Impose term limits on top career NIH leaders

What has happened

1. Aug 28, 2026 Not started

   No term limit was imposed on top career NIH leaders in the window. The nearest existing rule is statutory and pre-dates the window: 42 U.S.C. 284(a)(2), added by the 21st Century Cures Act in 2016, gives each national research institute or center director a five-year appointment but says in terms that "there shall be no limit on the number of terms that a Director may serve", which is a fixed renewable term rather than a term limit. Nothing in the Federal Register, the NIH Policy Manual or the 119th Congress adds one. The document the read queue chased, `hhs.gov/sites/default/files/term-limits.pdf`, was opened and read in full on 2026-09-03 and it is **not** an NIH term-limits instrument: it is an HHS final rule, *Rotational Program for Directors of Centers and other Components of HHS* (21 CFR part 5, 42 CFR part 22), created 2021-01-15 and still stamped "submitted to the Office of the Federal Register … and has not yet been placed on public display or published". Its covered Operating Divisions are ACF, ACL, AHRQ, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS and SAMHSA — **NIH is not among them** — and it gives covered Directors "a term of five years … There shall be no limit on the number of five-year terms." It appears never to have been published: a Federal Register full-text query for its exact title returns **0 documents**. It is nevertheless the best Primary source yet found for the two pre-window NIH facts, because it recites them: the 21st Century Cures Act's five-year renewable terms for NIH institute and center directors, and that "In 2019, NIH announced that the 272 lab and branch chiefs who oversee NIH's intramural research would be limited to 12-year terms." Its own date is 2021-01-15, before the evidence window, so it fails the date gate and is recorded here as a read-but-undatable source under §5, not as Evidence. **`pre_satisfied` is deliberately not set.** The amended rule requires that nothing in the ask remain outstanding. What was already true on 2025-01-20 is a fixed *renewable* term for institute and center directors — which this document itself distinguishes from a limit — and a genuine 12-year cap on lab and branch chiefs, who are not "top career leaders at the NIH". The Quote's object is unsatisfied and the power to act plainly remains: HHS drafted exactly such a rule for nine other operating divisions and left NIH out.

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