Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Minor

Retitle the Director of the Office of Global Affairs as Assistant Secretary

Not started

493 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“The Director of the Office of Global Affairs should have the title of Assistant Secretary so that he or she can adequately represent HHS and the Secretary and serve as the lead on global health diplomacy for the government.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    Satisfied before the evidence window and undone inside it. HHS's Office of Global Affairs has been headed by an Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs since at least 2021 - Loyce Pace held the title from 2021-03 to 2025-01-20 - so the retitling this Quote asks for had already happened. HHS's own Federal Register notice of career-reserved Senior Executive Service positions, published 2025-05-20, still lists the office's deputy post as "Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs", confirming the Assistant Secretary title is the office's structure inside the window. **Inside the window HHS moved the other way, and the record now shows it twice over.** The post is no longer vacant and is no longer styled Assistant Secretary: HHS's leadership bio page, reviewed 2026-02-27, reads in its entirety "Bethany Kozma — Director of Global Affairs (OGA) — Department of Health and Human Services", and the department's leadership index lists her among the Office of the Secretary principals as "Director of Global Affairs (OGA)", between the Acting General Counsel and the Inspector General, both of whom carry their statutory titles. OGA's own About page, reviewed 2026-05-07, states the inversion the Quote objects to in the office's own words: "Bethany Kozma — Director, Secretary's Office for Global Affairs" above "Julie Wallace — **Deputy Assistant Secretary**, Secretary's Office for Global Affairs" — the deputy holds the Assistant-Secretary-family title and the principal does not. The same page shows the office renamed the "Secretary's Office for Global Affairs", a change that has not propagated to the leadership index. This is the moved-the-other-way case and the Evidence is attached to this `not-started` event. The `pre_satisfied` flag has been **removed** (site owner, 2026-09-06; ADR 0003 amended the same day): an Already-true set-aside means the ask is not coming because it is already so, and this one has been undone inside the window, so it is coming again. The item re-enters Still to come and is counted under its Status. The pre-window truth and the reversal both stay recorded above.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Pre-window confirmation, recorded as a lead because Evidence must be dated on or after 2025-01-20: “Testimony of Loyce Pace, MPH, Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs”, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, 2023-12-13 - https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/SSCP-HHS-Testimony-for-231213-Hearing.pdf
  • hhs.gov/about/leadership/vacant-oga.html still refuses to open for us however it is requested, but it is stale, not blocked: a search of the 11,156-URL hhs.gov sitemap (2026-09-03) shows vacant-osg.html, vacant-samhsa.html and vacant-ihs.html and no vacant-oga.html. HHS retired the page because the post was filled. The check was raised on the belief that HHS “still styles the head of the Office of Global Affairs an Assistant Secretary”; that belief is wrong, and the correction is in the Status note.
  • hhs.gov itself can be read.
  • Federal Register full text “Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs” since 2025-01-20 returns two documents, both SES notices; the 2025-11-21 one is Treasury’s.
  • Flagged Already true: the office was already headed by an Assistant Secretary on 2025-01-20, which is the whole of the test (as amended 2026-09-01, the flag describes the world on that date).
  • Confirmed on review 2026-09-01, Already-true flag kept. A retitling ask, not a preserve or continue ask, so the flag is available; the title existed, so nothing in the ask remains outstanding. The post’s vacancy since 2025-01-20 is a fact about who holds the office, not about its title, and does not bear on the flag.
Action
other
Object
Director of the Office of Global Affairs
ID
1385