On January 13, 2012, President Barack Obama announced that he would ask Congress to reinstate so-called presidential reorganization authority, and a legislative proposal that would renew this authority was conveyed to Congress on February 16, 2012. Bills based on the proposed language were subsequently introduced during the 112 th Congress in the Senate ( S. 2129 ) and the House ( H.R. 4409 ). Similar authority was available to Presidents periodically between 1932 and 1984. It allowed the President to present plans to reorganize executive branch departments and agencies to Congress that would be considered under an expedited parliamentary process. Should this authority be reinstated, the President indicated that his first submitted plan would propose consolidation of six business and trade-related agencies into one: U.S. Department of Commerce's core business and trade functions, the Export Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. This report summarizes the repeated renewal and evolution of presidential reorganization authority from 1932 to 1984, as well as subsequent unsuccessful efforts to renew it since then. The report then discusses President Obama's request in the context of this background. Finally, the report provides analysis of the possible options for congressional consideration relative to this legislation. Between 1932 and 1981, Congress periodically delegated authority to the President that allowed him to develop plans for reorganization of portions of the federal government and to present those plans to Congress for consideration under special expedited parliamentary procedures. Under these procedures, the President's plan would go into effect unless one or both houses of Congress passed a resolution rejecting the plan, a process referred to as a "legislative veto." This process favored the President's plan because, absent congressional action, the default was for the plan to go into effect. In contrast to the regular legislative process, the burden of action under these versions of presidential reorganization authority rested with opponents rather than supporters of the plan. In 1984, the mechanism was amended to require Congress to act affirmatively in order for a plan to go into force. This arguably shifted the balance of power to Congress. The authority expired at the end of 1984 and subsequently has not been available to the President. Presidents used this presidential reorganization authority regularly, submitting more than 100 plans between 1932 and 1984. Presidents used the authority for a variety of purposes, from relatively minor reorganizations within individual agencies to the creation of large new organizations, including the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The terms of the authority delegated to the President varied greatly over the century. During some periods, Congress delegated relatively broad authority to the President, while during others the authority was more circumscribed. As noted above, the reorganization authority was refined and reauthorized on a number of occasions between 1932 and 1984. On some occasions, such as 1939, 1945, and 1949, Congress enacted a completely new statute. On other occasions, modifications were made by amendment of the preceding reorganization authority. As a result of these modifications, the statute currently laid out in the U.S. Code is structured very differently from the early statutes of 1932 and 1933. Nonetheless, all of the elements of the current statute are represented, though perhaps in embryonic form, in the authority's earliest incarnation. Each of the elements of the reorganization authority is integral to its overall scope and effect, but several of these more strongly influence the relative authority of the President and Congress, and the resulting balance of power between the two branches. These elements are the reorganization plan contents , the limitations on power , and the expedited parliamentary procedures . The provisions that define the potential scope of reorganization plan content, when combined with the provisions that further limit or prohibit certain reorganization plan content, set the boundaries of a reorganization that the President can propose under this special authority. The provisions that specify the parliamentary procedures to be used define the role of Congress in facilitating or impeding the enactment of a submitted plan. These procedures also define the requirements of the President during this process. Such requirements may be seen by the Administration as easing or making more difficult a plan's enactment and implementation. The roots of presidential reorganization authority can be traced to the Herbert Hoover Administration (1929-1933), and the statutory framework for this authority evolved throughout the middle of the 20 th century. Congress reshaped the contours of the authority in response to experience and political context. During successive renewals of the authority, Congress sometimes narrowed, and other times expanded, the scope of potential reorganization activities. In addition, the expedited procedures were altered in such a way that it became easier or harder to defeat one of the President's plans, though always easier than under the regular procedures. In general, the trend from the 1940s onward was to narrow the scope of potential activities and to make it easier for Congress to defeat a plan. The presidential reorganization authority was not continuous from 1932 to 1984; it lapsed for periods of less than two years on a number of occasions, and for longer periods from 1935 to 1939, from 1941 through 1945, from 1973 to 1977, and from early 1981 to late 1984. As discussed below, the type of expedited parliamentary procedure employed under the reorganization authority—a "legislative veto"—was found to be unconstitutional in 1983. The authority was modified to address this issue, and it was extended for approximately two months at the end of 1984. However, this version of reorganization authority was never used; the last plan was submitted in 1980, by President Jimmy Carter. The 1984 authority expired and therefore is not available to the President, but its provisions are listed at 5 U.S.C. Sections 901 et seq. Table 1 provides summary information, by President, regarding the various versions of this authority. The following sections summarize the development of this statutory mechanism. The text includes brief historical context, a summary of Presidents' requests for the authority and Congress's response, highlights of the changes to the authority over time, and a summary of the plans that were submitted under the authority. Congressional consideration of grants of expedited reorganization authority to the President often included debates over the constitutionality of the legislative veto mechanism that was, until 1984, a key component. Inasmuch as this set of procedures was found to be unconstitutional and has no longer been under consideration in the legislative proposals of recent years, these previous constitutional concerns are not described here. CRS specialists conducted a thorough research of the evolution of these procedures in 1980, however, and the resulting studies were published in a committee print. The earliest antecedent of the reorganization authority that is currently in the U.S. Code dates to 1932. While Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover had been a proponent of the idea that Congress should delegate to the President authority to propose reorganizations of the executive branch for the purposes of improved economy and efficiency, subject to some form of congressional disapproval. He continued to advance this view during his presidency. In 1932, Hoover requested this power, and, a few months prior to the 1932 presidential election, Congress provided the first version of the President's reorganization authority. The statute was enacted on June 30, 1932, during the first session of the 72 nd Congress (1931-1932). Under the act, the President was authorized to direct, by executive order, specified government reorganization actions. Each such executive order was subject to congressional review, and could be nullified by a resolution of disapproval, within 60 days, by either chamber. In the event of an adjournment of Congress within the 60-day period, the order could not become effective until 60 days following reconvening. The first session of the 72 nd Congress adjourned on July 16, 1932, and it did not reconvene until December 5, 1932. The period between enactment and adjournment—16 days—seemingly would have been of insufficient duration to allow an executive order to go into effect under the congressional review and disapproval provision of the statute, even if it had been submitted upon enactment. Perhaps for this reason, President Hoover did not submit executive orders under the act to Congress until December 9, 1932. By this time, the President had been defeated in his bid for reelection, and he was completing his term in office. The act established definitions for federal government agencies that reflected the distinctions made among various entities at that time. It specified that, for purposes of the statute an "executive agency" was a "commission, board, bureau, division, service, or office in the executive branch," with executive departments excluded. An "independent executive agency," by contrast, was an "executive agency not under the jurisdiction or control of any executive department," that is, any freestanding entity that was not a department. Congress continued to distinguish between departments, subunits of departments, and other freestanding federal organizations in later versions of the statute. Under the act, an executive order could transfer all or part of an independent agency and/or its functions to a department or agency; transfer all or part of an agency from one department to another; consolidate or redistribute functions within a department or in its component agencies; or specify the name and functions of a consolidated entity, as well as the title, powers, and duties of its head. The use of these powers was to be consistent with the purposes identified by the statute: that is, to group, coordinate, and consolidate agencies according to major purpose; to reduce the number of agencies by combining those with similar functions; to eliminate overlap and duplication of effort; and to "segregate regulatory agencies and functions from those of an administrative and executive character." Within these broad parameters, limitations were placed on the range of actions the President could include in an executive order. The statute provided that "Whenever … the President concludes that any executive department or agency created by statute should be abolished and the functions thereof transferred to another executive department or agency or eliminated entirely the authority granted in this title shall not apply."