3 to direct that the Task Force’s recommendation not be “in effect” and therefore not be binding on health insurers. Moreover, the Secretary can use his rulemaking authority under §300gg–92 to establish a formal review process. For example, the Secretary can issue a regulation providing that no Task Force recommendation shall be deemed “in effect” until he or his designee has affirmatively reviewed and approved it.⁴

 Taken together, those complementary review authorities ensure that the Task Force members “have no power to render a final decision on behalf of the United States unless  permitted to do so by” the Secretary of HHS. Edmond, 520 U. S., at 665. To be clear, to supervise and direct for purposes of the Appointments Clause, the Secretary “need not review every decision.” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 27. Rather, “[w]hat matters is that” the Secretary “have the discretion to review decisions rendered by” the Task Force. Ibid. (emphasis added). Under the statutory provisions described above, the Secretary possesses that authority.⁵

C

 Given the multiple and mutually reinforcing means by which the Secretary of HHS can supervise and direct the Task Force—namely, both the general authority to remove Task Force members at will and the more specific statutory authority to review and block their recommendations before they take effect—this Court’s precedents preordain the conclusion that the Task Force members are inferior officers.

 In Edmond v. United States, the Court ruled that judges of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals were inferior officers. See 520 U. S., at 666. In reaching that conclusion,  the Court emphasized that (i) the Judge Advocate General, who exercised administrative oversight over the judges, could remove them at will and (ii) the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces could review and reverse their decisions. See id., at 664–665. The Court reached that inferior-officer conclusion even though, pursuant to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, no superior could “attempt to influence (by threat of removal or otherwise) the outcome of individual proceedings” conducted by the Coast Guard judges. Id., at 664 (citing 10 U. S. C. §837).

 Like the Coast Guard judges in Edmond, the Task Force members here are removable at will and their decisions can be reviewed and overruled by a superior—here, the Secretary of HHS. Therefore, the result in this case follows a fortiori from Edmond.

 In Free Enterprise Fund, the Court considered whether members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board were inferior officers. See 561 U. S., at 510. After finding the members of the PCAOB removable at will by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Court concluded that PCAOB members were inferior officers. See id., at 508–510. The fact that the PCAOB was nonetheless “empowered to take significant enforcement actions . . . largely independently of the Commission” was no barrier to that conclusion. Id., at 504.

 In this case, the Task Force members are removable at will, just as the PCAOB members were. And Task Force members have no greater power than PCAOB members did to independently make final, binding decisions. So the result in this case also follows directly from Free Enterprise Fund.

 And in United States v. Arthrex, after ensuring that the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office had authority to review final decisions issued by Administrative Patent Judges, the Court deemed those judges to be inferior officers—even though they were removable only for cause  and thus insulated from at-will removal. See 594 U. S., at 16–17; id., at 25–26 (opinion of Roberts, C. J).

 If the patent judges in Arthrex, whose decisions were reviewable but who were not removable at will, were inferior officers, then there can be no doubt that the Task Force members, who are subject to both forms of control, are inferior officers.

 In sum, considering the Secretary’s removal and review authorities together, the inferior-officer issue is quite straightforward under Edmond, Free Enterprise Fund, and Arthrex. In light of those precedents, “we have no hesitation in concluding” that Task Force members are inferior officers whose appointment by the Secretary of HHS is permissible under the Appointments Clause. Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 510.

D

 On three separate grounds, Braidwood resists the conclusion that Task Force members are inferior officers. First, Braidwood claims that Task Force members cannot be removed at will. Second, Braidwood contends that Task Force members exercise unreviewable authority in making preventive-services recommendations. Third, Braidwood posits that Task Force members cannot be inferior officers because the Secretary lacks power to compel the Task Force to issue a particular recommendation, as opposed to power to block a recommendation. None of the three arguments is persuasive.

1

 Braidwood first claims that the Secretary cannot remove Task Force members at will. It rests that argument on 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(6). That provision states that Task Force members and their recommendations shall be “independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” See also §299b–4(a)(1) (“ The Director  shall convene an independent Preventive Services Task Force”).

 According to Braidwood, it is impossible for Task Force members to be “independent” if they are also removable at will. So they must not be removable at will, Braidwood reasons.

 In essence, Braidwood invites the Court to read a for-cause removal restriction into a statute that does not explicitly provide for one. We decline to do so. The Court has said that to “take away” the power of at-will removal from an appointing officer, Congress must use “very clear and explicit language.” Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U. S. 311, 315 (1903); see Hennen, 13 Pet., at 259–260. “[M]ere inference or implication” does not suffice. Shurtleff, 189 U. S., at 315.

 When Congress wants to depart from the default of at-will removability and instead furnish for-cause protection, it knows how to do so. In many statutes, Congress has specified that officers shall be removed only for good cause, often using a formulation like “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” 15 U. S. C. §41 (Federal Trade Commissioners); 42 U. S. C. §7171(b)(1) (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission members); 49 U. S. C. §1301(b)(3) (Surface Transportation Board members); see also Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 17 (Patent judges may be removed only “ ‘for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service’ ” (quoting 5 U. S. C. §7513(a))).

 In fact, Congress has done so with respect to members of other bodies that, like the Task Force, are within the Public Health Service of HHS: Ethics board members who review research involving human subjects may be removed only “for neglect of duty or malfeasance or for other good cause shown.” 42 U. S. C. §289a–1(b)(5)(E). Notably, however, Congress did not employ that kind of language in the statute governing the Task Force.

 Braidwood nonetheless suggests that the term  “independent” in this statute suffices to displace the default of at-will removal. But this Court already rejected that move in Collins v. Yellen. There, the challengers argued that the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency must have been removable only for cause because Congress described the agency as “ ‘independent.’ ” 594 U. S. 220, 248 (2021) (quoting 12 U. S. C. §4511(a); emphasis deleted). The Court disagreed, concluding that the challengers read “far too much into the term ‘independent.’ ” 594 U. S., at 248. The Court explained that “Congress has described many agencies as ‘independent’ without imposing any restriction on the President’s power to remove the agency’s leadership.” Id., at 249.

 Given Collins, Braidwood’s argument based on the term “independent” falls short. The word “independent” alone in a statute does not make an officer removable only for cause. Rather, Congress must speak clearly if it wishes to insulate officers from at-will removal. It has not done so here.

2

 Next, Braidwood insists that the Task Force members cannot be inferior officers because, in Braidwood’s view, they exercise unreviewable authority in making final recommendations that are binding on health insurers. In other words, Braidwood contends that the Secretary cannot prevent the Task Force’s “A” and “B” recommendations from taking effect, and that the Task Force members are therefore not inferior officers.

 The premise is wrong. As we have explained, the Secretary in fact has authority to review the Task Force’s recommendations and can block them from taking effect.

 Braidwood’s argument to the contrary is, essentially, just another version of its first argument. Braidwood again falls back on the independence provision. Braidwood claims that §299b–4(a)(6)’s requirement that Task Force members be “independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to  political pressure” must mean that the Task Force is completely insulated from the Secretary. As Braidwood sees it, the Task Force’s recommendations cannot be “independent” or free from “political pressure” if the Secretary can review and block them. We disagree for two distinct reasons.

 First, the requirement that Task Force members be “independent” is best read to mean that Task Force members must not be unduly influenced by their outside affiliations. Task Force members hail from universities, hospitals, and professional associations. The requirement that they be “independent” instructs them not to act as mere agents or representatives of those outside entities. See Brief for United States 32 (members “must not regard themselves as mere representatives of the organizations or professions in which they serve”); Brief for State of Illinois et al. as Amici Curiae 13 (the provision ensures that members are not “operating at the behest of external entities” given their “professional and organizational ties”).

 To reinforce that critical aspect of independence, Task Force members are subject to rigorous conflict-of-interest rules. See App. 42–44. The stated purpose of those rules is to protect the public’s “confidence in the integrity of the process by which the Task Force makes its recommendations.” Id., at 42.

 Moreover, it would not make sense to read “independent” in §299b–4(a)(6) more broadly to also mean insulation from politically accountable superiors. That is because the remainder of §299b–4(a)(6) expressly provides that Task Force members shall be, “to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” (Emphasis added.) Congress therefore plainly contemplated that insulation from all political pressure would be impracticable. So to read the term “independent” to mean that Task Force members must be entirely shielded from political pressure would nullify Congress’s purposeful choice of language—“to the  extent practicable”—in the remainder of the provision. §299b–4(a)(6). Where one reading of part of a statutory provision “deprives another” part “of all independent effect” and another reading “leaves both . . . with some independent operation,” we generally prefer the latter. A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 176 (2012).

 Second, even if we were to interpret “independent” to apply to political pressure, the phrase “independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure” would mean only that Task Force members are generally free from the Secretary’s influence in their formulation of recommendations in the first instance. The Secretary would still retain power to review and block recommendations in the minimum 1-year period before the recommendations take effect.

 Braidwood disagrees. It contends that the Secretary’s only power with respect to the Task Force’s recommendations is to determine when they take effect. It says that §300gg–13 makes the Task Force’s recommendations binding after the minimum 1-year interval regardless of what the Secretary does. But that understanding of the statute cannot be squared with the provisions discussed above that give the Secretary general supervisory authority over the Task Force.

 So given the Secretary’s review authority, Congress’s instruction that Task Force members and their recommendations be “independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure” means at most that Task Force members can exercise independent judgment in generating recommendations on the front end—in the same way that the Coast Guard judges in Edmond and the patent judges in Arthrex made initial adjudicative decisions free from direction by superiors.

 In that way, the Task Force’s operation vis-à-vis the Secretary is entirely consistent with Congress’s  longstanding practice—reflected in Edmond and Arthrex—of authorizing inferior-officer adjudicators in the Executive Branch to make initial, independent decisions that are only then subject to review by a superior officer. The “modern federal hearing examiner or administrative law judge” generally “exercises his independent judgment on the evidence before him, free from pressures by the parties or other officials within the agency.” Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 513 (1978). But “it certainly is the norm for principal officers to have the capacity to review decisions made by inferior adjudicative officers.” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 20 (quotation marks omitted). That is the “almost-universal model of adjudication in the Executive Branch.” Id., at 25 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). Indeed, the Administrative Procedure Act expressly provides for agency-head review of initial decisions made by Executive Branch adjudicators in 5 U. S. C. §557(b). And “ ‘higher-level agency reconsideration’ by the agency head is the standard way to maintain political accountability and effective oversight for adjudication that takes place outside the confines of §557(b).” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 20 (quoting C. Walker & M. Wasserman, The New World of Agency Adjudication, 107 Cal. L. Rev. 141, 157 (2019)); see also Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 20 (citing Freytag v. Commissioner, 501 U. S. 868 (1991)).

 The fact that a wide range of administrative law judges and other inferior-officer adjudicators throughout the Executive Branch make independent decisions in the first instance that are only later reviewable by politically accountable superiors reinforces the conclusion that Task Force members, whose function at the very least accords with that practice, are inferior officers. Under the Appointments Clause, Congress may permissibly provide for an initial “impartial decision by a panel of experts” who are appointed by a department head, followed by a final “transparent decision for which a politically accountable  officer must take responsibility.” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 16. The structure of the Task Force preserves both expertise and accountability.

 Finally, even if we perceived ambiguity in how §299b–4(a)(6)’s language regarding independence and freedom from political pressure should be construed, constitutional avoidance would counsel against adopting Braidwood’s expansive interpretation. We should not read the statute in a way that makes the current method of appointment—by the Secretary—unconstitutional if we can reasonably read it otherwise. We have applied that constitutional-avoidance principle in similar Appointments Clause cases. See, e.g., Edmond, 520 U. S., at 658. As this Court explained in Edmond, “we must of course avoid” reading the statute “in a manner that would render it clearly unconstitutional” when “there is another reasonable interpretation available.” Ibid.

 An interpretation of §299b–4(a)(6) under which the Task Force members exercise independent judgment in formulating recommendations, but the Secretary maintains authority to review and block them before they take effect is at the very least a reasonable one. Under that interpretation, the Task Force’s operation is akin to the longstanding model of agency adjudications. See id., at 664–665; Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 19–20. And that reading avoids making the statute’s method of appointment to the Task Force—that is, appointment by the Secretary—unconstitutional. So to steer clear of unconstitutionality, we would adopt that interpretation even if the statute’s references to “independent” and “to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure” created ambiguity as to what powers the Secretary possesses to review and block the Task Force’s recommendations. §299b–4(a)(6).

3

 Braidwood’s third argument is that Task Force members  are not inferior officers because, even assuming that the Secretary can review and block recommendations, the Secretary cannot directly compel the Task Force to make an “A” or “B” recommendation in the first place.

 To begin with, in light of the Secretary’s at-will removal power, he could in effect require the Task Force to make certain recommendations—at least in some situations. See §299b–4(a)(6) (Task Force “not subject to political pressure” but only “to the extent practicable”). Specifically, if the circumstances so warranted, the Secretary could remove and replace members of the Task Force who were unwilling to assign an “A” or “B” recommendation to a particular service.

 In any event, even assuming that Braidwood’s argument on this point is correct, that would not affect the Task Force members’ inferior-officer status.

 For one thing, when the Task Force declines to issue an “A” or “B” recommendation, there is less cause for concern about executive officers exercising significant governmental authority without adequate supervision and direction. That is because when the Task Force decides not to issue an “A” or “B” recommendation, the Government is not regulating private parties: Health insurers are free to cover or not cover the preventive service at issue as they wish. Congress made that freedom of choice explicit in the statute: “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to prohibit a plan or issuer from providing coverage for services in addition to those recommended by” the Task Force “or to deny coverage for services that are not recommended by such Task Force.” §300gg–13(a).

 More fundamentally, this Court has not suggested that a principal officer must be able to compel a subordinate to take an affirmative act affecting private parties in order for the subordinate to qualify as an inferior officer. On the contrary, the Court essentially held the opposite in Free Enterprise Fund. There, the Court recognized that the  Securities and Exchange Commission lacked the power to require the PCAOB to “start” individual investigations. 561 U. S., at 504. That was no impediment to this Court’s concluding that the PCAOB members were inferior officers.

 Similarly, in Edmond, the Judge Advocate General and Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces could not compel the Coast Guard judges to make a particular decision in the first instance. See 520 U. S., at 664–665. Nor could the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office exercise that kind of power over the patent judges in Arthrex. See 594 U. S., at 8–9; id., at 25–26 (opinion of Roberts, C. J.). The Coast Guard and patent judges were nonetheless considered inferior officers.

 Here, even if the Secretary cannot directly order the Task Force to formulate an “A” or “B” recommendation, that does not undermine the inferior-officer status of the Task Force members.

4

 In essence, Braidwood urges this Court to read the relevant statutes as having created an independent agency—the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force—whose members wield unchecked power in making preventive-services recommendations of great consequence for the healthcare and health-insurance industries and the American people more broadly. At oral argument, Braidwood went so far as to assert that, with respect to preventive-services recommendations, the Task Force members are “more powerful than the Secretary of HHS or the President.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 101.

 It would be odd, however, for this Court to attribute to Congress the intent to create such a powerful independent agency—whose members would therefore require Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation—when the text of the statute says nothing of the sort.

 When Congress wants to create an independent agency,  it generally does so by explicitly conferring for-cause removal protection on the agency’s leadership. See Part II–D–1, supra. And Congress usually couples that express for-cause protection from removal with an express statement that those agency heads shall be nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. See, e.g., 15 U. S. C. §41 (The Federal Trade Commission “shall be composed of five Commissioners, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate”); 42 U. S. C. §7171(b) (The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “shall be composed of five members appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate”); 49 U. S. C. §1301(b)(1) (The Surface Transportation Board “shall consist of 5 members, to be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate”).

 The statute establishing the Task Force contains none of that customary language—either with respect to for-cause removal or appointment by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. That silence speaks volumes. Contrary to the argument advanced by Braidwood, we will not judicially construct a powerful new independent agency that Congress and the President did not themselves establish by statute.

III

 Braidwood contends that even if Task Force members are inferior officers, their appointments were nonetheless unconstitutional. Since June 2023, after questions arose about the AHRQ Director’s appointment of the Task Force members, the Secretary of HHS has appointed all Task Force members, including by re-appointing those who were already serving. But Braidwood says that the Secretary lacks statutory authority to make appointments to the Task Force, which in turn would create a separate Appointments Clause problem. The dissent advances a version of the  same argument.

 Under the Appointments Clause, “Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of ” inferior officers “in the Heads of Departments.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2 (emphasis added). According to Braidwood and the dissent, though, Congress has not vested the authority to appoint Task Force members in the Secretary of HHS, the relevant Head of Department. Braidwood and the dissent maintain that, given the absence of any statutory authorization for the Secretary to appoint, Task Force members must be appointed by Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation.

 We disagree. Congress has, in two steps, expressly vested the Secretary of HHS with the authority to appoint Task Force members. First, in 1999, when Congress codified the Task Force, Congress authorized the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to appoint members of the Task Force. Second, Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 transfers all of the AHRQ Director’s functions to the Secretary. Congress ratified that Reorganization Plan in 1984. So in 1999, when Congress gave the AHRQ Director the authority to appoint Task Force members, that authority vested in the Secretary.

 Beginning in June 2023, the Secretary has exercised that statutory authority to appoint the Task Force members. Therefore, since June 2023, all Task Force members (including the ones who already held office as of that date) have been appointed by the Secretary of HHS pursuant to a law enacted by Congress—and thus they have been appointed in a manner consistent with the “Congress may by Law vest” requirement of the Appointments Clause. Art. II, §2, cl. 2.

A

1

 The statute governing the Task Force, as originally  enacted in 1999 and amended in 2010, authorizes the AHRQ Director to appoint the Task Force members. See §915, 113 Stat. 1659; 124 Stat. 541–542. That statute provides that the Director “shall convene” a Task Force “to be composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.” 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1).

 To be sure, the statute does not use the term “appoint.” But Congress need not use magic words to confer appointment authority. Around the time of the Founding, “the verb ‘appoint’ ” was synonymous with “ ‘allot, assign, or designate.’ ” NLRB v. SW General, Inc., 580 U. S. 288, 312–313 (2017) (Thomas, J., concurring) (quoting 1 N. Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language 11–12 (1828)); see Al Bahlul v. United States, 967 F. 3d 858, 863, 873–874 (CADC 2020) (holding that statute permitting the Secretary of Defense to “designate” an officer responsible for convening military commissions vested the Secretary with authority to “appoint” the convening officer (quoting 10 U. S. C. §948h)); post, at 11 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (A “statute giving” a department head “authority to assign a person” to an office satisfies the Appointments Clause (emphasis added)).

 Depending on context, other terms like “direct” that are perhaps less obviously synonymous with “appoint” may also suffice to confer appointment authority—and that may be so even if the same statute uses the term “appoint” with respect to other officers. See SW General, Inc., 580 U. S., at 312 (Thomas, J., concurring) (concluding that when the President “ ‘direct[s]’ ” someone to “ ‘perform the functions and duties’ ” of an office temporarily, “he is ‘appoint[ing]’ that person as an ‘officer of the United States’ within the meaning of the Appointments Clause” even though the statute refers to “appointment[s]” to the same offices, 5 U. S. C. §3345).

 More to the point, the AHRQ Director’s power to “convene” is naturally read to include the power to appoint  in this specific context. Of course, “convene” in the abstract could mean to merely “call together” or “assemble.” Supp. Brief for Respondents 4 (quotation marks omitted). But where as here there is no separate statutory provision specifying who is to appoint the individuals to be called together or assembled, the obvious conclusion is that the person with the power to convene is also the person with the power to appoint. That is especially so when the person charged with convening is required to ensure that members of the body to be convened meet certain qualifications, such as “appropriate expertise.” §299b–4(a)(1).

 Congress has elsewhere used the term “convene” to authorize an official to both assemble a body and select its members. For example, 10 U. S. C. §948h states: “Military commissions under this chapter may be convened by the Secretary of Defense or by any officer or official of the United States designated by the Secretary for that purpose.” That statute contains no provision using the term “appoint.” Therefore, §948h—along with a neighboring provision that also uses a term other than “appoint” (namely, “detail”)—has been read to authorize the Secretary of Defense or his designee to appoint commission members. See Al Bahlul, 967 F. 3d, at 863–864; see also §948i(b) (“When convening a military commission under this chapter, the convening authority shall detail” eligible “members of the armed forces”); see also, e.g., 10 U. S. C. §14903(a) (“The Secretary of the military department concerned shall convene a board of inquiry” to “be composed of not less than three officers” with specified “qualifications”); 14 U. S. C. §3703(a) (“The Secretary shall convene a Coast Guard Reserve Policy Board,” and at “least one-half of the members of the Board shall be Reserve officers”); 33 U. S. C. §3022(a) (The Secretary of Commerce “shall convene a personnel board” which “shall consist of not less than five officers” of a certain “grade”).

 On the flip side, when Congress wants to decouple the  power to convene from the power to appoint, it has done so explicitly. Consider 15 U. S. C. §634c(b)(2)(A), which provides that “the Chief Counsel for Advocacy” within the Small Business Administration “shall convene an Interagency Working Group” but then states that the Working Group shall be composed of representatives from particular agencies “as selected by the head of the agency.” See also, e.g., 20 U. S. C. §§107d–2(a), (b) (The Secretary of Education “shall convene an ad hoc arbitration panel” with three members “appointed” by others); 50 U. S. C. §§3022(b), (d) (2018 ed., Supp. II) (“The Director of National Intelligence shall convene meetings of the Joint Intelligence Community Council” with membership of the Council specified in the law itself ).

 The statute setting up the Task Force is more like the former set of statutes than the latter. So in context, the AHRQ Director’s power to “convene” naturally encompasses the power to appoint.

 Not surprisingly, the Executive Branch’s actions for the last 26 years, since the 1999 codification of the Task Force, have reflected that straightforward interpretation of the statute—without any apparent objection from Congress. For those 26 years, the relevant government actors have always read the authorization to “convene” the Task Force to include the power to appoint the Task Force members. That considered and consistent Executive Branch practice—which began contemporaneously with enactment of the statute codifying the Task Force in 1999—buttresses the ordinary meaning and natural interpretation of the term “convene” in the statute. See Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 394 (2024); see also Bondi v. VanDerStok, 604 U. S. ___, ___–___ (2025) (slip op., at 20–21).

2

 Of course, if the statute vested the power to appoint Task  Force members in the AHRQ Director alone, a constitutional problem would exist. Not in 1999 when the “convene” provision was enacted and the Task Force’s recommendations were still advisory—at that point, the Task Force members were mere employees who could be appointed by the AHRQ Director. But there would be a problem beginning in 2010 after the Affordable Care Act was enacted. Starting then, the Task Force’s “A” and “B” recommendations were no longer merely advisory. Rather, health insurers had to begin covering those recommended services at no cost to the insured. So after the Affordable Care Act, the Task Force members were officers, not just employees. And as inferior officers, they could be appointed by the Secretary, who is a Head of Department, but not by the AHRQ Director. In short, since 2010, the Appointments Clause has required that the Task Force members be appointed by the Secretary of HHS.

 As the Government explains, however, Congress itself solved the potential constitutional issue that arose in 2010. See Supp. Brief for United States 5. Specifically, Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966, which was ratified by Congress in 1984, transfers all authority of the AHRQ Director to the Secretary. So under Reorganization Plan No. 3, the AHRQ Director’s power to appoint the Task Force members was transferred to the Secretary. That means the Secretary possesses the authority to appoint the Task Force members. And the Secretary has exercised that appointment authority.

 To explain the background a bit more fully: The Reorganization Act of 1949 charged the President with examining “the organization of all agencies of the Government.” §2(a), 63 Stat. 203. That Act authorized the President to prepare reorganization plans when he determined that “the transfer of the whole or any part of any agency” or its “functions” “to the jurisdiction and control of any other agency” was necessary. §3, id., at 203;  see id., at 204.

 In 1966, acting pursuant to the 1949 Act, President Lyndon Johnson issued Reorganization Plan No. 3. Before 1966, the Public Health Service was separate from the Department of Health and Human Services, then known as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). See Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson, Vol. I, Apr. 25, 1966, p. 455 (1967). But in 1966, Reorganization Plan No. 3 transferred to the Secretary of HHS (then HEW) “all functions of the Public Health Service” and its “officers and employees” as well as “all functions of all agencies of or in the Public Health Service.” 80 Stat. 1610.

 In 1984, Congress passed and President Reagan signed legislation that ratified and affirmed Reorganization Plan No. 3 “as law.” 98 Stat. 2705.

 The AHRQ is an agency “of or in the Public Health Service,” and the AHRQ Director is an “officer” of the Public Health Service. 80 Stat. 1610; see 42 U. S. C. §299(a). So Reorganization Plan No. 3 “transfer[s]” all of the AHRQ Director’s functions to the Secretary of HHS. 80 Stat. 1610. As the Government stated at oral argument here, under Reorganization Plan No. 3, “all of the Director’s powers are the Secretary’s powers.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 110.

 After statutory codification of the Task Force in 1999, those powers of the Secretary included the AHRQ Director’s power to appoint the Task Force members. Therefore, by virtue of the 1984 Act ratifying Reorganization Plan No. 3 and the 1999 Act conferring appointment authority, Congress vested the power to appoint Task Force members in the Secretary of HHS.⁶

   To be sure, Congress could have vested the Secretary with appointment authority in more direct ways. But given that the Appointments Clause question arose only in 2010 when the Task Force recommendations became binding and Task Force members became officers under the Affordable Care Act, it is no surprise that the 1999 statute did not expressly name the Secretary.

 Moreover, this Court has upheld as consistent with the Appointments Clause statutory schemes that less directly vest appointment authority in the Head of Department. For example, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Court stated that it had “previously found that the department head’s approval” of an inferior officer’s appointment of another inferior officer “satisfies the Appointments Clause.” 561 U. S. 477, 512, n. 13 (2010). For that proposition, the Court cited with approval United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385 (1868). In Hartwell, the Court considered a statute that authorized “the assistant treasurer, at Boston, with the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury, to appoint a specified number of clerks.” Id., at 393 (citing Act of July 23, 1866, 14 Stat. 202). The Hartwell Court explicitly blessed that arrangement, holding that the clerks were “appointed by the head of a department within the meaning of the constitutional provision.” 6 Wall., at 393–394.

 The appointment scheme at issue in this case more clearly vests appointment authority in the department head (the Secretary of HHS) than did the statute in Hartwell, the validity of which the Court affirmed in Free Enterprise Fund. See 561 U. S., at 512, n. 13 (citing 6 Wall., at 393–394). In Hartwell, the Secretary could only approve or disapprove appointments proposed and carried out by  the assistant treasurer. So the assistant treasurer could frustrate the Secretary’s ability to appoint clerks of his choosing simply by refusing to propose their appointment. Nonetheless, the Court concluded that the statute vested authority to appoint the clerks in the Secretary. Here, Reorganization Plan No. 3 grants the Secretary the power to stand in the shoes of the AHRQ Director and himself appoint the Task Force members—far more direct appointment authority than existed in Hartwell.

B

 Braidwood and the dissent push back against the conclusion that Congress has by law vested the Secretary with appointment authority. They argue that the statute governing the Task Force actually does not grant appointment authority to the AHRQ Director. And they contend that even assuming that it does so, no statute “vests” such authority in the Secretary.

1

 Braidwood first asserts that the 1999 statute codifying the Task Force simply says “convene” and is therefore actually “agnostic” about who should appoint the Task Force members. Brief for Respondents 22; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 59–61. In other words, Braidwood claims that “Congress has not ‘vested’ the appointment of the Task Force in anyone.” Supp. Brief for Respondents 1 (emphasis added). As Braidwood sees it, Congress did not care—either in 1999 when it codified the Task Force or in 2010 when it made the Task Force’s recommendations legally binding—whether the Task Force members are appointed by the AHRQ Director, the Secretary of HHS, the President, the Secretary of Energy, a private party, or anyone else. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 59. And Braidwood detects no problem with a statute under which multiple different officials or entities could all purport to appoint members of the Task Force.  Braidwood suggests that the AHRQ Director, the Secretary of HHS, or the President could simply step in to announce which collection of individuals is the “real” Task Force. See Supp. Brief for Respondents 5, n. 5.

 We will not read the statute to usher in such a bizarre and half-baked scheme. It is implausible to conclude that Congress in 1999 established the Task Force and in 2010 charged its members with making legally binding healthcare recommendations—but was entirely indifferent as to who would appoint those members. Tellingly, Braidwood has failed to identify any other statute that establishes a government entity but is entirely agnostic about who will select the members of that government entity. The far more sensible reading of the Task Force statute is the Government’s: that in 1999, in authorizing the AHRQ Director to “convene” a Task Force composed of members with “appropriate expertise,” Congress also charged the Director with selecting those members. Supp. Brief for United States 2–3 (quoting §299b–4(a)(1)).

 The dissent, for its part, cannot bring itself to endorse Braidwood’s farfetched theory. But it nonetheless asserts that we should not read “convene” to mean “appoint” because the Appointments Clause supplies a default rule for how inferior officers should be appointed: by the President with Senate confirmation. But §299b–4(a)(1), together with Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 as ratified by Congress in 1984, expressly vests appointment authority in the Secretary and therefore displaces any such default rule.

 The dissent all but concedes that between 1999 and 2010—before the Task Force members were officers and therefore before the Appointments Clause was relevant—the statutory authorization to “convene” was best read to confer appointment authority. See post, at 23; see also post, at 22 (When “no other provision addresses how the group’s members are named because the Appointments Clause does  not apply,” the “authority to ‘convene’ ” confers appointment authority). But according to the dissent, the meaning of the statute suddenly changed in 2010 after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The problem with that theory is that the relevant statutory text did not change in 2010. Both before and after the enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the statute has granted authority to “convene” a Task Force “composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.” §299b–4(a)(1); §299b–4(a)(1) (2006 ed.). So in effect, the dissent reads the same words to mean different things before and after 2010.

2

 Braidwood and the dissent next argue that, even if the AHRQ Director’s statutory authority to “convene” carries with it the power to appoint, Reorganization Plan No. 3 does not actually transfer the Director’s appointment authority to the Secretary and thus does not vest appointment authority in the Secretary.

 First, Braidwood and the dissent emphasize that Reorganization Plan No. 3 is not a “law” at all. They note that the Plan was originally submitted to Congress in 1966 by President Johnson and took effect only because neither House of Congress passed a disapproval resolution within 60 days.

 True but irrelevant. In a 1984 Act passed by Congress and signed by President Reagan—an Act that therefore indisputably qualifies as a “law”—Congress stated that it “hereby ratifies and affirms as law each reorganization plan” previously enacted, including Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966. 98 Stat. 2705.

 Second, Braidwood and the dissent point out that Congress did not codify the Task Force or the authority to appoint Task Force members until 1999. And they claim that Reorganization Plan No. 3 transferred to the Secretary only those functions that existed as of 1966. But that  frozen-in-time reading of Reorganization Plan No. 3 finds no footing in either the statutory text or common sense.

 Starting with the text, Reorganization Plan No. 3 transfers to the Secretary “all functions” of the Public Health Service and its officers. 80 Stat. 1610 (emphasis added). That most naturally means an ongoing transfer of authority—that is, any new powers granted to the Public Health Service and its officers by Congress after 1966 would be transferred to the Secretary, in addition to those powers existing as of 1966. Moreover, the Dictionary Act provides that, “unless the context indicates otherwise,” “words used in the present tense include the future as well as the present.” 1 U. S. C. §1. Reorganization Plan No. 3 speaks in the present tense, providing that “all functions” “are hereby transferred.” 80 Stat. 1610 (emphasis added). The use of the present tense combined with the expansive phrase “all functions” shows that Congress intended that Reorganization Plan No. 3 effect a continuing transfer of functions from the Public Health Service to the Secretary.

 Braidwood and the dissent both lean on a provision of the Reorganization Act of 1949 stating that no “reorganization plan shall provide for, and no reorganization under this Act shall have the effect of . . . authorizing any agency to exercise any function which is not expressly authorized by law at the time the plan is transmitted to the Congress.” 63 Stat. 205. But that language merely prevented “the President, under the guise of consolidating and rearranging, from actually creating authority in the Executive Branch which had not existed before.” Dept. of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum of William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Atty. Gen. (Sept. 11, 1969), in Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1969 (ICC): Hearing before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 29 (1969) (Rehnquist Memorandum). In other words, that provision barred the President from seizing on a  reorganization plan to unilaterally confer new powers on an agency.

 But that provision in no way barred Congress from later enacting a law that conferred new powers on an agency subject to a reorganization plan. That is precisely what Congress did in 1999 when it codified the Task Force and granted the AHRQ Director authority to appoint the Task Force members. At that point, the AHRQ Director’s authority to appoint Task Force members became one of the “functions” transferred to the Secretary. 80 Stat. 1610.

 Reading Reorganization Plan No. 3 to provide for only a one-time transfer of functions in 1966 and thereby freeze in time the relationship between the Public Health Service and the Secretary of HHS would also produce untenable—bordering on absurd—results from the standpoint of the agency’s practical operations. It would mean that all functions of the Public Health Service statutorily conferred on the Service through 1966 would rest with the Secretary, but any functions statutorily conferred on it after the 1966 Plan became effective would fall outside of the Secretary’s purview. There is no good or plausible reason to think that Congress created such an “arbitrary bifurcation.” Supp. Brief for United States 6.

 To the extent it may be relevant, the then-Secretary of HEW explained to Congress in 1966 that one objective of Reorganization Plan No. 3 was to vest all of the Public Health Service’s current and future functions in the Secretary so that he would have the “flexibility” “to reorganize” the Service—then and “at any future time”—“as the requirements of the times demand.” Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 (Public Health Service): Hearing before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1966). If the Secretary were vested with only the functions of the Public Health Service that existed as of 1966, he would lack the flexibility to reorganize the Service as public health needs evolved and  as Congress correspondingly conferred new powers upon the Service.

 Third, the dissent spins out a new theory of its own, positing that Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 could not have transferred the AHRQ Director’s functions to the Secretary because otherwise the Director would be an “empty husk.” Post, at 27. But as the Government explains, the text of Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 is plain: It explicitly states that it “ ‘transfer[s]’ ” “ ‘all functions’ ” of “ ‘officers’ ” of the Public Health Service, including the AHRQ Director, “ ‘to the Secretary.’ ” Supp. Brief for United States 5 (quoting 80 Stat. 1610). And after that statutory transfer, the officers of the Public Health Service are not “empty husks” because the Secretary may delegate responsibility to carry out functions back to the Public Health Service and its officers. See n. 6, supra. Section 2 of Reorganization Plan No. 3 expressly provides for such delegation: It states that the “Secretary may from time to time make such provisions as he shall deem appropriate authorizing the performance of any of the functions transferred to him by the provisions of this reorganization plan by any officer, employee, or agency of the Public Health Service.” 80 Stat. 1610. And the Secretary has in fact delegated functions back to the Public Health Service. See, e.g., 31 Fed. Reg. 8964 (1966); 33 Fed. Reg. 5426 (1968); 53 Fed. Reg. 3457 (1988); 61 Fed. Reg. 29566 (1996).

 So it is not correct, either in statutory text or in actual practice, that the Reorganization Plan left the officers of the Public Health Service as “empty husks.”

 In sum, Braidwood’s and the dissent’s arguments on the vesting issue fall flat. Read in context, two laws taken together—Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 as ratified by the 1984 Act; and the 1999 statute conferring appointment authority—expressly vest the Secretary with authority to  appoint the Task Force members.⁷

3

 Braidwood’s and the dissent’s arguments that Congress has not properly vested the Secretary with authority to appoint Task Force members fail on their own terms. But if there were any doubt on that score, the canon of constitutional avoidance as applied in this Court’s prior Appointments Clause cases would again dispel it.

 Edmond v. United States is instructive. 520 U. S. 651 (1997). There, the challengers argued that Congress gave the power to appoint judges of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals to the Judge Advocate General. But because the Judge Advocate General was not a Head of Department, it would have been unconstitutional for Congress to vest appointment authority in the Judge Advocate General alone. Rather than read the statute “in a manner that would render it clearly unconstitutional,” the Court adopted a “reasonable” alternative reading: It interpreted the statutory scheme to vest appointment authority in the Secretary of Transportation. Id., at 658.

 Here, reading the statutes at issue to vest appointment authority in the AHRQ Director alone would likewise render them “clearly unconstitutional.” Ibid. Meanwhile, it is at a minimum “reasonable” to read Reorganization Plan No. 3 to have transferred the AHRQ Director’s appointment power to the Secretary, such that the statutes together vest the Secretary with authority to appoint the members of the Task Force. Ibid.

 C

 Not only has Congress vested authority to appoint the Task Force members in the Secretary of HHS, the Secretary has now in fact exercised that authority. The Task Force members have been inferior officers since 2010 when the Affordable Care Act was enacted. Until June 2023, the Task Force members were appointed by the AHRQ Director alone, not by the Secretary. Then in June 2023, after litigation belatedly alerted the Government to the fact that Task Force members had become officers, the Secretary both ratified the Director’s previous appointments of the Task Force members and also re-appointed them (a sequence of events that similarly occurred in Edmond). The Secretary has continued to appoint members of the Task Force, including all current members.

 The fact that the Secretary did not begin personally appointing the Task Force members until June 2023 is irrelevant to whether the Task Force members appointed by the Secretary have been properly appointed. In Edmond, the Secretary of Transportation had not historically appointed the Coast Guard judges. After Appointments Clause challenges arose in litigation, the Secretary “issued a memorandum ‘adopting’ ” the Judge Advocate General’s appointments as his own. Id., at 654. Those developments did not prevent the Court from concluding that the Coast Guard judges were properly appointed. The same is true here.

*  *  *

 To sum up: Task Force members issue preventive-services recommendations of critical importance to patients, doctors, insurers, employers, healthcare organizations, and the American people more broadly. In doing so, however, the Task Force members remain subject to the Secretary of HHS’s supervision and direction, and the Secretary remains subject to the President’s supervision  and direction. So under Article II and this Court’s precedents, Task Force members are inferior officers, and Congress may vest the power to appoint them in the Secretary of HHS. Congress has done so, and the Secretary has appointed the Task Force members pursuant to that grant of authority.

 Therefore, the Task Force members’ appointments are fully consistent with the Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution. The structure of the Task Force and the manner of appointing its officers preserve the chain of political accountability that was central to the Framers’ design of the Appointments Clause: The Task Force members were appointed by and are supervised and directed by the Secretary of HHS. And the Secretary of HHS, in turn, answers to the President of the United States.

 We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.