Committee on House Administration: Comments to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Implementing Section 206a of the Congressional Accountability Act – March 17, 2005

Introduction

On February 16, 2005, the Board of Directors of the Office of Compliance (“the Board”) submitted for publication in the Congressional Record a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Request for Comments from Interested Parties regarding its proposed regulations implementing certain substantive employment rights and protections for veterans under the CAA (“Proposed Regulations”).¹ In the “Background” section of the Proposed Regulations, the Board explains that the regulations apply certain veterans’ employment rights and protections to employing offices and employees covered by the CAA. The language of the CAA adopting specific sections of the VEOA requires the Board to issue regulations that are “the same as the most relevant substantive regulations (applicable with respect to the Executive Branch) promulgated to implement [the VEOA] . . . except insofar as the Board may determine, for good cause shown and stated together with the regulation, that a modification of such regulations would be more effective for the implementation of the rights and protections” under the VEOA. 2 U.S.C. § 1316a(4)(B).

As evidenced by the extensive explanatory material accompanying its latest round of Proposed Regulations, the Board has considered the commentary, both formal and informal, to the earlier proposed regulations submitted by several interested parties. Although the resulting regulations are a vast improvement over the earlier proposed VEOA regulations, questions still remain regarding the prudence and efficacy of some of the Board’s proposed language. However, given the tremendous strides the Board has made to address some of the earlier questions, the Committee is confident that its concerns can and will be addressed through additional revisions to the current Proposed Regulations.

Comments to Proposed Regulations

Section 1.102 – Definitions

The definitions to determine coverage of the Proposed Regulations are cumbersome and confusing. Although the Proposed Regulations and the Board’s introductory statements exhaustively discuss the limitations on the definition of “covered employee” set forth in 2 U.S.C. § 1316a(5), the Board fails to state clearly whether or not these regulations apply to Member and Committee offices. Although one could surmise through the myriad of internal references to definitions of “appointment”, “covered position” and “covered employee” that the regulations do not, in fact, apply to Member and Committee offices, there is no clear and plain statement from the Board stating as much.