I located the following Section in Executive Order 14215, "Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies", dated February 18, 2025:

Sec. 7 . Rules of Conduct Guiding Federal Employees' Interpretation of the Law. The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President's supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General's opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.

Does this centralize some of our more significant interpretations of case law? By my plain reading, "including but not limited to" means many of the policies in our offices, in our literature (e.g., Administration of Government Contracts), and on this website should be run against this XO.

I think this just puts into "regulation" what has been a long standing practice. The DoJ Office of Legal Counsel has traditionally resolved disputes between agencies regarding the interpretation of law. OLC does not do this on its own but at the request of the agencies involved. However, the opinion of OLC has merely been advisory and not binding. It appears that now it will be binding.

The E.O. reflects the concept of the "unitary executive," which has been explained as follows:

It is a bracingly simple idea. Article II, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution vests the executive power in “a president of the United States.” Those words do not seem ambiguous. Under the Constitution, the President, and no one else, has executive power. The executive is therefore “unitary.” It follows, as the night follows the day, that Congress lacks the power to carve up the executive—to say, for example, that the Secretary of Transportation is a free agent, immune from presidential control, or that the Secretary of Commerce can maintain their job unless the President is able to establish some kind of “cause” for removing them.

Footnote omitted.

See The Unitary Executive: Past, Present, and Future, by Sunstein and Vermeule (2020). https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/714860

See also, The Unitary Presidency, Dodds (2019).

And The Unitary Executive: Presidential Power From Washington to Bush, Calabresi and Yoo (2012).

Presidential Management of the Administrative State: The Not-So-Unitary Executive, 51 Duke L.J. 963 (2001-2002).

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1148&context=dlj

Of course, what happens when Federal Court case law contradicts an Executive Branch interpretation of the law? That will have to be adjudicated between the President and/or Attorney General and the Judiciary, won’t it?

The XO’s stated intent, “Therefore, in order to improve the administration of the executive branch and to increase regulatory officials’ accountability to the American people,” is highly desirable.

Does it accomplish this intent?

So a simple reading of the EO would require that the Attorney General or President must review the government’s preliminary position advanced on every protest, or contract claim or REA involving application of contract or case law?

Edited March 31, 2025Mar 31 by joel hoffman

2 hours ago, joel hoffman said:

Of course, what happens when Federal Court case law contradicts an Executive Branch interpretation of the law? That will have to be adjudicated between the President and/or Attorney General and the Judiciary, won’t it?

Or what happens if an executive branch interpretation is rejected by a court in a future decision? Does the executive branch wait to hear from the President/Attorney General that they have changed their interpretation?

2 hours ago, Don Mansfield said:

Or what happens if an executive branch interpretation is rejected by a court in a future decision? Does the executive branch wait to hear from the President/Attorney General that they have changed their interpretation?

Not necessarily. But if the president or attorney general wants to provide interpretive guidance or direction it may come in an executive order or a document such as this one, from the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel: The Test for Determining “Officer” Status Under the Appointments Clause, January 16, 2025

https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1385406/dl

Or this one: Application of the Randolph-Sheppard Act to the United States Mint, September 9, 2024,

https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1377031/dl