5 U.S.C. § 302
Section 302 · Delegation of authority
Amended 2 times on record
Applied in 17 court decisions — leading case National Aeronautics & Space Administration v. Federal Labor Relations Authority (1999)
Most recently applied in Baca v. Department of Army (December 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
(a) For the purpose of this section, “agency” has the meaning given it by section 5721 of this title.
(b) In addition to the authority to delegate conferred by other law, the head of an agency may delegate to subordinate officials the authority vested in him—
(1) by law to take final action on matters pertaining to the employment, direction, and general administration of personnel under his agency; and
(2) by section 3702 of title 44 to authorize the publication of advertisements, notices, or proposals.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Clause (2) of former section 22a is omitted because of the repeal of R.S. §3683 (31 U.S.C. 675) by the Act of Sept. 12, 1950, ch. 946, §301(76), 64 Stat. 843.
The word “agency” is substituted for “department” and defined to conform to the definition of “department” in section 18 of the Act of Aug. 2, 1946, ch. 744, 60 Stat. 811.
In subsection (b), the words “In addition to the authority to delegate conferred by other law,” are added for clarity and in recognition of the various reorganization plans which generally have transferred all functions of the departments and agencies to the heads thereof and have authorized them to delegate the functions to subordinates.
Standard changes are made to conform with the definitions applicable and the style of this title as outlined in the preface to the report.
Amendments
1975—Subsec. (b)(2). Pub. L. 94–183 substituted “3702” for “324”.