Kennedy, Sec. of H&HS v. Braidwood Mgmt., Inc.

(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2024 1

 Syllabus

 NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is
 being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.
 The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
 prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
 See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337 .

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

 Syllabus

 KENNEDY, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
 SERVICES, ET AL. v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT,
 INC., ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
 THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

 No. 24–316. Argued April 21, 2025—Decided June 27, 2025

In 1984, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) created
 the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force, a body that formulates evi-
 dence-based recommendations regarding preventive healthcare ser-
 vices. Congress codified the Task Force’s role in 1999, establishing it
 as an entity within the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
 (AHRQ) in HHS’s Public Health Service. The Task Force currently
 consists of 16 volunteer members appointed by the Secretary of HHS
 to staggered 4-year terms. Before 2010, Task Force recommendations
 were purely advisory. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 changed this
 by requiring most health insurers and group health plans to cover
 without cost sharing those preventive services that receive “A” or “B”
 ratings from the Task Force. The Act also amended the governing stat-
 ute to describe the Task Force as “independent” and to provide that
 members and their recommendations “shall be independent and, to the
 extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.” 42 U. S. C.
 §§299b–4(a)(1), (6).
 Plaintiffs, individuals and small businesses who object to the Afford-
 able Care Act’s preventive-services coverage requirements, sued in fed-
 eral court. Lead plaintiff Braidwood Management runs a health and
 wellness center offering insurance coverage to its approximately 70
 employees through a self-insured plan. Plaintiffs argued that Task
 Force members are principal officers under the Appointments Clause
 who must be appointed by the President “with the Advice and Consent
 of the Senate,” Art. II, §2, cl. 2, not by the Secretary. The District
2 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Syllabus

 Court agreed, recognizing that Task Force members are removable at
 will by the Secretary but concluding they are principal officers because
 they “have no superior” who supervises and directs them. 627
 F. Supp. 3d 624 , 646. While the Government’s appeal was pending,
 the Secretary in June 2023 ratified existing appointments made by the
 AHRQ Director and began personally appointing Task Force members.
 The Fifth Circuit affirmed the District Court, holding that while Task
 Force members are removable at will, they are not inferior officers be-
 cause they cannot be “ ‘independent’ ” and “free from ‘political pres-
 sure’ ” while simultaneously being supervised by a political appointee.
 104 F. 4th 930 , 944.
Held: Task Force members are inferior officers whose appointment by
 the Secretary of HHS is consistent with the Appointments Clause.
 Pp. 7–43.
 (a) The Appointments Clause in Article II specifies how “Officers of
 the United States” must be appointed, dividing all officers into two
 classes. Principal officers must be appointed by the President “with
 the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Inferior officers likewise may
 be appointed by Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, but
 Congress may also “by Law vest” their appointment “in the President
 alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Art. II,
 §2, cl. 2. Principal officers encompass at least department heads who
 report directly to the President. Inferior officers are those “whose work
 is directed and supervised at some level by others who were appointed
 by Presidential nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
 Edmond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651, 663 . Pp. 7–9.
 (b) Task Force members are inferior officers because their work is
 “directed and supervised” by the Secretary of HHS, a principal officer,
 through two main sources of authority. Pp. 9–16.
 (1) The Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members at
 will provides a “powerful tool for control.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at 664 .
 An officer’s “ ‘presumed desire to avoid removal’ ” generally creates
 “ ‘here-and-now subservience.’ ” Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714, 727,
 n. 5 . Here, the Secretary has power to appoint Task Force members,
 and no statute restricts their removal. Therefore, the Secretary may
 remove Task Force members at will, enabling him to supervise and
 direct them. Pp. 10–13.
 (2) Beyond at-will removal, the Secretary has statutory authority
 to directly review and block Task Force recommendations before they
 take effect. Several statutes give the Secretary general supervisory
 authority over the Public Health Service, within which the Task Force
 is housed, as well as rulemaking authority with respect to the Afford-
 able Care Act’s coverage provisions. See 42 U. S. C. §§202 , 300gg–92;
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

 Syllabus

Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966; 98 Stat. 2705 . During the mini-
mum 1-year interval before recommendations become binding, the
Secretary can use his supervisory authority to direct that Task Force
recommendations he disagrees with not be “in effect” and therefore not
be binding, or he can establish formal review processes through rule-
making. §300gg–13(a)(1). Task Force members therefore “have no
power to render a final decision on behalf of the United States unless
permitted to do so by” the Secretary. Edmond, 520 U. S., at 665 .
Pp. 13–16.
 (c) The conclusion that Task Force members are inferior officers fol-
lows a fortiori from this Court’s precedents. In Edmond, Coast Guard
judges who were removable at will and whose decisions could be re-
viewed and reversed were deemed inferior officers, even though supe-
riors could not influence individual proceedings. Like those judges,
Task Force members are removable at will and their decisions can be
reviewed and overruled by the Secretary. In Free Enterprise Fund v.
Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477 , PCAOB
members removable at will by the SEC were inferior officers, even
though they were “empowered to take significant enforcement actions
. . . largely independently of the Commission.” Id., at 504. In Arthrex,
Administrative Patent Judges whose decisions were reviewable but
who were removable only for cause were inferior officers. If patent
judges subject only to review authority were inferior officers, Task
Force members subject to both at-will removal and review authority
are clearly inferior officers. Pp. 16–18.
 (d) Braidwood’s arguments against inferior-officer status fail.
Pp. 18–27.
 (1) The independence provision in §299b–4(a)(6) stating that Task
Force members shall be “independent and, to the extent practicable,
not subject to political pressure” does not create for-cause removal pro-
tection. To displace the default of at-will removal, Congress must use
“very clear and explicit language”—“mere inference or implication”
does not suffice. Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U. S. 311, 315 . The
term “independent” alone does not make an officer removable only for
cause, as this Court held in Collins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. 220 . Pp. 18–
20.
 (2) Braidwood claims that 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(6)’s requirement
that Task Force members be “independent and, to the extent practica-
ble, not subject to political pressure” must mean that the Task Force
is completely insulated from the Secretary. But “independent” is best
read to mean that Task Force members must not be unduly influenced
by their outside professional affiliations with universities, hospitals,
and professional associations. Even if the independence provision
meant some insulation from the Secretary when “practicable,” that
4 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Syllabus

 would affect only the formulation of recommendations, not the Secre-
 tary’s authority to review them before they take effect. This mirrors
 the “almost-universal model of adjudication in the Executive Branch”
 where inferior officers make independent initial decisions subject to
 review by politically accountable superiors. Arthrex, 594 U. S. 1 , 25
 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). Pp. 20–24.
 (3) The Secretary’s inability to compel the Task Force to issue par-
 ticular “A” or “B” recommendations does not undermine inferior-officer
 status. This Court has not suggested that a principal officer must be
 able to compel subordinates to take affirmative acts for them to qualify
 as inferior officers. In Free Enterprise Fund, the SEC lacked power to
 require the PCAOB to “start” investigations, 561 U. S., at 504, yet
 PCAOB members were inferior officers. Similarly, in Edmond and Ar-
 threx, superiors could not compel initial decisions. Pp. 24–26.
 (4) When Congress wants to create an independent agency, it gen-
 erally does so by explicitly conferring for-cause removal protection on
 the agency’s leadership and usually couples that protection with ex-
 press Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation requirements.
 The statute establishing the Task Force contains none of this custom-
 ary language. Pp. 26–27.
 (e) Congress has by law vested appointment authority in the Secre-
 tary of HHS through two steps. First, the 1999 statute governing the
 Task Force gives the AHRQ Director the authority to “convene” a Task
 Force “to be composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.”
 §299b–4(a)(1). Congress need not use magic words to confer appoint-
 ment authority, and around the time of the Founding, “ ‘appoint’ ” was
 synonymous with “ ‘allot, assign, or designate.’ ” NLRB v. SW General,
 Inc., 580 U. S. 288 , 312–313 (THOMAS, J., concurring). In the absence
 of a statutory provision that more explicitly confers appointment au-
 thority, the AHRQ Director’s power to “convene” is naturally read to
 include the power to appoint. §299b–4(a)(1). Second, Reorganization
 Plan No. 3 of 1966, ratified by Congress in 1984, transfers to the Sec-
 retary “all functions of the Public Health Service” and its “officers,”
 “employees,” and “agencies.” 80 Stat. 1610 . The AHRQ Director is an
 “officer” of the Public Health Service, so Reorganization Plan No. 3
 transfers all of the AHRQ Director’s functions to the Secretary. After
 statutory codification of the Task Force in 1999, those powers of the
 Secretary included the AHRQ Director’s power to appoint the Task
 Force members. Therefore, by virtue of the 1984 Act ratifying Reor-
 ganization Plan No. 3 and the 1999 Act conferring appointment au-
 thority, Congress vested the power to appoint Task Force members in
 the Secretary of HHS. Pp. 27–35.
 (f) Braidwood’s arguments that Congress has not properly vested
 appointment authority in the Secretary fail. Braidwood first claims
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

 Syllabus

 that the 1999 statute using “convene” does not confer appointment au-
 thority and is instead “agnostic” about who should appoint Task Force
 members. Brief for Respondents 22. Braidwood’s interpretation would
 create a bizarre scheme where Congress was entirely indifferent about
 who would appoint members making legally binding healthcare rec-
 ommendations. Braidwood next argues that even if the Director has
 appointment authority, Reorganization Plan No. 3 does not transfer
 that power to the Secretary because it applies only to the Director’s
 functions as of 1966. This frozen-in-time reading finds no footing in
 statutory text or common sense. The Plan’s language “all functions”
 most naturally means an ongoing transfer of authority, including new
 powers granted by Congress after 1966. 80 Stat. 1610 . Pp. 35–42.
 (g) The Secretary has properly exercised his appointment authority
 since June 2023. P. 42.
 104 F. 4th 930 , reversed and remanded.

 KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS,
C. J., and SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined.
THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO and GORSUCH, JJ.,
joined.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

 Opinion of the Court

 NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
 United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of
 Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543,
 pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
 _________________

 No. 24–316
 _________________

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., SECRETARY OF HEALTH
 AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL., PETITIONERS v.
 BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC., ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
 APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
 [June 27, 2025]

 JUSTICE KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court.
 This case concerns the Appointments Clause in Article II
of the Constitution. The U. S. Preventive Services Task
Force, an entity within the Department of Health and
Human Services, issues public recommendations about
preventive healthcare services—for example, cancer and
diabetes screenings. Before 2010, the Task Force’s
recommendations were purely advisory. But the Affordable
Care Act of 2010 now mandates that health insurers cover
some of the recommended services at no cost to the insured.
 The Secretary of Health and Human Services appointed
the 16 current members of the Task Force. The question in
this case is whether appointment of Task Force members
by the Secretary is consistent with the Appointments
Clause in Article II. That question turns on whether the
Task Force members are principal officers or inferior
officers. Principal officers must be nominated by the
President and confirmed by the Senate. That process can
be lengthy and therefore can hinder the Executive Branch’s
ability to promptly fill offices—and thus also impede the
President’s ability to execute the laws through his
2 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

subordinate executive officers. By contrast, inferior
executive officers may be directly appointed by the
President or by the head of a department, such as by the
Secretary of HHS—a more efficient and expeditious
process.
 The Executive Branch under both President Trump and
President Biden has argued that the Preventive Services
Task Force members are inferior officers and therefore may
be appointed by the Secretary of HHS. We agree. The Task
Force members are removable at will by the Secretary of
HHS, and their recommendations are reviewable by the
Secretary before they take effect. So Task Force members
are supervised and directed by the Secretary, who in turn
answers to the President, preserving the chain of command
in Article II. See Edmond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651,
663 (1997). Therefore, under Article II and this Court’s
precedents, the Task Force members are inferior officers.
As a result, appointment of Task Force members by the
Secretary of HHS is consistent with the Appointments
Clause.
 I
 A
 In 1984, the Department of Health and Human Services
created an advisory body known as the U. S. Preventive
Services Task Force. The Task Force formulates and
publishes evidence-based recommendations regarding
preventive healthcare services.
 In 1999, Congress enacted legislation codifying the role of
the Task Force. See §915, 113 Stat. 1659 . That legislation
established the Task Force as an entity within the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which in
turn is an agency in the Public Health Service within HHS.
 Under that 1999 statute, the Director of AHRQ
“convene[s]” the Task Force, which is “to be composed of
individuals with appropriate expertise.” Ibid.; see 42
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 Opinion of the Court

U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1). The Task Force reviews “the
scientific evidence related to the effectiveness,
appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of clinical
preventive services for the purpose of developing
recommendations for the health care community.” §299b–
4(a)(1).
 As presently constituted, the Task Force consists of 16
members who are now appointed by the Secretary of HHS
to staggered 4-year terms. Those members are “nationally
recognized experts in prevention, evidence-based medicine,
and primary care.” App. 39. They include researchers,
professors, and practicing physicians with experience and
expertise in public health and across a wide range of
medical specialties. They serve on a volunteer basis, so
they are not paid by the Federal Government for their
service on the Task Force.
 Preventive services “can help people avoid acute illness,
identify and treat chronic conditions, prevent cancer or lead
to earlier detection, and improve health.” HHS, Issue
Brief—Access to Preventive Services Without Cost-
Sharing: Evidence From the Affordable Care Act 1 (Jan.
2022). A wide range of individuals and organizations rely
on the Task Force’s preventive-services recommendations.
They include “health care systems, professional societies,
employers,” “Congress and other policy-makers,
governmental public health agencies,” and those directly
“delivering clinical services,” such as “primary care
professionals.” §299b–4(a)(1).
 The Task Force develops recommendations through a
standardized process. It selects a topic to study, reviews
the relevant scientific evidence, formulates a draft
recommendation statement, takes public comments, and
then votes on the final recommendation.
 The Task Force uses a letter grading system for its
recommendations. It assigns an “A” grade to services with
a high certainty of substantial net benefit and a “B” grade
4 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

to services with at least a moderate certainty of a moderate
net benefit. It also issues “C” and “D” grades to services
with little to no net benefit, and an “I” grade to services for
which the current evidence is “insufficient” to assess the
balance of benefits and harms. App. 46. The Task Force
can vote to change the grade that was assigned in a
previous recommendation.
 The Task Force has given an “A” or “B” rating to more
than 40 preventive services. Those services include
screenings to detect lung, breast, cervical, and colorectal
cancer; risk-reducing medications for women at high risk of
breast cancer; nicotine patches for adults trying to quit
smoking; statin medications to reduce the risk of heart
disease and stroke; physical therapy to help the elderly
avoid falls; and diabetes screenings.
 For many years after its initial creation in 1984 and
codification in 1999, the Task Force’s recommendations
were purely advisory. That changed in 2010 when
Congress passed and President Obama signed the
Affordable Care Act. 124 Stat. 119 . That Act requires most
health insurers and group health plans to cover certain
preventive services without cost sharing—that is, without
imposing copayments, deductibles, or other charges on
patients.
 Rather than set forth a fixed list, the Act tied coverage for
preventive services to the recommendations of several
entities within the Federal Government, including the
Preventive Services Task Force. Specifically, the Act
mandates no-cost coverage of “evidence-based items or
services that have in effect a rating of ‘A’ or ‘B’ in the
current recommendations” of the Task Force. §300gg–
13(a)(1).
 After the Task Force makes an “A” or “B”
recommendation, the insurance coverage requirements for
that preventive service do not take effect immediately.
Rather, the law directs the Secretary of HHS to “establish
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

 Opinion of the Court

a minimum interval,” not less than one year, between when
an “A” or “B” recommendation is issued by the Task Force
and when insurers must cover the recommended service
without cost sharing. §300gg–13(b). During that interval,
the Secretary can review the Task Force’s recommendation
and block it from going into effect.
 The Affordable Care Act also amended the statute
governing the Task Force to describe the Task Force as
“independent” and to provide that the members of the Task
Force and their recommendations “shall be independent
and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political
pressure.” §§299b–4(a)(1), (6).
 B
 The question in this case is whether the Task Force
members were appointed in a manner consistent with the
Appointments Clause in Article II of the Constitution. §2,
cl. 2.
 The plaintiffs are several individuals and small
businesses who object to the Affordable Care Act’s
preventive-services coverage requirements. The lead
plaintiff, Braidwood Management, runs a health and
wellness center. It offers health-insurance coverage to its
approximately 70 employees through a self-insured plan.
Braidwood wants to exclude coverage for certain drugs and
to impose copays or deductibles for other covered services.
 The plaintiffs—collectively, Braidwood—sued in the
U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
Braidwood argued that the structure of the Task Force
violated the Appointments Clause. In Braidwood’s view,
Task Force members are principal officers who must be
appointed by the President “with the Advice and Consent of
the Senate.” Ibid.
 The District Court agreed. It recognized that there are
no statutory removal restrictions on Task Force members,
meaning that the Secretary of HHS may remove them at
6 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

will. But the court nonetheless concluded that Task Force
members are unconstitutionally appointed principal
officers because they “have no superior” who supervises and
directs them. Braidwood Mgmt. Inc. v. Becerra, 627
F. Supp. 3d 624 , 646 (ND Tex. 2022). The court enjoined
the Government from enforcing against Braidwood any
insurance coverage mandates based on Task Force
recommendations issued after the 2010 enactment of the
Affordable Care Act.1
 The Government appealed to the U. S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit. Until that point, the Task Force
members had been selected and appointed by the Director
of AHRQ, an agency within the Public Health Service of
HHS. But in June 2023, while the Government’s appeal
was pending, the Secretary of HHS ratified the
appointments of the existing Task Force members and re-
appointed them on a prospective basis. And from then on,
the Secretary has continued to appoint Task Force
members.
 The Fifth Circuit affirmed in relevant part. In a thorough
opinion, the court held that the Task Force members are
principal officers who must be appointed by the President
with the advice and consent of the Senate. Like the District
Court, the Fifth Circuit understood the Task Force
members to be removable at will by the Secretary of HHS.
But the Fifth Circuit concluded that the Secretary cannot
block Task Force recommendations before they take effect.
The court pointed to 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(6), which
provides that Task Force members “shall be independent
——————
 1 Braidwood also brought a claim under the Religious Freedom

Restoration Act of 1993, 107 Stat. 1488 , 42 U. S. C. §2000bb et seq. It
prevailed on that claim and secured an injunction against enforcement
of the specific requirement that it cover certain HIV-prevention
medications without cost sharing. The Government did not appeal that
aspect of the District Court’s judgment, and this Court’s decision will not
affect the injunction premised on Braidwood’s RFRA claim.
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 Opinion of the Court

and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political
pressure.” The Task Force, according to the Fifth Circuit,
“cannot be ‘independent’ and free from ‘political pressure’
on the one hand, and at the same time be supervised by the
HHS Secretary, a political appointee, on the other.”
Braidwood Mgmt., Inc. v. Becerra, 104 F. 4th 930 , 944
(2024). So the court concluded that the Task Force is not
supervised and directed by the Secretary—and that Task
Force members are therefore principal officers and may not
be appointed by the Secretary.
 We granted certiorari to consider whether appointment
of Task Force members by the Secretary of HHS violates
the Appointments Clause. 604 U. S. ___ (2025).
 II
 A
 The Appointments Clause in Article II of the
Constitution specifies how “Officers of the United States,”
as distinct from employees, must be appointed. §2, cl. 2. An
officer exercises “ ‘significant authority pursuant to the laws
of the United States.’ ” Lucia v. SEC, 585 U. S. 237 , 245
(2018). An employee, by contrast, does not exercise
significant governmental authority. See ibid.
 The text of the Appointments Clause “very clearly divides
all its officers into two classes”: principal officers and
inferior officers. United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S. 508,
509 (1879). Here, all agree that the Preventive Services
Task Force members are officers. The question is whether
they are principal or inferior.
 Principal officers must be appointed by the President
“with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Art. II, §2,
cl. 2. The constitutionally mandated joint participation of
the President and Senate in the appointments process is
designed to promote “a judicious choice” for “filling the
offices of the Union.” The Federalist No. 76, p. 455 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton). The President and the
8 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

Senate are accountable “ for both the making of a bad
appointment and the rejection of a good one. ” Edmond v.
United States, 520 U. S. 651, 660 (1997).
 Inferior officers may also be appointed via Presidential
nomination and Senate confirmation. See Art. II, §2, cl. 2.
The Framers, though, recognized that requiring all officers
of the Federal Government to run the gauntlet of
Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation would
prove administratively unworkable as offices became
“numerous” and “sudden removals” and prompt
replacements became “necessary.” Germaine, 99 U. S., at
510 . So on one of the last days of the Constitutional
Convention—September 15, 1787—they authorized an
additional and streamlined method of appointment for
inferior officers. Specifically, Congress may “by Law vest”
appointment of inferior officers “in the President alone, in
the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Art. II,
§2, cl. 2. Congress therefore may provide that inferior
executive officers be unilaterally appointed by the
President or a Head of Department.
 The Appointments Clause is “more than a matter of
‘etiquette or protocol’ ”—it is “among the significant
structural safeguards of the constitutional scheme.”
Edmond, 520 U. S., at 659 . The Appointments Clause
ensures that the President or his subordinate Heads of
Departments play a central role in selecting the officers
within the Executive Branch who will assist in exercising
the “executive Power.” Art. II, §1, cl. 1. The Clause thereby
helps protect the independence of the Executive Branch and
maintain the Constitution’s separation of powers.
 How does a court determine whether an executive officer
is principal (and must be appointed by the President with
the advice and consent of the Senate) or inferior (and may
be appointed by the President or Head of Department
alone)?
 Principal officers in the Executive Branch encompass at
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 Opinion of the Court

least the Heads of Departments, who report directly to the
President. Examples include the Secretary of State,
Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, and
Attorney General.
 Inferior officers are most readily defined by their
relationship to principal officers. “Generally speaking,”
whether “one is an ‘inferior’ officer depends on whether he
has a superior” other than the President, Edmond, 520
U. S., at 662 , and how much power the officer “exercises free
from control by a superior,” United States v. Arthrex, Inc.,
 594 U. S. 1 , 17 (2021). In Edmond v. United States, the
Court summarized the governing principle: Inferior officers
are those “whose work is directed and supervised at some
level by others who were appointed by Presidential
nomination with the advice and consent of the Senate.” 520
U. S., at 663 .
 As the author of Edmond, Justice Scalia, once explained:
“It is perfectly obvious” that the language in Article II
authorizing department heads to appoint inferior officers
“was intended merely to make clear . . . that those officers
appointed by the President with Senate approval could on
their own appoint their subordinates, who would, of course,
by chain of command still be under the direct control of the
President.” Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654 , 720–721
(1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
 B
 Before 2010, members of the Preventive Services Task
Force were not officers at all. The Task Force was an
advisory body, and the Task Force members made only non-
binding recommendations. As a result of the 2010
Affordable Care Act, however, the Task Force’s “A” and “B”
recommended preventive services now must be covered by
health insurers at no cost to the insured. For that reason,
the parties here agree that the Task Force members
exercise significant governmental authority and qualify as
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 Opinion of the Court

“officers” of the United States. They disagree, however,
over whether Task Force members are principal or inferior
officers.
 We conclude that Task Force members are inferior
officers because their work is “directed and supervised” by
the Secretary of HHS, a principal officer. Edmond, 520
U. S., at 663 . The Secretary’s ability to direct and supervise
the Task Force derives from two main sources: the
Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members at
will; and the Secretary’s authority to review and block the
Task Force’s recommendations before they can take effect.
 1
 An officer such as a Task Force member who is removable
at will by a principal officer (here, by the Secretary of HHS)
typically qualifies as an inferior officer. So it is here.
 This Court has said that the authority to remove an
officer at will is a “powerful tool for control.” Edmond, 520
U. S., at 664 ; see Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company
Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477 , 510 (2010). The
reason is straightforward: “ ‘Once an officer is appointed, it
is only the authority that can remove him, and not the
authority that appointed him, that he must fear and, in the
performance of his functions, obey.’ ” Bowsher v. Synar, 478
U. S. 714, 726 (1986). An officer’s “ ‘presumed desire to
avoid removal’ ” generally creates a “ ‘here-and-now
subservience.’ ” Id., at 727, n. 5 . The prerogative of at-will
removal of a subordinate, then, often carries with it the
power to supervise and direct that subordinate. See
Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Copyright
Royalty Bd., 684 F. 3d 1332, 1341 (CADC 2012) (Williams,
J.).
 Historical practice supports treating an officer who is
removable at will by a principal officer as an inferior officer.
Since the Founding, Congress has routinely tied inferior-
officer status to at-will removability by Heads of
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Departments. See Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230 , 259–260
(1839). For example, in designating the “chief Clerk in the
Department of Foreign Affairs” as an “inferior officer,” the
First Congress made clear that the Clerk was “to be
employed” as the Secretary of Foreign Affairs “shall deem
proper.” Act of July 27, 1789, ch. 4, 1 Stat. 29 . The same
was true of the Chief Clerk of the Department of War. See
Act of Aug. 7, 1789, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 49–50. In 1839 in Hennen,
this Court explained that the First Congress had bestowed
upon the Secretaries of various Departments the authority
to “appoint all necessary clerks”; that those clerks were
subject to at-will removal by the Secretaries; and that they
fell “under that class of inferior officers.” 13 Pet., at 259–
260; see, e.g., Act of Apr. 30, 1798, ch. 35, 1 Stat. 553–554
(clerks to the Secretary of the Navy); see also, e.g., Act of
Sept. 2, 1789, ch. 12, 1 Stat. 65 (assistant to the Secretary
of the Treasury); Act of Feb. 20, 1792, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 234
(deputy postmasters).
 On the other side of the ledger, Braidwood has not
identified any instance where an executive officer was
removable at will by someone other than the President and
nonetheless deemed a principal officer.
 Here, because the Secretary of HHS appoints the Task
Force members, he also has the authority to remove the
Task Force members at will. See Braidwood Mgmt. Inc. v.
Becerra, 627 F. Supp. 3d 624 , 647 (ND Tex. 2022);
Braidwood Mgmt., Inc. v. Becerra, 104 F. 4th 930 , 943 (CA5
2024). When a statute empowers a department head to
appoint an officer, the default presumption is that the
officer holds his position “at the will and discretion of the
head of the department,” even if “no power to remove is
expressly given.” Hennen, 13 Pet., at 259–260. That is
because the “power of removal of executive officers” is
“incident to the power of appointment.” Myers v. United
States, 272 U. S. 52, 119 (1926). As this Court recently
summarized in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company
12 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

Accounting Oversight Board, when as here Congress vests
appointment of inferior officers in “heads of departments,”
“it is ordinarily the department head . . . who enjoys the
power of removal.” 561 U. S., at 493.
 The Secretary of HHS has the power to appoint (and has
appointed) the Task Force members. See Part III, infra.
And no statute restricts removal of Task Force members.
Therefore, “there can be no doubt” that the Secretary may
remove Task Force members at will. Hennen, 13 Pet., at
259 .
 The Secretary’s authority to remove Task Force members
at will in turn enables him to supervise and direct them.
When a Task Force member makes a decision that the
Secretary disagrees with, the Secretary may remove that
member. In other words, the Secretary “may consider the
decision after its rendition as a reason for removing” the
Task Force member, “on the ground that the discretion
regularly entrusted to” that member “has not been on the
whole intelligently or wisely exercised.” Myers, 272 U. S.,
at 135 .
 In addition, the Secretary can block a Task Force
recommendation from taking effect by combining his at-will
removal authority with his authority to determine when
Task Force recommendations become binding.
 To explain: The Affordable Care Act expressly affords the
Secretary the power to “establish a minimum interval”
between when the Task Force issues an “A” or “B”
recommendation and when insurers must cover the
recommended service without cost sharing. 42 U. S. C.
§300gg–13(b)(1). Congress specified that the minimum
interval “shall not be less than 1 year,” leaving the
Secretary with discretion to set a longer minimum interval.
§300gg–13(b)(2).
 So during the minimum 1-year period after the Task
Force makes a recommendation before it becomes binding,
the Secretary can request that the Task Force reconsider or
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 Opinion of the Court

withdraw a recommendation that he disfavors. He has
plenty of time to remove and replace Task Force members
who refuse. And he can then request that the reconstituted
Task Force modify or rescind the recommendation.
Therefore, in this statutory scheme, the Secretary can use
his at-will removal power to stop any preventive-services
recommendation contrary to his judgment from taking
effect.
 In short, through the power to remove and replace Task
Force members at will, the Secretary can exert significant
control over the Task Force—including by blocking
recommendations he does not agree with. The Secretary’s
power to supervise and direct Task Force members in that
way is a strong indication that the Task Force members are
inferior officers.
 2
 Regardless of whether the Secretary’s authority to
remove Task Force members at will suffices on its own to
render them inferior officers, the Secretary also has
statutory power to directly review and block Task Force
recommendations before they take effect. That power
confirms that the Task Force members are inferior officers.
 At-will removal is one means of ensuring supervision and
direction. But in evaluating inferior-officer status, the
Court has also examined whether the relevant officer has
the “power to render a final decision on behalf of the United
States” without review by a principal officer. Edmond, 520
U. S., at 665 .
 That consideration has taken on particular importance in
assessing whether adjudicative officers are principal or
inferior. See id., at 664–665; Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 13–14.
If an adjudicative officer’s decisions are reviewable by a
superior, then the officer may be considered inferior even if
not removable at will. See Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 16–17; id.,
14 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

at 25–26 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.).2
 Here, the Secretary’s power to supervise and direct the
Task Force members derives from more than simply at-will
removal authority. As explained, at-will removal provides
the Secretary with a means of ensuring that no
recommendation that he disapproves will take effect. But
the Secretary also has the statutory authority to directly
review—and, if necessary, block—Task Force
recommendations before they take effect. So members of
the Task Force cannot make any legally binding, final
decision on behalf of the United States if the Secretary
disagrees and wants to block it. As a result, the Secretary
retains ultimate responsibility over whether Task Force
recommendations become final decisions that mandate no-
cost coverage by health insurers.
 To spell this out: A collection of statutes grants the
Secretary general supervisory authority over the Task
Force. That supervisory authority in turn enables the
Secretary to review and, if he chooses, directly block a
recommendation he disagrees with.
 First, 42 U. S. C. §202 provides that the Public Health
Service, which houses the Task Force, “shall be
administered . . . under the supervision and direction of the
Secretary.”
 Second, Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 grants the
Secretary authority to perform “all functions of the Public
Health Service” and its “officers,” “employees,” and
“agencies.” 80 Stat. 1610 .3
——————
 2 Review by an Article III court does not render the adjudicative officer

inferior; it is review by a superior within the Executive Branch that does
so. See Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 17.
 3 Braidwood contends that the Reorganization Plan does not apply to

the Task Force because the Plan contains an exception for “the functions
vested by law in any advisory council, board, or committee of or in the
Public Health Service.” 80 Stat. 1610 . That is incorrect. As Braidwood
itself has explained, the Task Force “ceased to be an advisory committee”
in 2010 “when Congress enacted” the Affordable Care Act and
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 15

 Opinion of the Court

 Third, 42 U. S. C. §300gg–92 states that the Secretary
“may promulgate such regulations as may be necessary or
appropriate to carry out the provisions of this
subchapter”—including the section of the Affordable Care
Act that requires no-cost coverage of Task Force “A” and “B”
recommendations.
 The Affordable Care Act mandates coverage without cost
sharing of “evidence-based items or services that have in
effect a rating of ‘A’ or ‘B’ ” from the Task Force. §300gg–
13(a)(1) (emphasis added). During the minimum 1-year
interval, the Secretary can use his general supervisory
authority under §202 and Reorganization Plan No. 3 to
direct that the Task Force’s recommendation not be “in
effect” and therefore not be binding on health insurers.
Moreover, the Secretary can use his rulemaking authority
under §300gg–92 to establish a formal review process. For
example, the Secretary can issue a regulation providing
that no Task Force recommendation shall be deemed “in
effect” until he or his designee has affirmatively reviewed
and approved it.4
 Taken together, those complementary review authorities
ensure that the Task Force members “have no power to
render a final decision on behalf of the United States unless

——————
“empowered” the Task Force to issue binding recommendations. App.
25. Task Force members are officers because, by operation of the ACA,
their “A” and “B” recommendations are not purely advisory. And
Congress has confirmed that the post-ACA Task Force is not an advisory
entity by expressly providing that “the Task Force is not subject to” the
Federal Advisory Committee Act. 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(5) (2018 ed.,
Supp. IV).
 4 The body within HHS assigned to recommend immunization coverage

requirements under the Affordable Care Act—the Advisory Committee
on Immunization Practices—already operates under such a regulation.
The regulation states that a recommendation of the Committee is not
“considered in effect” until “it has been adopted by” the Director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who answers to the
Secretary of HHS. 45 CFR §147.130 (a)(1)(ii) (2024).
16 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

permitted to do so by” the Secretary of HHS. Edmond, 520
U. S., at 665 . To be clear, to supervise and direct for
purposes of the Appointments Clause, the Secretary “need
not review every decision.” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 27.
Rather, “[w]hat matters is that” the Secretary “have the
discretion to review decisions rendered by” the Task Force.
Ibid. (emphasis added). Under the statutory provisions
described above, the Secretary possesses that authority.5
 C
 Given the multiple and mutually reinforcing means by
which the Secretary of HHS can supervise and direct the
Task Force—namely, both the general authority to remove
Task Force members at will and the more specific statutory
authority to review and block their recommendations before
they take effect—this Court’s precedents preordain the
conclusion that the Task Force members are inferior
officers.
 In Edmond v. United States, the Court ruled that judges
of the Coast Guard Court of Criminal Appeals were inferior
officers. See 520 U. S., at 666 . In reaching that conclusion,

——————
 5 The dissent asserts that §202 and the Reorganization Plan are

inapplicable because those statutes give the Secretary authority over the
Public Health Service, and the Task Force is not part of the Public Health
Service at all. Post, at 33–34 (opinion of THOMAS, J.). At oral argument,
the Government succinctly summed up why the dissent’s position is
incorrect: “[W]hen you have an entity that’s convened by the Public
Health Service, selected by the Public Health Service, supervised by the
Public Health Service, and supported by the Public Health Service, it’s
part of the Public Health Service.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 34; see also post, at 5
(The “AHRQ,” which “is part of the Public Health Service,” is
“responsib[le] for the Task Force”). No doubt that is why the provisions
governing the Task Force are housed within the chapter of the U. S. Code
entitled “Public Health Service.” See 42 U. S. C. ch. 6A. Braidwood does
not even try to claim that the Task Force falls outside of the Public
Health Service—on the contrary, it concedes that, from the outset, the
Task Force has been established as an entity “within the Public Health
Service.” Supp. Brief for Respondents 1; Brief for Respondents 34–35.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 17

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the Court emphasized that (i) the Judge Advocate General,
who exercised administrative oversight over the judges,
could remove them at will and (ii) the Court of Appeals for
the Armed Forces could review and reverse their decisions.
See id., at 664–665. The Court reached that inferior-officer
conclusion even though, pursuant to the Uniform Code of
Military Justice, no superior could “attempt to influence (by
threat of removal or otherwise) the outcome of individual
proceedings” conducted by the Coast Guard judges. Id., at
664 (citing 10 U. S. C. §837 ).
 Like the Coast Guard judges in Edmond, the Task Force
members here are removable at will and their decisions can
be reviewed and overruled by a superior—here, the
Secretary of HHS. Therefore, the result in this case follows
a fortiori from Edmond.
 In Free Enterprise Fund, the Court considered whether
members of the Public Company Accounting Oversight
Board were inferior officers. See 561 U. S., at 510. After
finding the members of the PCAOB removable at will by the
Securities and Exchange Commission, the Court concluded
that PCAOB members were inferior officers. See id., at
508–510. The fact that the PCAOB was nonetheless
“empowered to take significant enforcement actions . . .
largely independently of the Commission” was no barrier to
that conclusion. Id., at 504.
 In this case, the Task Force members are removable at
will, just as the PCAOB members were. And Task Force
members have no greater power than PCAOB members did
to independently make final, binding decisions. So the
result in this case also follows directly from Free Enterprise
Fund.
 And in United States v. Arthrex, after ensuring that the
Director of the Patent and Trademark Office had authority
to review final decisions issued by Administrative Patent
Judges, the Court deemed those judges to be inferior
officers—even though they were removable only for cause
18 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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and thus insulated from at-will removal. See 594 U. S., at
16–17; id., at 25–26 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J).
 If the patent judges in Arthrex, whose decisions were
reviewable but who were not removable at will, were
inferior officers, then there can be no doubt that the Task
Force members, who are subject to both forms of control,
are inferior officers.
 In sum, considering the Secretary’s removal and review
authorities together, the inferior-officer issue is quite
straightforward under Edmond, Free Enterprise Fund, and
Arthrex. In light of those precedents, “we have no
hesitation in concluding” that Task Force members are
inferior officers whose appointment by the Secretary of
HHS is permissible under the Appointments Clause. Free
Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 510.
 D
 On three separate grounds, Braidwood resists the
conclusion that Task Force members are inferior officers.
First, Braidwood claims that Task Force members cannot
be removed at will. Second, Braidwood contends that Task
Force members exercise unreviewable authority in making
preventive-services recommendations. Third, Braidwood
posits that Task Force members cannot be inferior officers
because the Secretary lacks power to compel the Task Force
to issue a particular recommendation, as opposed to power
to block a recommendation. None of the three arguments
is persuasive.
 1
 Braidwood first claims that the Secretary cannot remove
Task Force members at will. It rests that argument on 42
U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(6). That provision states that Task
Force members and their recommendations shall be
“independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to
political pressure.” See also §299b–4(a)(1) (“ The Director
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 19

 Opinion of the Court

shall convene an independent Preventive Services Task
Force”).
 According to Braidwood, it is impossible for Task Force
members to be “independent” if they are also removable at
will. So they must not be removable at will, Braidwood
reasons.
 In essence, Braidwood invites the Court to read a for-
cause removal restriction into a statute that does not
explicitly provide for one. We decline to do so. The Court
has said that to “take away” the power of at-will removal
from an appointing officer, Congress must use “very clear
and explicit language.” Shurtleff v. United States, 189 U. S.
311, 315 (1903); see Hennen, 13 Pet., at 259–260. “[M]ere
inference or implication” does not suffice. Shurtleff, 189
U. S., at 315 .
 When Congress wants to depart from the default of at-
will removability and instead furnish for-cause protection,
it knows how to do so. In many statutes, Congress has
specified that officers shall be removed only for good cause,
often using a formulation like “inefficiency, neglect of duty,
or malfeasance in office.” 15 U. S. C. §41 (Federal Trade
Commissioners); 42 U. S. C. §7171 (b)(1) (Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission members); 49 U. S. C. §1301 (b)(3)
(Surface Transportation Board members); see also Arthrex,
594 U. S., at 17 (Patent judges may be removed only “ ‘for
such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service’ ”
(quoting 5 U. S. C. §7513 (a))).
 In fact, Congress has done so with respect to members of
other bodies that, like the Task Force, are within the Public
Health Service of HHS: Ethics board members who review
research involving human subjects may be removed only
“for neglect of duty or malfeasance or for other good cause
shown.” 42 U. S. C. §289a–1(b)(5)(E). Notably, however,
Congress did not employ that kind of language in the
statute governing the Task Force.
 Braidwood nonetheless suggests that the term
20 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

“independent” in this statute suffices to displace the default
of at-will removal. But this Court already rejected that
move in Collins v. Yellen. There, the challengers argued
that the Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance
Agency must have been removable only for cause because
Congress described the agency as “ ‘independent.’ ” 594
U. S. 220 , 248 (2021) (quoting 12 U. S. C. §4511 (a);
emphasis deleted). The Court disagreed, concluding that
the challengers read “far too much into the term
‘independent.’ ” 594 U. S., at 248. The Court explained that
“Congress has described many agencies as ‘independent’
without imposing any restriction on the President’s power
to remove the agency’s leadership.” Id., at 249.
 Given Collins, Braidwood’s argument based on the term
“independent” falls short. The word “independent” alone in
a statute does not make an officer removable only for cause.
Rather, Congress must speak clearly if it wishes to insulate
officers from at-will removal. It has not done so here.
 2
 Next, Braidwood insists that the Task Force members
cannot be inferior officers because, in Braidwood’s view,
they exercise unreviewable authority in making final
recommendations that are binding on health insurers. In
other words, Braidwood contends that the Secretary cannot
prevent the Task Force’s “A” and “B” recommendations
from taking effect, and that the Task Force members are
therefore not inferior officers.
 The premise is wrong. As we have explained, the
Secretary in fact has authority to review the Task Force’s
recommendations and can block them from taking effect.
 Braidwood’s argument to the contrary is, essentially, just
another version of its first argument. Braidwood again falls
back on the independence provision. Braidwood claims that
§299b–4(a)(6)’s requirement that Task Force members be
“independent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 21

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political pressure” must mean that the Task Force is
completely insulated from the Secretary. As Braidwood
sees it, the Task Force’s recommendations cannot be
“independent” or free from “political pressure” if the
Secretary can review and block them. We disagree for two
distinct reasons.
 First, the requirement that Task Force members be
“independent” is best read to mean that Task Force
members must not be unduly influenced by their outside
affiliations. Task Force members hail from universities,
hospitals, and professional associations. The requirement
that they be “independent” instructs them not to act as
mere agents or representatives of those outside entities.
See Brief for United States 32 (members “must not regard
themselves as mere representatives of the organizations or
professions in which they serve”); Brief for State of Illinois
et al. as Amici Curiae 13 (the provision ensures that
members are not “operating at the behest of external
entities” given their “professional and organizational ties”).
 To reinforce that critical aspect of independence, Task
Force members are subject to rigorous conflict-of-interest
rules. See App. 42–44. The stated purpose of those rules is
to protect the public’s “confidence in the integrity of the
process by which the Task Force makes its
recommendations.” Id., at 42.
 Moreover, it would not make sense to read “independent”
in §299b–4(a)(6) more broadly to also mean insulation from
politically accountable superiors. That is because the
remainder of §299b–4(a)(6) expressly provides that Task
Force members shall be, “to the extent practicable, not
subject to political pressure.” (Emphasis added.) Congress
therefore plainly contemplated that insulation from all
political pressure would be impracticable. So to read the
term “independent” to mean that Task Force members
must be entirely shielded from political pressure would
nullify Congress’s purposeful choice of language—“to the
22 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

extent practicable”—in the remainder of the provision.
§299b–4(a)(6). Where one reading of part of a statutory
provision “deprives another” part “of all independent effect”
and another reading “leaves both . . . with some
independent operation,” we generally prefer the latter. A.
Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of
Legal Texts 176 (2012).
 Second, even if we were to interpret “independent” to
apply to political pressure, the phrase “independent and, to
the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure”
would mean only that Task Force members are generally
free from the Secretary’s influence in their formulation of
recommendations in the first instance. The Secretary
would still retain power to review and block
recommendations in the minimum 1-year period before the
recommendations take effect.
 Braidwood disagrees. It contends that the Secretary’s
only power with respect to the Task Force’s
recommendations is to determine when they take effect. It
says that §300gg–13 makes the Task Force’s
recommendations binding after the minimum 1-year
interval regardless of what the Secretary does. But that
understanding of the statute cannot be squared with the
provisions discussed above that give the Secretary general
supervisory authority over the Task Force.
 So given the Secretary’s review authority, Congress’s
instruction that Task Force members and their
recommendations be “independent and, to the extent
practicable, not subject to political pressure” means at most
that Task Force members can exercise independent
judgment in generating recommendations on the front
end—in the same way that the Coast Guard judges in
Edmond and the patent judges in Arthrex made initial
adjudicative decisions free from direction by superiors.
 In that way, the Task Force’s operation vis-à-vis the
Secretary is entirely consistent with Congress’s
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 Opinion of the Court

longstanding practice—reflected in Edmond and Arthrex—
of authorizing inferior-officer adjudicators in the Executive
Branch to make initial, independent decisions that are only
then subject to review by a superior officer. The “modern
federal hearing examiner or administrative law judge”
generally “exercises his independent judgment on the
evidence before him, free from pressures by the parties or
other officials within the agency.” Butz v. Economou, 438
U. S. 478, 513 (1978). But “it certainly is the norm for
principal officers to have the capacity to review decisions
made by inferior adjudicative officers.” Arthrex, 594 U. S.,
at 20 (quotation marks omitted). That is the “almost-
universal model of adjudication in the Executive Branch.”
Id., at 25 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). Indeed, the
Administrative Procedure Act expressly provides for
agency-head review of initial decisions made by Executive
Branch adjudicators in 5 U. S. C. §557 (b). And “ ‘higher-
level agency reconsideration’ by the agency head is the
standard way to maintain political accountability and
effective oversight for adjudication that takes place outside
the confines of §557(b).” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 20 (quoting
C. Walker & M. Wasserman, The New World of Agency
Adjudication, 107 Cal. L. Rev. 141 , 157 (2019)); see also
Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 20 (citing Freytag v. Commissioner,
 501 U. S. 868 (1991)).
 The fact that a wide range of administrative law judges
and other inferior-officer adjudicators throughout the
Executive Branch make independent decisions in the first
instance that are only later reviewable by politically
accountable superiors reinforces the conclusion that Task
Force members, whose function at the very least accords
with that practice, are inferior officers. Under the
Appointments Clause, Congress may permissibly provide
for an initial “impartial decision by a panel of experts” who
are appointed by a department head, followed by a final
“transparent decision for which a politically accountable
24 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

officer must take responsibility.” Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 16.
The structure of the Task Force preserves both expertise
and accountability.
 Finally, even if we perceived ambiguity in how §299b–
4(a)(6)’s language regarding independence and freedom
from political pressure should be construed, constitutional
avoidance would counsel against adopting Braidwood’s
expansive interpretation. We should not read the statute
in a way that makes the current method of appointment—
by the Secretary—unconstitutional if we can reasonably
read it otherwise. We have applied that constitutional-
avoidance principle in similar Appointments Clause cases.
See, e.g., Edmond, 520 U. S., at 658 . As this Court
explained in Edmond, “we must of course avoid” reading
the statute “in a manner that would render it clearly
unconstitutional” when “there is another reasonable
interpretation available.” Ibid.
 An interpretation of §299b–4(a)(6) under which the Task
Force members exercise independent judgment in
formulating recommendations, but the Secretary maintains
authority to review and block them before they take effect
is at the very least a reasonable one. Under that
interpretation, the Task Force’s operation is akin to the
longstanding model of agency adjudications. See id., at
664–665; Arthrex, 594 U. S., at 19–20. And that reading
avoids making the statute’s method of appointment to the
Task Force—that is, appointment by the Secretary—
unconstitutional. So to steer clear of unconstitutionality,
we would adopt that interpretation even if the statute’s
references to “independent” and “to the extent practicable,
not subject to political pressure” created ambiguity as to
what powers the Secretary possesses to review and block
the Task Force’s recommendations. §299b–4(a)(6).
 3
 Braidwood’s third argument is that Task Force members
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 Opinion of the Court

are not inferior officers because, even assuming that the
Secretary can review and block recommendations, the
Secretary cannot directly compel the Task Force to make an
“A” or “B” recommendation in the first place.
 To begin with, in light of the Secretary’s at-will removal
power, he could in effect require the Task Force to make
certain recommendations—at least in some situations. See
§299b–4(a)(6) (Task Force “not subject to political pressure”
but only “to the extent practicable”). Specifically, if the
circumstances so warranted, the Secretary could remove
and replace members of the Task Force who were unwilling
to assign an “A” or “B” recommendation to a particular
service.
 In any event, even assuming that Braidwood’s argument
on this point is correct, that would not affect the Task Force
members’ inferior-officer status.
 For one thing, when the Task Force declines to issue an
“A” or “B” recommendation, there is less cause for concern
about executive officers exercising significant
governmental authority without adequate supervision and
direction. That is because when the Task Force decides not
to issue an “A” or “B” recommendation, the Government is
not regulating private parties: Health insurers are free to
cover or not cover the preventive service at issue as they
wish. Congress made that freedom of choice explicit in the
statute: “Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to
prohibit a plan or issuer from providing coverage for
services in addition to those recommended by” the Task
Force “or to deny coverage for services that are not
recommended by such Task Force.” §300gg–13(a).
 More fundamentally, this Court has not suggested that a
principal officer must be able to compel a subordinate to
take an affirmative act affecting private parties in order for
the subordinate to qualify as an inferior officer. On the
contrary, the Court essentially held the opposite in Free
Enterprise Fund. There, the Court recognized that the
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Securities and Exchange Commission lacked the power to
require the PCAOB to “start” individual investigations. 561
U. S., at 504. That was no impediment to this Court’s
concluding that the PCAOB members were inferior officers.
 Similarly, in Edmond, the Judge Advocate General and
Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces could not compel the
Coast Guard judges to make a particular decision in the
first instance. See 520 U. S., at 664–665. Nor could the
Director of the Patent and Trademark Office exercise that
kind of power over the patent judges in Arthrex. See 594
U. S., at 8–9; id., at 25–26 (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). The
Coast Guard and patent judges were nonetheless
considered inferior officers.
 Here, even if the Secretary cannot directly order the Task
Force to formulate an “A” or “B” recommendation, that does
not undermine the inferior-officer status of the Task Force
members.
 4
 In essence, Braidwood urges this Court to read the
relevant statutes as having created an independent
agency—the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force—whose
members wield unchecked power in making preventive-
services recommendations of great consequence for the
healthcare and health-insurance industries and the
American people more broadly. At oral argument,
Braidwood went so far as to assert that, with respect to
preventive-services recommendations, the Task Force
members are “more powerful than the Secretary of HHS or
the President.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 101.
 It would be odd, however, for this Court to attribute to
Congress the intent to create such a powerful independent
agency—whose members would therefore require
Presidential nomination and Senate confirmation—when
the text of the statute says nothing of the sort.
 When Congress wants to create an independent agency,
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 27

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it generally does so by explicitly conferring for-cause
removal protection on the agency’s leadership. See Part II–
D–1, supra. And Congress usually couples that express for-
cause protection from removal with an express statement
that those agency heads shall be nominated by the
President and confirmed by the Senate. See, e.g., 15
U. S. C. §41 (The Federal Trade Commission “shall be
composed of five Commissioners, who shall be appointed by
the President, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate”); 42 U. S. C. §7171 (b) (The Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission “shall be composed of five members
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate”); 49 U. S. C. §1301 (b)(1) (The Surface
Transportation Board “shall consist of 5 members, to be
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate”).
 The statute establishing the Task Force contains none of
that customary language—either with respect to for-cause
removal or appointment by the President with the advice
and consent of the Senate. That silence speaks volumes.
Contrary to the argument advanced by Braidwood, we will
not judicially construct a powerful new independent agency
that Congress and the President did not themselves
establish by statute.
 III
 Braidwood contends that even if Task Force members are
inferior officers, their appointments were nonetheless
unconstitutional. Since June 2023, after questions arose
about the AHRQ Director’s appointment of the Task Force
members, the Secretary of HHS has appointed all Task
Force members, including by re-appointing those who were
already serving. But Braidwood says that the Secretary
lacks statutory authority to make appointments to the Task
Force, which in turn would create a separate Appointments
Clause problem. The dissent advances a version of the
28 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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same argument.
 Under the Appointments Clause, “Congress may by Law
vest the Appointment of ” inferior officers “in the Heads of
Departments.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2 (emphasis added).
According to Braidwood and the dissent, though, Congress
has not vested the authority to appoint Task Force
members in the Secretary of HHS, the relevant Head of
Department. Braidwood and the dissent maintain that,
given the absence of any statutory authorization for the
Secretary to appoint, Task Force members must be
appointed by Presidential nomination and Senate
confirmation.
 We disagree. Congress has, in two steps, expressly vested
the Secretary of HHS with the authority to appoint Task
Force members. First, in 1999, when Congress codified the
Task Force, Congress authorized the Director of the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to appoint
members of the Task Force. Second, Reorganization Plan
No. 3 of 1966 transfers all of the AHRQ Director’s functions
to the Secretary. Congress ratified that Reorganization
Plan in 1984. So in 1999, when Congress gave the AHRQ
Director the authority to appoint Task Force members, that
authority vested in the Secretary.
 Beginning in June 2023, the Secretary has exercised that
statutory authority to appoint the Task Force members.
Therefore, since June 2023, all Task Force members
(including the ones who already held office as of that date)
have been appointed by the Secretary of HHS pursuant to
a law enacted by Congress—and thus they have been
appointed in a manner consistent with the “Congress may
by Law vest” requirement of the Appointments Clause.
Art. II, §2, cl. 2.
 A
 1
 The statute governing the Task Force, as originally
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 29

 Opinion of the Court

enacted in 1999 and amended in 2010, authorizes the
AHRQ Director to appoint the Task Force members. See
§915, 113 Stat. 1659 ; 124 Stat. 541–542. That statute
provides that the Director “shall convene” a Task Force “to
be composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.” 42
U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1).
 To be sure, the statute does not use the term “appoint.”
But Congress need not use magic words to confer
appointment authority. Around the time of the Founding,
“the verb ‘appoint’ ” was synonymous with “ ‘allot, assign, or
designate.’ ” NLRB v. SW General, Inc., 580 U. S. 288 , 312–
313 (2017) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (quoting 1 N. Webster,
An American Dictionary of the English Language 11–12
(1828)); see Al Bahlul v. United States, 967 F. 3d 858 , 863,
873–874 (CADC 2020) (holding that statute permitting the
Secretary of Defense to “designate” an officer responsible
for convening military commissions vested the Secretary
with authority to “appoint” the convening officer (quoting
10 U. S. C. §948h)); post, at 11 (opinion of THOMAS, J.) (A
“statute giving” a department head “authority to assign a
person” to an office satisfies the Appointments Clause
(emphasis added)).
 Depending on context, other terms like “direct” that are
perhaps less obviously synonymous with “appoint” may also
suffice to confer appointment authority—and that may be
so even if the same statute uses the term “appoint” with
respect to other officers. See SW General, Inc., 580 U. S., at
312 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (concluding that when the
President “ ‘direct[s]’ ” someone to “ ‘perform the functions
and duties’ ” of an office temporarily, “he is ‘appoint[ing]’
that person as an ‘officer of the United States’ within the
meaning of the Appointments Clause” even though the
statute refers to “appointment[s]” to the same offices, 5
U. S. C. §3345 ).
 More to the point, the AHRQ Director’s power to
“convene” is naturally read to include the power to appoint
30 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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in this specific context. Of course, “convene” in the abstract
could mean to merely “call together” or “assemble.” Supp.
Brief for Respondents 4 (quotation marks omitted). But
where as here there is no separate statutory provision
specifying who is to appoint the individuals to be called
together or assembled, the obvious conclusion is that the
person with the power to convene is also the person with
the power to appoint. That is especially so when the person
charged with convening is required to ensure that members
of the body to be convened meet certain qualifications, such
as “appropriate expertise.” §299b–4(a)(1).
 Congress has elsewhere used the term “convene” to
authorize an official to both assemble a body and select its
members. For example, 10 U. S. C. §948h states: “Military
commissions under this chapter may be convened by the
Secretary of Defense or by any officer or official of the
United States designated by the Secretary for that
purpose.” That statute contains no provision using the
term “appoint.” Therefore, §948h—along with a
neighboring provision that also uses a term other than
“appoint” (namely, “detail”)—has been read to authorize the
Secretary of Defense or his designee to appoint commission
members. See Al Bahlul, 967 F. 3d, at 863–864; see also
§948i(b) (“When convening a military commission under
this chapter, the convening authority shall detail” eligible
“members of the armed forces”); see also, e.g., 10 U. S. C.
§14903 (a) (“The Secretary of the military department
concerned shall convene a board of inquiry” to “be composed
of not less than three officers” with specified
“qualifications”); 14 U. S. C. §3703 (a) (“The Secretary shall
convene a Coast Guard Reserve Policy Board,” and at “least
one-half of the members of the Board shall be Reserve
officers”); 33 U. S. C. §3022 (a) (The Secretary of Commerce
“shall convene a personnel board” which “shall consist of
not less than five officers” of a certain “grade”).
 On the flip side, when Congress wants to decouple the
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power to convene from the power to appoint, it has done so
explicitly. Consider 15 U. S. C. §634c(b)(2)(A), which
provides that “the Chief Counsel for Advocacy” within the
Small Business Administration “shall convene an
Interagency Working Group” but then states that the
Working Group shall be composed of representatives from
particular agencies “as selected by the head of the agency.”
See also, e.g., 20 U. S. C. §§107d–2(a), (b) (The Secretary of
Education “shall convene an ad hoc arbitration panel” with
three members “appointed” by others); 50 U. S. C.
§§3022 (b), (d) (2018 ed., Supp. II) (“The Director of National
Intelligence shall convene meetings of the Joint Intelligence
Community Council” with membership of the Council
specified in the law itself ).
 The statute setting up the Task Force is more like the
former set of statutes than the latter. So in context, the
AHRQ Director’s power to “convene” naturally
encompasses the power to appoint.
 Not surprisingly, the Executive Branch’s actions for the
last 26 years, since the 1999 codification of the Task Force,
have reflected that straightforward interpretation of the
statute—without any apparent objection from Congress.
For those 26 years, the relevant government actors have
always read the authorization to “convene” the Task Force
to include the power to appoint the Task Force members.
That considered and consistent Executive Branch
practice—which began contemporaneously with enactment
of the statute codifying the Task Force in 1999—buttresses
the ordinary meaning and natural interpretation of the
term “convene” in the statute. See Loper Bright Enterprises
v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 394 (2024); see also Bondi v.
VanDerStok, 604 U. S. ___ , ___–___ (2025) (slip op., at 20–
21).
 2
 Of course, if the statute vested the power to appoint Task
32 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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Force members in the AHRQ Director alone, a
constitutional problem would exist. Not in 1999 when the
“convene” provision was enacted and the Task Force’s
recommendations were still advisory—at that point, the
Task Force members were mere employees who could be
appointed by the AHRQ Director. But there would be a
problem beginning in 2010 after the Affordable Care Act
was enacted. Starting then, the Task Force’s “A” and “B”
recommendations were no longer merely advisory. Rather,
health insurers had to begin covering those recommended
services at no cost to the insured. So after the Affordable
Care Act, the Task Force members were officers, not just
employees. And as inferior officers, they could be appointed
by the Secretary, who is a Head of Department, but not by
the AHRQ Director. In short, since 2010, the Appointments
Clause has required that the Task Force members be
appointed by the Secretary of HHS.
 As the Government explains, however, Congress itself
solved the potential constitutional issue that arose in 2010.
See Supp. Brief for United States 5. Specifically,
Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966, which was ratified by
Congress in 1984, transfers all authority of the AHRQ
Director to the Secretary. So under Reorganization Plan
No. 3, the AHRQ Director’s power to appoint the Task Force
members was transferred to the Secretary. That means the
Secretary possesses the authority to appoint the Task Force
members. And the Secretary has exercised that
appointment authority.
 To explain the background a bit more fully: The
Reorganization Act of 1949 charged the President with
examining “the organization of all agencies of the
Government.” §2(a), 63 Stat. 203 . That Act authorized the
President to prepare reorganization plans when he
determined that “the transfer of the whole or any part of
any agency” or its “functions” “to the jurisdiction and
control of any other agency” was necessary. §3, id., at 203;
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 33

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see id., at 204.
 In 1966, acting pursuant to the 1949 Act, President
Lyndon Johnson issued Reorganization Plan No. 3. Before
1966, the Public Health Service was separate from the
Department of Health and Human Services, then known as
the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).
See Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson,
Vol. I, Apr. 25, 1966, p. 455 (1967). But in 1966,
Reorganization Plan No. 3 transferred to the Secretary of
HHS (then HEW) “all functions of the Public Health
Service” and its “officers and employees” as well as “all
functions of all agencies of or in the Public Health Service.”
 80 Stat. 1610 .
 In 1984, Congress passed and President Reagan signed
legislation that ratified and affirmed Reorganization Plan
No. 3 “as law.” 98 Stat. 2705 .
 The AHRQ is an agency “of or in the Public Health
Service,” and the AHRQ Director is an “officer” of the Public
Health Service. 80 Stat. 1610 ; see 42 U. S. C. §299 (a). So
Reorganization Plan No. 3 “transfer[s]” all of the AHRQ
Director’s functions to the Secretary of HHS. 80 Stat. 1610 .
As the Government stated at oral argument here, under
Reorganization Plan No. 3, “all of the Director’s powers are
the Secretary’s powers.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 110.
 After statutory codification of the Task Force in 1999,
those powers of the Secretary included the AHRQ Director’s
power to appoint the Task Force members. Therefore, by
virtue of the 1984 Act ratifying Reorganization Plan No. 3
and the 1999 Act conferring appointment authority,
Congress vested the power to appoint Task Force members
in the Secretary of HHS.6
——————
 6 That is not to say that the Secretary must personally perform every

function assigned by Congress to the Public Health Service and
transferred to the Secretary by operation of Reorganization Plan No. 3.
With respect to most functions, the Secretary may delegate responsibility
to carry out the function back to the Public Health Service. See §2, 80
34 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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 To be sure, Congress could have vested the Secretary
with appointment authority in more direct ways. But given
that the Appointments Clause question arose only in 2010
when the Task Force recommendations became binding and
Task Force members became officers under the Affordable
Care Act, it is no surprise that the 1999 statute did not
expressly name the Secretary.
 Moreover, this Court has upheld as consistent with the
Appointments Clause statutory schemes that less directly
vest appointment authority in the Head of Department.
For example, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company
Accounting Oversight Board, the Court stated that it had
“previously found that the department head’s approval” of
an inferior officer’s appointment of another inferior officer
“satisfies the Appointments Clause.” 561 U. S. 477 , 512,
n. 13 (2010). For that proposition, the Court cited with
approval United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385 (1868). In
Hartwell, the Court considered a statute that authorized
“the assistant treasurer, at Boston, with the approbation of
the Secretary of the Treasury, to appoint a specified
number of clerks.” Id., at 393 (citing Act of July 23, 1866,
 14 Stat. 202 ). The Hartwell Court explicitly blessed that
arrangement, holding that the clerks were “appointed by
the head of a department within the meaning of the
constitutional provision.” 6 Wall., at 393–394.
 The appointment scheme at issue in this case more
clearly vests appointment authority in the department
head (the Secretary of HHS) than did the statute in
Hartwell, the validity of which the Court affirmed in Free
Enterprise Fund. See 561 U. S., at 512, n. 13 (citing 6 Wall.,
at 393–394). In Hartwell, the Secretary could only approve
or disapprove appointments proposed and carried out by

——————
Stat. 1610. But where the Constitution requires that the Secretary
personally perform a particular function, like appointing the Task Force
members, delegation is not an option.
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the assistant treasurer. So the assistant treasurer could
frustrate the Secretary’s ability to appoint clerks of his
choosing simply by refusing to propose their appointment.
Nonetheless, the Court concluded that the statute vested
authority to appoint the clerks in the Secretary. Here,
Reorganization Plan No. 3 grants the Secretary the power
to stand in the shoes of the AHRQ Director and himself
appoint the Task Force members—far more direct
appointment authority than existed in Hartwell.
 B
 Braidwood and the dissent push back against the
conclusion that Congress has by law vested the Secretary
with appointment authority. They argue that the statute
governing the Task Force actually does not grant
appointment authority to the AHRQ Director. And they
contend that even assuming that it does so, no statute
“vests” such authority in the Secretary.
 1
 Braidwood first asserts that the 1999 statute codifying
the Task Force simply says “convene” and is therefore
actually “agnostic” about who should appoint the Task
Force members. Brief for Respondents 22; see Tr. of Oral
Arg. 59–61. In other words, Braidwood claims that
“Congress has not ‘vested’ the appointment of the Task
Force in anyone.” Supp. Brief for Respondents 1 (emphasis
added). As Braidwood sees it, Congress did not care—either
in 1999 when it codified the Task Force or in 2010 when it
made the Task Force’s recommendations legally binding—
whether the Task Force members are appointed by the
AHRQ Director, the Secretary of HHS, the President, the
Secretary of Energy, a private party, or anyone else. See
Tr. of Oral Arg. 59. And Braidwood detects no problem with
a statute under which multiple different officials or entities
could all purport to appoint members of the Task Force.
36 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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Braidwood suggests that the AHRQ Director, the Secretary
of HHS, or the President could simply step in to announce
which collection of individuals is the “real” Task Force. See
Supp. Brief for Respondents 5, n. 5.
 We will not read the statute to usher in such a bizarre
and half-baked scheme. It is implausible to conclude that
Congress in 1999 established the Task Force and in 2010
charged its members with making legally binding
healthcare recommendations—but was entirely indifferent
as to who would appoint those members. Tellingly,
Braidwood has failed to identify any other statute that
establishes a government entity but is entirely agnostic
about who will select the members of that government
entity. The far more sensible reading of the Task Force
statute is the Government’s: that in 1999, in authorizing
the AHRQ Director to “convene” a Task Force composed of
members with “appropriate expertise,” Congress also
charged the Director with selecting those members. Supp.
Brief for United States 2–3 (quoting §299b–4(a)(1)).
 The dissent, for its part, cannot bring itself to endorse
Braidwood’s farfetched theory. But it nonetheless asserts
that we should not read “convene” to mean “appoint”
because the Appointments Clause supplies a default rule
for how inferior officers should be appointed: by the
President with Senate confirmation. But §299b–4(a)(1),
together with Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 as ratified
by Congress in 1984, expressly vests appointment authority
in the Secretary and therefore displaces any such default
rule.
 The dissent all but concedes that between 1999 and
2010—before the Task Force members were officers and
therefore before the Appointments Clause was relevant—
the statutory authorization to “convene” was best read to
confer appointment authority. See post, at 23; see also post,
at 22 (When “no other provision addresses how the group’s
members are named because the Appointments Clause does
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 37

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not apply,” the “authority to ‘convene’ ” confers appointment
authority). But according to the dissent, the meaning of the
statute suddenly changed in 2010 after the enactment of
the Affordable Care Act. The problem with that theory is
that the relevant statutory text did not change in 2010.
Both before and after the enactment of the Affordable Care
Act, the statute has granted authority to “convene” a Task
Force “composed of individuals with appropriate expertise.”
§299b–4(a)(1); §299b–4(a)(1) (2006 ed.). So in effect, the
dissent reads the same words to mean different things
before and after 2010.
 2
 Braidwood and the dissent next argue that, even if the
AHRQ Director’s statutory authority to “convene” carries
with it the power to appoint, Reorganization Plan No. 3
does not actually transfer the Director’s appointment
authority to the Secretary and thus does not vest
appointment authority in the Secretary.
 First, Braidwood and the dissent emphasize that
Reorganization Plan No. 3 is not a “law” at all. They note
that the Plan was originally submitted to Congress in 1966
by President Johnson and took effect only because neither
House of Congress passed a disapproval resolution within
60 days.
 True but irrelevant. In a 1984 Act passed by Congress
and signed by President Reagan—an Act that therefore
indisputably qualifies as a “law”—Congress stated that it
“hereby ratifies and affirms as law each reorganization
plan” previously enacted, including Reorganization Plan
No. 3 of 1966. 98 Stat. 2705 .
 Second, Braidwood and the dissent point out that
Congress did not codify the Task Force or the authority to
appoint Task Force members until 1999. And they claim
that Reorganization Plan No. 3 transferred to the Secretary
only those functions that existed as of 1966. But that
38 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

frozen-in-time reading of Reorganization Plan No. 3 finds
no footing in either the statutory text or common sense.
 Starting with the text, Reorganization Plan No. 3
transfers to the Secretary “all functions” of the Public
Health Service and its officers. 80 Stat. 1610 (emphasis
added). That most naturally means an ongoing transfer of
authority—that is, any new powers granted to the Public
Health Service and its officers by Congress after 1966
would be transferred to the Secretary, in addition to those
powers existing as of 1966. Moreover, the Dictionary Act
provides that, “unless the context indicates otherwise,”
“words used in the present tense include the future as well
as the present.” 1 U. S. C. §1 . Reorganization Plan No. 3
speaks in the present tense, providing that “all functions”
“are hereby transferred.” 80 Stat. 1610 (emphasis added).
The use of the present tense combined with the expansive
phrase “all functions” shows that Congress intended that
Reorganization Plan No. 3 effect a continuing transfer of
functions from the Public Health Service to the Secretary.
 Braidwood and the dissent both lean on a provision of the
Reorganization Act of 1949 stating that no “reorganization
plan shall provide for, and no reorganization under this Act
shall have the effect of . . . authorizing any agency to
exercise any function which is not expressly authorized by
law at the time the plan is transmitted to the Congress.” 63
Stat. 205 . But that language merely prevented “the
President, under the guise of consolidating and
rearranging, from actually creating authority in the
Executive Branch which had not existed before.” Dept. of
Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Memorandum of William
H. Rehnquist, Assistant Atty. Gen. (Sept. 11, 1969), in
Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1969 (ICC): Hearing before the
Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization of the Senate
Committee on Government Operations, 91st Cong., 1st
Sess., 29 (1969) (Rehnquist Memorandum). In other words,
that provision barred the President from seizing on a
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reorganization plan to unilaterally confer new powers on an
agency.
 But that provision in no way barred Congress from later
enacting a law that conferred new powers on an agency
subject to a reorganization plan. That is precisely what
Congress did in 1999 when it codified the Task Force and
granted the AHRQ Director authority to appoint the Task
Force members. At that point, the AHRQ Director’s
authority to appoint Task Force members became one of the
“functions” transferred to the Secretary. 80 Stat. 1610 .
 Reading Reorganization Plan No. 3 to provide for only a
one-time transfer of functions in 1966 and thereby freeze in
time the relationship between the Public Health Service
and the Secretary of HHS would also produce untenable—
bordering on absurd—results from the standpoint of the
agency’s practical operations. It would mean that all
functions of the Public Health Service statutorily conferred
on the Service through 1966 would rest with the Secretary,
but any functions statutorily conferred on it after the 1966
Plan became effective would fall outside of the Secretary’s
purview. There is no good or plausible reason to think that
Congress created such an “arbitrary bifurcation.” Supp.
Brief for United States 6.
 To the extent it may be relevant, the then-Secretary of
HEW explained to Congress in 1966 that one objective of
Reorganization Plan No. 3 was to vest all of the Public
Health Service’s current and future functions in the
Secretary so that he would have the “flexibility” “to
reorganize” the Service—then and “at any future time”—
“as the requirements of the times demand.” Reorganization
Plan No. 3 of 1966 (Public Health Service): Hearing before
a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government
Operations, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 7 (1966). If the Secretary
were vested with only the functions of the Public Health
Service that existed as of 1966, he would lack the flexibility
to reorganize the Service as public health needs evolved and
40 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 Opinion of the Court

as Congress correspondingly conferred new powers upon
the Service.
 Third, the dissent spins out a new theory of its own,
positing that Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 could not
have transferred the AHRQ Director’s functions to the
Secretary because otherwise the Director would be an
“empty husk.” Post, at 27. But as the Government
explains, the text of Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 is
plain: It explicitly states that it “ ‘transfer[s]’ ” “ ‘all
functions’ ” of “ ‘officers’ ” of the Public Health Service,
including the AHRQ Director, “ ‘to the Secretary.’ ” Supp.
Brief for United States 5 (quoting 80 Stat. 1610 ). And after
that statutory transfer, the officers of the Public Health
Service are not “empty husks” because the Secretary may
delegate responsibility to carry out functions back to the
Public Health Service and its officers. See n. 6, supra.
Section 2 of Reorganization Plan No. 3 expressly provides
for such delegation: It states that the “Secretary may from
time to time make such provisions as he shall deem
appropriate authorizing the performance of any of the
functions transferred to him by the provisions of this
reorganization plan by any officer, employee, or agency of
the Public Health Service.” 80 Stat. 1610 . And the
Secretary has in fact delegated functions back to the Public
Health Service. See, e.g., 31 Fed. Reg. 8964 (1966); 33 Fed.
Reg. 5426 (1968); 53 Fed. Reg. 3457 (1988); 61 Fed. Reg.
29566 (1996).
 So it is not correct, either in statutory text or in actual
practice, that the Reorganization Plan left the officers of the
Public Health Service as “empty husks.”
 In sum, Braidwood’s and the dissent’s arguments on the
vesting issue fall flat. Read in context, two laws taken
together—Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966 as ratified by
the 1984 Act; and the 1999 statute conferring appointment
authority—expressly vest the Secretary with authority to
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 41

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appoint the Task Force members.7
 3
 Braidwood’s and the dissent’s arguments that Congress
has not properly vested the Secretary with authority to
appoint Task Force members fail on their own terms. But
if there were any doubt on that score, the canon of
constitutional avoidance as applied in this Court’s prior
Appointments Clause cases would again dispel it.
 Edmond v. United States is instructive. 520 U. S. 651
(1997). There, the challengers argued that Congress gave
the power to appoint judges of the Coast Guard Court of
Criminal Appeals to the Judge Advocate General. But
because the Judge Advocate General was not a Head of
Department, it would have been unconstitutional for
Congress to vest appointment authority in the Judge
Advocate General alone. Rather than read the statute “in
a manner that would render it clearly unconstitutional,”
the Court adopted a “reasonable” alternative reading: It
interpreted the statutory scheme to vest appointment
authority in the Secretary of Transportation. Id., at 658 .
 Here, reading the statutes at issue to vest appointment
authority in the AHRQ Director alone would likewise
render them “clearly unconstitutional.” Ibid. Meanwhile,
it is at a minimum “reasonable” to read Reorganization
Plan No. 3 to have transferred the AHRQ Director’s
appointment power to the Secretary, such that the statutes
together vest the Secretary with authority to appoint the
members of the Task Force. Ibid.

——————
 7 Even if the statutes vested appointment authority in both the

Secretary and the AHRQ Director, the Government says (and Braidwood
agreed, at least at oral argument) that such a structure would not raise
constitutional concerns so long as the Secretary was the one to actually
make the appointments—as has been the case since June 2023. See
Supp. Brief for United States 7; Tr. of Oral Arg. 67–70, 111.
42 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

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 C
 Not only has Congress vested authority to appoint the
Task Force members in the Secretary of HHS, the Secretary
has now in fact exercised that authority. The Task Force
members have been inferior officers since 2010 when the
Affordable Care Act was enacted. Until June 2023, the
Task Force members were appointed by the AHRQ Director
alone, not by the Secretary. Then in June 2023, after
litigation belatedly alerted the Government to the fact that
Task Force members had become officers, the Secretary
both ratified the Director’s previous appointments of the
Task Force members and also re-appointed them (a
sequence of events that similarly occurred in Edmond). The
Secretary has continued to appoint members of the Task
Force, including all current members.
 The fact that the Secretary did not begin personally
appointing the Task Force members until June 2023 is
irrelevant to whether the Task Force members appointed
by the Secretary have been properly appointed. In
Edmond, the Secretary of Transportation had not
historically appointed the Coast Guard judges. After
Appointments Clause challenges arose in litigation, the
Secretary “issued a memorandum ‘adopting’ ” the Judge
Advocate General’s appointments as his own. Id., at 654 .
Those developments did not prevent the Court from
concluding that the Coast Guard judges were properly
appointed. The same is true here.
 * * *
 To sum up: Task Force members issue preventive-
services recommendations of critical importance to
patients, doctors, insurers, employers, healthcare
organizations, and the American people more broadly. In
doing so, however, the Task Force members remain subject
to the Secretary of HHS’s supervision and direction, and the
Secretary remains subject to the President’s supervision
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 43

 Opinion of the Court

and direction. So under Article II and this Court’s
precedents, Task Force members are inferior officers, and
Congress may vest the power to appoint them in the
Secretary of HHS. Congress has done so, and the Secretary
has appointed the Task Force members pursuant to that
grant of authority.
 Therefore, the Task Force members’ appointments are
fully consistent with the Appointments Clause in Article II
of the Constitution. The structure of the Task Force and
the manner of appointing its officers preserve the chain of
political accountability that was central to the Framers’
design of the Appointments Clause: The Task Force
members were appointed by and are supervised and
directed by the Secretary of HHS. And the Secretary of
HHS, in turn, answers to the President of the United
States.
 We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and
remand the case for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
 It is so ordered.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 1

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
 _________________

 No. 24–316
 _________________

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., SECRETARY OF HEALTH
 AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL., PETITIONERS v.
 BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC., ET AL.
 ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF
 APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
 [June 27, 2025]

 JUSTICE THOMAS, with whom JUSTICE ALITO and
JUSTICE GORSUCH join, dissenting.
 To promote democratic accountability, the Appointments
Clause establishes a default rule that all Executive Branch
officers must be appointed by the President with the Sen-
ate’s approval. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. Congress may depart from
this default by authorizing a department head to appoint
“inferior Officers”—but only if it does so expressly. Ibid.
 This case concerns the U. S. Preventive Services Task
Force, a body that issues legally binding recommendations
regarding preventive healthcare treatments. At the begin-
ning of this suit, a subordinate official within the Depart-
ment of Health and Human Services (HHS) had for years
appointed the Task Force’s members. Everyone now agrees
that this practice was unlawful. Everyone further agrees
that no one statute provides for a department head to ap-
point the Task Force’s members. But, rather than accept
that the default mode of appointment applies, the Govern-
ment invented a new theory on appeal, arguing that the
combination of two ambiguously worded statutes enacted
decades apart establishes that the Secretary of HHS can
appoint the Task Force’s members.
 The Court today rushes to embrace this theory. I cannot.
To begin with, I would not rule on the Government’s new
2 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

theory before any lower court has done so. But, if we are to
decide this question now, I do not see how Congress has
spoken with the clarity needed to depart from the default
rule established by the Appointments Clause. In ruling
otherwise, the Court treats the default rule as an inconven-
ient obstacle to be overcome, not a constitutional principle
to be honored. And, it distorts Congress’s design for the
Task Force, changing it from an independent body that re-
ports directly to the President to one subject to the control
of the Secretary of HHS.
 I
 A
 The Appointments Clause provides that the President
“shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent
of the Senate,” appoint all “Officers of the United States.”
Art. II, §2, cl. 2. But, “the Congress may by Law vest the
Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper,
in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads
of Departments.” Ibid.
 The Clause prescribes the exclusive means of appointing
“ ‘Officers of the United States.’ ” Lucia v. SEC, 585 U. S.
237 , 244 (2018). Officers are Government officials who ex-
ercise “ ‘significant’ ” federal authority on an “ongoing” ba-
sis. Id., at 245–246. Those who do not exercise such au-
thority are mere nonofficer employees and are not subject
to the Clause’s requirements. Id., at 245.1
 The Appointments Clause classifies officers as either “in-

——————
 1 The parties agree that the exercise of “significant authority” marks

the dividing line between officers and nonofficer employees. Brief for
Petitioners 2 (internal quotation marks omitted); Brief for Respondents
4–5. I will assume that this view is correct for purposes of this opinion.
But see Lucia, 585 U. S., at 254 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (“The Founders
likely understood the term ‘Officers of the United States’ to encompass
all federal civil officials who perform an ongoing, statutory duty—no
matter how important or significant the duty”).
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 3

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

ferior” or noninferior. Noninferior officers, called “princi-
pal” officers in our case law, must be appointed by the Pres-
ident with the Senate’s advice and consent. Inferior officers
by “default” must be appointed in the same manner. Ed-
mond v. United States, 520 U. S. 651, 660 (1997). But, Con-
gress may depart from the default by conferring the ap-
pointment power on the President alone, a department
head, or the courts. A principal officer in the Executive
Branch is one who has no “superior” other than the Presi-
dent. See id., at 662 . An inferior officer is one “whose work
is directed and supervised at some level by” a principal of-
ficer. Id., at 663 .
 The Appointments Clause serves several purposes. It
protects the President’s control over the Executive Branch
by providing that only the President or a department head
under his control may appoint executive officers.2 At the
same time, it checks the President’s power by requiring him
to nominate principal officers personally and to obtain the
Senate’s consent. These requirements ensure that the se-
lection of officers is a public matter in which the President
must justify “the propriety of his choice.” The Federalist
No. 76, p. 457 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (A. Hamilton).
 With respect to inferior officers, the Appointments
Clause balances efficiency and accountability. The “obvious
purpose” of allowing appointment by the President alone or

——————
 2 Although this Court has held that Congress may sometimes vest the

courts with the power to appoint inferior executive officers, Morrison v.
Olson, 487 U. S. 654 , 673–677 (1988), I doubt that such “inter-branch”
appointments are consistent with the original understanding of the sep-
aration of powers. See In re Sealed Case, 838 F. 2d 476 , 489–496 (CADC
1988) (Silberman, J.). In any event, the Appointments Clause at a min-
imum prevents Congress from vesting the appointment power in itself,
as many preframing state legislatures did. See Freytag v. Commissioner,
 501 U. S. 868, 904, n. 4 (1991) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concur-
ring in judgment).
4 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

a department head is “administrative convenience.” Ed-
mond, 520 U. S., at 660 . But, even with this allowance, the
Clause still imposes significant constraints. The Clause
permits a more informal method of appointment only when
Congress affirmatively chooses one, and Congress has re-
tained the default of requiring Senate confirmation in many
cases where it is not constitutionally required.3 Moreover,
even when Congress chooses to depart from the default
rule, it can vest the appointment power no more than one
rung below the President in the executive hierarchy. See
 id., at 658 . By preventing lower level officials from appoint-
ing officers, the Appointments Clause ensures that officer
selection remains visible “to the public eye.” The Federalist
No. 77, at 461 (A. Hamilton).
 B
 The Preventive Services Task Force is an “independent
panel” of nationally recognized medical experts charged
with making evidence-based recommendations about pre-
ventive healthcare services. App. 37. Its 16 members are
physicians and researchers in the fields of preventive med-
icine and primary care. They work on a volunteer basis and
receive no compensation for their service.
 The Task Force reviews preventive services for their med-
ical efficacy and cost effectiveness. It assigns letter grades
to services, ranging from “A” to “D.” “A” represents a high
certainty of a substantial net benefit, and “D” represents a
moderate or high certainty of no net benefit. The Task

——————
 3 To give just a few examples, there are 14 Senate-confirmed positions

in HHS besides its head, the Secretary. See Senate Committee on Home-
land Security and Governmental Affairs, Policy and Supporting Posi-
tions, 118th Cong., 2d Sess., 62–70 (Comm. Print 2024). All 93 U. S. At-
torneys, who are subordinate to the Attorney General, likewise are
appointed only by the President with Senate confirmation. 28 U. S. C.
§541 (a). And, the Senate confirms tens of thousands of military officers
each year. See, e.g., 170 Cong. Rec. D512 (May 16, 2024).
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 5

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

Force may alternatively issue an “I” grade if there is insuf-
ficient evidence to assess the balance of a service’s benefits
and harms.
 HHS officials first commissioned the Task Force in 1984
to serve as a purely advisory body. In 1995, the Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) assumed “re-
sponsibility” for the Task Force. 63 Fed. Reg. 880 (1998).
AHRQ is part of the Public Health Service, a collection of
agencies within HHS. 42 U. S. C. §203 . The Agency is
headed by a Director, who is appointed by the Secretary of
HHS. §299(a). The Director thus became responsible for
naming the Task Force’s members and calling its meetings.
See 63 Fed. Reg. 879–880.
 Congress codified AHRQ’s responsibility for the Task
Force in 1999. 113 Stat. 1659–1660. It provided that the
Director “may periodically convene a Preventive Services
Task Force to be composed of individuals with appropriate
expertise.” 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1) (2000 ed.).
 The character of the Task Force fundamentally changed
in 2010, when Congress passed the Affordable Care Act
(ACA). The ACA transformed the Task Force from a purely
advisory body into one whose recommendations carry the
force of law. Specifically, the ACA requires health-insur-
ance issuers and group health plans to cover preventive ser-
vices for which the Task Force has issued an “A” or “B” rec-
ommendation without imposing copayments, deductibles,
or other cost-sharing charges on patients. 42 U. S. C.
§300gg–13(a)(1). The ACA also replaced the 1999 version
of §299b–4(a)(1) with a new version providing that the
AHRQ “Director shall convene an independent Preventive
Services Task Force.” It further provided that Task Force
members and their recommendations “shall be independent
and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political pres-
sure.” §299b–4(a)(6). Following this enactment, the AHRQ
Director continued to appoint Task Force members.
6 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 C
 In 2020, four individuals and two businesses who ob-
jected to covering certain preventive treatments sued the
Secretary of HHS and other Government defendants, argu-
ing that the Task Force’s members were invalidly appointed
under the Appointments Clause. The parties cross-moved
for summary judgment, with the Government arguing that
the Task Force’s members are not officers under the Clause
because they are outside experts who do not exercise signif-
icant governmental authority.
 The District Court granted summary judgment for the
challengers. Braidwood Mgmt. Inc v. Becerra, 627 F. Supp.
3d 624 (ND Tex. 2022). The court first held that the Task
Force’s members have been officers since 2010, because the
ACA made their recommendations legally binding. It then
held that the Task Force’s members had been invalidly ap-
pointed for two independent reasons. First, because no
other officers supervise the Task Force’s issuance of recom-
mendations, its members were principal officers who had to
be appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
Second, even if the Task Force members were inferior offic-
ers, the AHRQ Director could not appoint them because, as
an officer subordinate to the Secretary of HHS, the Director
is not a department head. The District Court issued an in-
junction prohibiting enforcement of the Task Force’s recom-
mendations. Braidwood Mgmt. Inc v. Becerra, 666 F. Supp.
3d 613 (ND Tex. 2023).
 The Government did not defend its original theory on ap-
peal. Instead, it argued for the first time that the Task
Force’s members are officers, but only inferior ones subor-
dinate to the Secretary of HHS. And, while briefing was
ongoing, the Secretary purported to appoint the Task Force
members. By that act, the Government argued, the mem-
bers now lawfully held their offices, because Congress had
vested the appointment of the Task Force’s members in the
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 7

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

Secretary. The Government derived this purported ap-
pointment authority from the combination of two statutes,
enacted decades apart. First, §299b–4(a)(1) gave the AHRQ
Director the power to “convene” the Task Force, which the
Government read to include appointing its members. Sec-
ond, a statute called Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1966, 80
Stat. 1610 (Reorganization Plan), “transferred” to the Sec-
retary “all functions” of all officers of the Public Health Ser-
vice, including AHRQ. In addition to claiming to appoint
the members, the Secretary issued an order purporting to
ratify all the recommendations that the Task Force had is-
sued from 2010 to 2022, when its members had been unlaw-
fully appointed by the AHRQ Director.
 The challengers opposed the Government’s new theory.
They contended that the Director’s convening power does
not include the power to appoint, and that this power is in
any event not one of the functions transferred by the Reor-
ganization Plan. The challengers also maintained that the
Task Force members were principal officers who had to be
appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
 The Fifth Circuit affirmed in relevant part. Braidwood
Mgmt., Inc v. Becerra, 104 F. 4th 930 (2024). The court as-
sumed without deciding that the Secretary had the statu-
tory power to appoint the Task Force. It then held that
Task Force members are principal officers. The court
acknowledged that, if the Secretary has the authority to ap-
point the Task Force’s members, he would thereby have the
authority to remove them at will, giving him a powerful
mechanism for de facto control. But, that control was insuf-
ficient to make the Task Force inferior officers, the court
concluded, because the Secretary has no authority to exer-
cise direct review or supervision over the Task Force’s issu-
ance of recommendations. Rather, the statutory scheme
“contemplates complete autonomy” for the Task Force. Id.,
at 944. The court then held that the Secretary’s purported
8 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

ratification was invalid because the Secretary has no au-
thority to “review, revise, or issue the preventive-care rec-
ommendations himself.” Id., at 948.
 The Government asked this Court to decide whether the
structure of the Task Force violates the Appointments
Clause. We granted certiorari. 604 U. S. ___ (2025).
 II
 I would remand for the Fifth Circuit to consider the im-
portant threshold question that it skipped: whether the
Secretary has the statutory power to appoint the Task
Force. The Secretary may appoint the Task Force’s mem-
bers only if (1) Congress has vested in the Secretary the
power to appoint them, and (2) the members are inferior
officers under the Appointments Clause. The answer to the
first question significantly affects the analysis of the second
question. But, no court has passed on the first question,
and this Court has had only a limited opportunity to con-
sider it.
 We should resolve the statutory challenge to the Secre-
tary’s appointment authority before addressing the consti-
tutional challenge. Due respect for Congress as a coordi-
nate branch of Government usually demands that we
refrain from calling the constitutionality of its enactments
into question “ ‘unless absolutely necessary to a decision of
the case.’ ” Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 347 (1936)
(Brandeis, J., concurring). Accordingly, before “ ‘reaching
any constitutional questions, federal courts must consider
nonconstitutional grounds for decision.’ ” Jean v. Nelson,
 472 U. S. 846, 854 (1985); see Edmond, 520 U. S., at 655–
656 (considering the petitioner’s statutory challenge to an
officer’s appointment before his constitutional challenge).
 That rule applies with special force here because the stat-
utory question logically precedes the constitutional ques-
tion. The Task Force’s members are inferior officers if their
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 9

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

“work is directed and supervised at some level” by the Sec-
retary. Id., at 663 . To determine whether that is the case,
our precedents instruct us to consider (1) whether the Sec-
retary can remove them at will and (2) whether the Secre-
tary can directly review or command their actions. See Free
Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight
Bd., 561 U. S. 477 , 510 (2010). Whether the Secretary ap-
points the Task Force’s members affects both these inquir-
ies. Absent a statutory provision to the contrary, “the
power of removal” is “incident to the power of appointment.”
Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 230, 233 (1839). And, if the Sec-
retary has the statutory power to appoint, we will also be
more likely to conclude that he has the power to direct the
Task Force and review their decisions. After all, if the Sec-
retary appoints the Task Force, it must be subject to his
supervision to be constitutionally structured. Under the
canon of constitutional avoidance, we would therefore have
to interpret the statutes governing the Task Force to permit
secretarial supervision if it is “fairly possible” to do so.
United States v. Jin Fuey Moy, 241 U. S. 394, 401 (1916).
In contrast, if Congress never gave the Secretary the ap-
pointment power, it makes no constitutional difference
whether the Task Force answers to the Secretary or to the
President alone. We would have no reason to put a thumb
on the scale in favor of secretarial supervision.4

——————
 4 Whether the Secretary has statutory appointment authority may also

affect the appropriate remedy for an unlawful appointment. This Court’s
“severability” doctrine directs that, when a court finds “ ‘a constitutional
flaw in a statute,’ ” it should “seve[r] any ‘problematic portions while
leaving the remainder intact,’ ” unless the court can divine that Congress
“would have preferred” the statute’s wholesale invalidation. Free Enter-
prise Fund, 561 U. S., at 508–509. Thus, when Congress unconstitution-
ally vests the power to appoint a principal officer in a department head,
this Court will ask whether it is possible to save the appointment by
“severing” the provisions that insulate the officer from supervision. See
10 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 The Fifth Circuit did not follow the standard order of op-
erations. It skipped over whether Congress had vested the
appointment of the Task Force’s members in the Secretary
and instead held that, even assuming that Congress had,
the Task Force members are principal officers not subject
to the Secretary’s supervision. Because the Fifth Circuit
should have decided the statutory question before the con-
stitutional one, I would vacate and remand for it to do so.
See Massachusetts v. Westcott, 431 U. S. 322, 323 (1977)
(per curiam).5 It is not our “usual practice” to decide im-
portant legal questions in the first instance. CRST Van Ex-
pedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U. S. 419 , 435 (2016). Deviating
from standard practice is particularly unwise here, where
the Government first developed its statutory theory on ap-
peal and the parties have only minimally addressed the
question in their principal briefs. But, because the majority
insists on deciding the statutory question now, see ante, at
27–42, so will I.
——————
United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U. S. 1 , 23–26 (2021) (plurality opin-
ion). But, if Congress never vested the appointment of an officer in a
department head in the first place, this option is off the table. JUSTICE
GORSUCH and I have criticized the Court’s severability doctrine as incon-
sistent with traditional remedial principles. See id., at 32–33 (GORSUCH,
J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); Seila Law LLC v. Con-
sumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197 , 251–253 (2020)
(THOMAS, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). But, so long as
this Court adheres to the doctrine, the question of a department head’s
statutory authority is very likely to emerge at the remedial stage. This
reality counsels further in favor of resolving statutory challenges to ap-
pointment authority before constitutional challenges.
 5 Although prudence counsels in favor of deciding the statutory ques-

tion first, the Fifth Circuit’s decision to skip over it was understandable.
The District Court passed on only the constitutional question because
the Government at that time did not claim that it was the Secretary’s
responsibility to appoint the Task Force’s members. Like us, the Fifth
Circuit is not supposed to be a court of first view, so it decided only the
question on which it had a lower court decision from which to work. The
fault for the unusual posture of this case lies principally with the Gov-
ernment for adopting an entirely new theory on appeal.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 11

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 III
 If forced to decide, I would affirm on the ground that Con-
gress has not given the Secretary of HHS the power to ap-
point Task Force members. The members must therefore
be appointed by the President with Senate confirmation.
 A
 A department head may appoint an inferior officer only if
Congress has “by Law vest[ed] the Appointment of such” of-
ficer in him. Art. II, §2, cl. 2. At the time of the framing,
“ ‘ by Law’ ” of course meant “by statute.” Lucia, 585 U. S.,
at 254 (THOMAS, J., concurring); see United States v. Mau-
rice, 26 F. Cas. 1211, 1213 (No. 15,747) (CC Va. 1823) (Mar-
shall, C. J.). “[T]he verb ‘appoint’ meant ‘[t]o establish any
thing by decree’ or ‘[t]o allot, assign, or designate.’ ” NLRB
v. SW General, Inc., 580 U. S. 288 , 312–313 (2017)
(THOMAS, J., concurring) (quoting 1 S. Johnson, A Diction-
ary of the English Language (def. 3) (6th ed. 1785); 1 N.
Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language
(def. 3) (1828); citations omitted). Thus, to vest appoint-
ment power for an office in a department head, Congress
must pass a statute giving him the authority to assign a
person to that office.
 The vesting of appointment authority must be explicit.
When reading two legal texts together, the “specific con-
trols” over the “general.” National Cable & Telecommuni-
cations Assn., Inc. v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U. S. 327 , 335–
336 (2002). The Appointments Clause’s default rule of ap-
pointment by the President with Senate confirmation spe-
cifically addresses how an inferior officer is to be appointed.
Appointment authority therefore cannot be deemed implicit
in a more general grant of authority to a department head;
only a provision that specifically addresses appointment
can displace the default. And, because the Appointments
Clause’s default rule, as a constitutional provision, is of
greater “dignity” than a statute, we should not presume that
12 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

Congress meant to set it aside if the question is doubtful.
See A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law 187 (2012) (Scalia
& Garner). In particular, we cannot infer appointment au-
thority from a principal officer’s authority to supervise an
inferior officer. By its default rule, the Appointments
Clause presumes that an inferior officer will act at the di-
rection of a principal officer and yet be appointed by the
President with Senate confirmation.
 Further, the statute must vest the power in the depart-
ment head himself, not one of his subordinates. By limiting
the executive officials who can appoint inferior officers to
“the President” and “the Heads of Departments,” Art. II.,
§2, cl. 2, the Appointments Clause prohibits the exercise of
appointment authority by inferior officers, even though in
other contexts a department head can validly act through
such subordinate officers. See Scalia & Garner 107 (“The
expression of one thing implies the exclusion of others”
(boldface deleted)). Thus, a law purporting to vest the ap-
pointment power in an officer below a department head is
not a backdoor way of vesting power in the head; it is a
“clearly unconstitutional” enactment. Edmond, 520 U. S.,
at 658 ; accord, 11 Op. Atty. Gen. 209, 213 (1865).
 Our precedents illustrate these principles. In 1866, Con-
gress “authorized” an “assistant treasurer . . . to appoint,
with the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury,” cer-
tain “clerk[s].” 14 Stat. 202 (emphasis added). Because the
statute required the Secretary’s personal approval, this
Court held that such clerks were “appointed by the head of
a department within the meaning of the” Appointments
Clause. United States v. Hartwell, 6 Wall. 385 , 393–394
(1868). In contrast, the Court held that a statute authoriz-
ing the “collector” of customs to employ “clerks,” Rev. Stat.
§2634 (repealed), did not vest the appointment power in the
Secretary of the Treasury, even though the collector was
subordinate to that Secretary. United States v. Smith, 124
U. S. 525 , 532–533 (1888). Unlike in Hartwell, no “act of
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 13

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

congress” established that the clerks’ appointment “could
only be made with the approbation of the Secretary.” 124
U. S., at 532 ; see also United States v. Germaine, 99 U. S.
508, 511 (1879) (holding that Congress cannot vest the ap-
pointment power by conferring it on officials who are “the
mere aids and subordinates of the heads of the depart-
ments”).
 The Executive Branch—despite having every institu-
tional incentive to avoid the hurdle of Senate confirma-
tion—has also long recognized that only an explicit statute
can vest the appointment power. For over 170 years, the
Attorney General has held that “without there be[ing an]
express enactment to the contrary, . . . the appointment of
any officer of the United States belongs to the President, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” 6 Op. Atty.
Gen. 1 (1853) (emphasis added); accord, 15 Op. Atty. Gen.
449, 450 (1878); 17 Op. Atty. Gen. 532, 533 (1883); 26 Op.
Atty. Gen. 627, 629 (1908); 29 Op. Atty. Gen. 116, 117
(1911); 38 Op. Atty. Gen. 566, 574 (1937); 20 Op. OLC 124,
139, n. 46 (1996). In 1908, for instance, Congress created
the office of Second Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, to
assist the Comptroller and the First Deputy with their du-
ties. 35 Stat. 203 . Although Congress had vested the au-
thority to appoint the Comptroller and First Deputy in the
Secretary of the Treasury, it enacted no language to that
effect for the Second Deputy. See 26 Op. Atty. Gen., at 629.
Despite finding the result “anomalous,” the Attorney Gen-
eral concluded that the Secretary did “not possess the power
to appoint this Second Deputy.” Ibid.
 Finally, because of the need for vesting to be explicit,
Congress’s choice of words matters. When the First Con-
gress sought to vest the appointment of an inferior officer
in a department head, it usually, if not always, enacted a
provision stating that the head shall “appoint” the officer.
See, e.g., 1 Stat. 29 , 50, 65, 68. Although “appoint” is not
the only verb that Congress can use, see SW General, 580
14 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

U. S., at 313 (THOMAS, J., concurring), this Court has been
reluctant to find a vesting where the statute in question
uses a verb that Congress does not typically employ to con-
fer appointment authority. See Edmond, 520 U. S., at 657
(holding that the power to “assign” military judges is not
the power to “appoint” them, because “Congress has con-
sistently used the word ‘appoint’ ” to vest appointment
power for “military positions”); Weiss v. United States, 510
U. S. 163 , 171–173 (1994) (similar); Auffmordt v. Hedden,
 137 U. S. 310 , 326–327 (1890) (finding no vesting of ap-
pointment authority in part because “[t]he statute does not
use the word ‘appoint,’ but uses the word ‘select’ ”).
 The Appointments Clause’s default of appointment by the
President with Senate confirmation can lead to inefficient
and sometimes “anomalous” results. See 26 Op. Atty. Gen.,
at 629. But, it is our job to enforce it. “We cannot cast aside
the separation of powers and the Appointments Clause’s
important check on executive power for the sake of admin-
istrative convenience or efficiency.” SW General, Inc., 580
U. S., at 317 (THOMAS, J., concurring).
 B
 The Government’s theory is that Congress vested the ap-
pointment of the Task Force in the Secretary through a
combination of two statutes. First, it reads the AHRQ Di-
rector’s power to “convene” the Task Force under 42 U. S. C.
§299b–4(a)(1) to include the power to appoint its members.
Second, it asserts that the Reorganization Plan transfers
the “functions” of the Director, including the power to ap-
point, to the Secretary of HHS. §1(a), 80 Stat. 1610 . Nei-
ther premise is correct.
 1
 The Director’s power to “convene” the Task Force does not
include the power to appoint its members. This premise
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 15

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

conflicts with both ordinary meaning and the canon of con-
stitutional avoidance.
 To “convene” a group means “to cause” it “to assemble.”
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 272 (11th ed.
2005); accord, American Heritage Dictionary 400 (4th ed.
2000) (“[t]o cause to come together formally”); Black’s Law
Dictionary 380 (9th ed. 2009) (“[t]o call together; to cause to
assemble”); New Oxford American Dictionary 379 (3d ed.
2010) (“bring together for a meeting or activity; assemble”).
That task is different from selecting the membership of the
group. The President “may, on extraordinary Occasions,
convene both Houses” of Congress. U. S. Const., Art. II, §3.
That provision means that he can make Congress meet, not
that he can appoint Senators and Representatives. Like-
wise, if someone says that the President “convened” his
Cabinet last Thursday, that statement means that the
President held a meeting with the Cabinet members on that
day, not that he appointed the Cabinet members. The Di-
rector’s power to convene the Task Force thus cannot be the
explicit grant of appointment power needed to displace the
default established by the Appointments Clause.
 Context supports giving “convene” its ordinary meaning.
Task Force members are unpaid, part-time volunteers, who
ordinarily meet three times a year. 89 Fed. Reg. 101606
(2024). To facilitate these volunteer meetings, Congress di-
rected that AHRQ “shall provide ongoing administrative,
research, and technical support for the operations of the
Task Force.” 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(3). Part of that support
naturally includes determining when, where, and how the
Task Force will meet—i.e., convening it. Using the ordinary
definition of “convene” therefore makes sense in the context
of §299b–4(a)(1); there is no need to stretch the term to
mean “appoint.”
 The remainder of the Public Health Service Act, in which
AHRQ’s governing statutes are housed, reinforces that the
power to “convene” is not the power to appoint. The Act
16 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

repeatedly provides for the appointment of inferior officers
simply by stating that the Secretary shall “appoint” them.
See, e.g., §§237(b), 242k(a), 247d–7e(c)(3), 284(a)(1),
286a(a)(1)(A), 299(a), 300cc–40(a), 300hh–15(a), 300u–7(a).
In contrast, neither the Government nor the majority can
identify a single other instance where the Act uses “con-
vene” to vest the appointment of an inferior officer. Since
Congress generally chose to track the language of the Ap-
pointments Clause when vesting appointment power in the
Act, we should not expect the term “convene” to do so. See
Edmond, 520 U. S., at 657 ; Auffmordt, 137 U. S., at 327 .
 The Government’s reading of “convene” is even more im-
plausible in the context of its theory that Congress meant
to vest the Secretary with the appointment power by giving
the Director the power to convene. We presume that Con-
gress “generally employ[s] the words which most directly
and aptly express the ideas [it] intend[s] to convey.” Gib-
bons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat. 1, 188 (1824). Had Congress meant
to confer the appointment power on the Secretary, surely it
would have just done so directly—as it did in many other
provisions of the Public Health Service Act. Supra, at 15
and this page. The implausibility of Congress vesting ap-
pointment authority in this oblique way—something it ap-
parently has nowhere else done—makes it all the less likely
that Congress meant “appoint” when it said “convene.”
 Were there any doubt, the canon of constitutional avoid-
ance makes clear that the power to “convene” does not in-
clude the power to appoint. A statute vesting the appoint-
ment power in the Director, who is not a department head,
would be “clearly unconstitutional.” Edmond, 520 U. S., at
658 . We must therefore read §299b–4(a)(1) not to confer
appointment authority if it is “fairly possible” to do so. Jin
Fuey Moy, 241 U. S., at 401 . And, of course, it is “fairly pos-
sible” to read “convene,” whose core meaning is simply to
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 17

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

cause to assemble, not to encompass appointment. See su-
pra, at 15.6 Because we can avoid reading §299b–4(a)(1) to
vest appointment power in the AHRQ Director, we must.
 2
 Even if Congress unconstitutionally vested appointment
power in the Director, the Reorganization Plan does not
transfer that power to the HHS Secretary. The Plan “trans-
fer[s]” “all functions” of the “officers and employees of the
Public Health Service”—including the AHRQ Director—“to
the Secretary.” §1(a), 80 Stat. 1610 . But, for four reasons,
the power to appoint the Task Force cannot be a “function”
transferred by the Plan.
 First, the Reorganization Plan does not apply to functions
that did not exist when the Plan was issued in 1966. This
conclusion follows from the legal backdrop surrounding the
Reorganization Plan’s issuance. The Plan was originally a
Presidential directive, not a statute. The Reorganization
Act authorized the President to submit to Congress reor-
ganization plans for executive departments. If neither
House of Congress objected within 60 days, a plan acquired
the force of law. 5 U. S. C. §906 (a) (1964 ed., Supp. II).
President Johnson submitted a Reorganization Plan for the
Public Health Service under this procedure in 1966. 80
Stat. 1610 . Following INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983),
which held that single-House vetoes of agency action are
unconstitutional, Congress in 1984 enacted a statute that
——————
 6 The Government and the majority both agree that “ ‘convene’

doesn’t necessarily connote appointment.” Tr. of Oral. Arg. 6; see
ante, at 30. The most recent version of the Task Force’s Procedure
Manual even says that “AHRQ convenes the Task Force,” while “the
Secretary of HHS selects new members” to serve on it—thereby recog-
nizing the distinction between convening and appointing. U. S. Preven-
tive Services Task Force, Procedure Manual §§1.5.1, 1.9 (Apr. 2023),
https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/about-
uspstf/methods-and-processes/procedure-manual/procedure-manual-
section-1.
18 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

“ratifies and affirms as law” all previously implemented re-
organization plans. 98 Stat. 2705 .
 The Reorganization Act prohibited plans from “authoriz-
ing an agency”—which includes the Secretary—“to exercise
a function which is not expressly authorized by law at the
time the plan is transmitted to Congress.” §905(a)(4) (em-
phasis added); see §902(1)(B) (defining “agency” to include
an “officer . . . in or under an Executive agency”).
 The Reorganization Plan must be read in harmony with
this limit. We must assume, given the overlap in terminol-
ogy, that the “transfe[r]” of “functions” effected by the Plan
has the same scope as the “transfer” of “functions” author-
ized by the Act. Reorganization Plan §1(a); 5 U. S. C.
§903 (a)(1) (1964 ed., Supp. II); see George v. McDonough,
 596 U. S. 740 , 746 (2022) (Where a legal text employs a
term “obviously transplanted from another legal source, it
brings the old soil with it” (internal quotation marks omit-
ted)). We must likewise presume that President Johnson
did not mean to exceed the limits on his authority imposed
by the Reorganization Act. See Scalia & Garner 66 (“An
interpretation that validates outweighs one that invali-
dates” (boldface deleted)). Accordingly, the term “func-
tions” in the Plan must have, at most, the same meaning as
it does in the Act. See Reorganization Plan §1(a); 5 U. S. C.
§903 (a)(1) (1964 ed., Supp. II). The Plan thus cannot trans-
fer “functions” that did not exist in 1966, such as the AHRQ
Director’s duty to convene the Task Force.
 Second, the Reorganization Act prevents us from reading
“functions” to encompass the authority to appoint officers.
Separately from its authorization of a “transfer” of “func-
tions,” §903(a)(1), the Act states that a plan may “provide
for the appointment and pay of the head and one or more
officers of an agency . . . if the President finds, and in his
message transmitting the plan declares, that by reason of a
reorganization made by the plan the provisions are neces-
sary.” §904(2). And, “if the appointment is not to a position
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 19

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

in the competitive service, it shall be by the President, by
and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Ibid. The
Act thus distinguishes between a transfer of functions and
a conferral of appointment authority, with special proce-
dural requirements imposed on the latter.
 Here, the Plan provides only for a transfer of functions.
See §1(a). It therefore cannot be read to authorize the ap-
pointment of officers. Cf., e.g., Reorganization Plan No. 3 of
1949, 63 Stat. 1066 (transferring functions and providing
for the appointment of inferior officers in distinct sections).
Further, President Johnson’s transmittal message made
none of the findings needed to provide for appointment au-
thority. See Public Papers of the Presidents, Lyndon B.
Johnson, Vol. 1, Apr. 25, 1966, pp. 453–456 (1967). Nor, in
any event, could the transmittal message have provided for
the appointment of the Task Force, which did not exist in
1966. Finally, even if the Reorganization Plan had provided
for the appointment of officers, it could not have authorized
the Secretary to appoint them, because the Reorganization
Act required all non-civil-service officer positions provided
for in reorganization plans to be appointed by the President
with Senate confirmation. §904(2). Reading the Plan to
transfer appointment authority would thus flout the Act.
 Third, the appointment of the Task Force cannot be a
“function” of the AHRQ Director because the Director can-
not validly appoint its members under the Appointments
Clause. The term “functions” in the Reorganization Act and
Plan is ambiguous. It could refer either to whatever “func-
tions” an officer is nominally authorized to perform by stat-
ute, or it could refer solely to those “functions” that he may
perform “when all applicable law”—including the Constitu-
tion—“is taken into account.” United States v. Briggs, 592
U. S. 69 , 71 (2020) (observing that the same ambiguity
arises when a statute refers to crimes “ ‘punishable by
death’ ”). “[C]ontext is determinative” in resolving this am-
biguity. Id., at 73.
20 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 Here, the purpose of a “reorganization” plan is to “give a
definite and orderly structure to” a department’s existing
functions, not to create new functions that a department
cannot otherwise lawfully perform. Oxford English Diction-
ary 923–924 (2d ed. 1989) (defining “organize”). A plan may
not, “under the guise of consolidating and rearranging, . . .
creat[e] authority in the Executive Branch which had not
existed before.” Dept. of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel,
Memorandum of William H. Rehnquist, Assistant Atty.
Gen. (Sept. 11, 1969), in Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1969
(ICC): Hearing before the Subcommittee on Executive Re-
organization of the Senate Committee on Government Op-
erations, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 29 (1969) (Rehnquist Mem-
orandum). Yet, that is precisely what the Government’s
reading accomplishes, since, without the Reorganization
Plan, the Executive has no power to appoint the Task Force
outside the gauntlet of Senate confirmation.
 Finally, reading the Plan to transfer appointment au-
thority creates constitutional problems. If the Reorganiza-
tion Act authorized the President to make such a transfer,
it would be unconstitutional. Only “Congress” can vest the
appointment of inferior officers in a department head, and
it must do so “by Law.” Art. II, §2, cl. 2. But, the President
is not Congress, and an executive edict is not a “Law.” See
Lucia, 585 U. S., at 254 (THOMAS, J., concurring); Maurice,
 26 F. Cas., at 1213 . Additionally, §2 of the Plan permits the
Secretary to “authoriz[e] the performance of any of the func-
tions transferred to him by the provisions of this reorgani-
zation plan by any officer” of the Public Health Service or
HHS at large. The Secretary, however, is the sole head of
HHS. He therefore cannot constitutionally authorize any
other officer to perform the function of appointing the Task
Force. Constitutional avoidance again requires us to reject
the Government’s reading.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 21

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 C
 The majority embraces both steps of the Government’s
argument, but its reasoning is unpersuasive.
 1
 The majority follows the Government in reading “con-
vene” to mean “appoint.” Ordinary meaning and the con-
stitutional-avoidance canon again foreclose this approach.
 a
 The majority finds appointment power in the Director’s
duty to “convene” only by applying the wrong standard.
The majority acknowledges that the term “convene” “could
mean to merely ‘call together’ or ‘assemble.’ ” Ante, at 30.
But, it asserts that, in the absence of a separate, explicit
“provision specifying who is to appoint the individuals to be
called together or assembled,” it is reasonable to infer that
“the person with the power to convene is also the person
with the power to appoint.” Ibid. There is, however, a sep-
arate provision—the Appointments Clause, which specifi-
cally addresses how all inferior officers are to be appointed.
Its default rule controls absent an “express enactment to
the contrary.” 6 Op. Atty. Gen., at 1. By definition, an in-
terpretation that relies on an inference from the absence of
a separate appointment provision cannot “expressly” over-
come the default. Contra, ante, at 28, 36, 40.
 The same problem plagues the majority’s examples of
Congress purportedly using “the term ‘convene’ to authorize
an official to both assemble a body and select its members.”
Ante, at 30. To begin, it begs the question to list a handful
of statutes that use the term “convene” and then simply de-
clare that they confer appointment authority because the
statutes do not elsewhere specifically address appoint-
ments. That assumption does not follow. Take the major-
ity’s lead example, the convening of military commissions
under 10 U. S. C. §948h. The Secretary of Defense has no
22 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

need to divine implicit authority to name military commis-
sion members from his authority to “conven[e]” them, be-
cause, as the majority admits, a neighboring provision
states that the Secretary “shall detail” certain “commis-
sioned officer[s] of the armed forces” to serve on military
commissions. §§948i(a), (b); see ante, at 30.
 But, even granting the majority’s premise that these stat-
utes implicitly confer member-selection authority through
the power to “convene,” the statutes are inapposite because
none involves the appointment of officers. To return to
§948h, “detailing” already commissioned military officers to
serve on a military tribunal is not an appointment to office
under the Appointments Clause; it is simply the conferral
of additional related duties on an officer who has already
been appointed pursuant to the Clause. See Weiss, 510
U. S., at 172–176. That is why the Secretary can delegate
detailing authority to an inferior “officer or official of the
United States,” which he could not do if naming commission
members constituted an appointment. See §§948h, 948i(b).
The majority’s other examples similarly involve statutes
giving related duties to already commissioned officers.7
 The majority’s examples therefore tell us nothing about
whether the term “convene” confers appointment authority
explicitly enough to overcome the constitutional default. Of
course, outside the appointments context, authority to “con-
vene” a group can imply authority to select its members. If
a group does not already exist, and no other provision ad-
dresses how the group’s members are named because the
Appointments Clause does not apply, an officer may be able
to “convene” the group only if he first names its members.
——————
 7 See §§14903(a), 14906 (providing that a “board of inquiry” be made

up of “officers” holding “a grade above major or lieutenant commander”);
 14 U. S. C. §3703 (a) (providing for a “Coast Guard Reserve Policy Board”
made up of active-duty and reserve officers of the Coast Guard); 33
U. S. C. §3022 (a) (providing for a “personnel board” comprising “officers
. . . in . . . or above” a certain “grade”).
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 23

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

In that case, the predicate-act canon would justify inferring
naming authority. See Scalia & Garner 192 (“Authoriza-
tion of an act also authorizes a necessary predicate act”
(boldface deleted)). But, that canon cannot apply when the
Appointments Clause provides the default rule for naming
a group’s members: “ ‘[W]here the means for the exercise of
a granted power are given, no other or different means can
be implied.’ ” Id., at 193. Hence, the majority can produce
no examples where Congress has used “convene” to confer
appointment authority.
 For the same reason, the majority errs in emphasizing
AHRQ’s power to convene Task Force members when Con-
gress first codified its relationship to the Task Force in
1999. At that point, the Task Force was a purely advisory,
nonofficer body that disbanded upon issuing its recommen-
dations. See App. 37–38 (noting that the Task Force be-
came a permanent body with staggered appointments in
2001). It may have been fair then to infer a power to ap-
point Task Force members from the power to “convene”
them. But, when a statutory term draws a particular mean-
ing from its context, that meaning “may change in light of
a subsequent enactment” that alters the context. Scalia &
Garner 254–255. So it goes for the Task Force after the
ACA: With that 2010 legislation, Congress converted the
Task Force into an “independent” standing body of officers
with a detailed list of duties and the authority to issue rec-
ommendations with the force of law. See 42 U. S. C. §299b–
4(a).8 That change brought the Appointments Clause into
the picture, and its default mode of appointment displaced
any appointment authority that might otherwise have been

——————
 8 For this reason, the majority is wrong to assert that “the relevant

statutory text did not change in 2010.” Ante, at 37. As the majority
recognizes, the meaning of “convene” in §299b–4(a)(1) depends on its
“context,” ante, at 29–30, and that context changed dramatically with the
enactment of the ACA.
24 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

implicit in the Director’s power to “convene.”9
 The majority likewise cannot explain why Congress
would vest appointment authority using the term “convene”
when it consistently uses “appoint” in other provisions of
the Public Health Service Act. Supra, at 15–16. True, the
Appointments Clause does not impose a “magic words” re-
quirement to vest appointment authority, ante, at 29, but it
is uncontroversial that “different terms” in a statutory
scheme “usually have different meanings” Pulsifer v.
United States, 601 U. S. 124, 149 (2024) (citing Scalia &
Garner 170–171). As our precedents have repeatedly rec-
ognized, if Congress generally uses the term “appoint” to
vest appointment authority within a particular statutory
scheme, we should be more reluctant to find an express
vesting of appointment authority in a provision that uses a
different term. See Edmond, 520 U. S., at 657 ; Weiss, 510
U. S., at 171–172; Auffmordt, 137 U. S., at 326–327.10
——————
 9 The intervening passage of the ACA also makes the majority’s ap-

peals to “consistent Executive Branch practice” fall flat. Ante, at 31 (cit-
ing Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U. S. 369, 394 (2024)).
The Government concedes that its practice from 2010 until its appeal in
this suit was for the AHRQ Director to appoint Task Force members in-
validly, based on the mistaken view that the members were not officers.
See Brief for Federal Defendants in Braidwood Mgmt., Inc., No. 23–
10326 (CA5), ECF Doc. 159, pp. 31, n. 2, 41. The practice thus sheds no
light on whether the Director’s convening power constitutes an express
vesting of appointment authority that overcomes the constitutional de-
fault. And, surely this Court did not overrule Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v.
Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), only to
defer to concededly unlawful executive action.
 10 As the majority notes, ante, at 29, I have previously found that the

President’s power to “direct” an official to “perform the functions and du-
ties of ” an “office temporarily” under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act
of 1998 (FVRA) is a vesting of appointment authority. 5 U. S. C.
§§3345 (a)(2), (3); see SW General, 580 U. S., at 312–313 (concurring opin-
ion). But, there, context made unmistakably clear that the President’s
power to “direct” was a power to appoint. Section 3345(a) obviously con-
cerns appointment because the sole subject matter of the FVRA is the
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 25

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 Nor can the majority make sense of why Congress would
choose to vest appointment power in the Director, only so
that it could be transferred to the Secretary. The best ex-
planation the majority can give is that “it is no surprise that
the 1999 statute did not expressly name the Secretary” as
the Task Force’s appointing officer, because “the Appoint-
ments Clause question arose only in 2010.” Ante, at 34.
But, it is a surprise on the majority’s view that Congress
did not name the Secretary in 2010—when Congress
“str[uck]” out the 1999 version of §299b–4(a) and replaced
it with a new and much altered version. 124 Stat. 541–542.
Congress even made significant changes to the very clause
granting the Director convening authority. Compare 113
Stat. 1659 (“ ‘The Director may periodically convene a Pre-
ventive Services Task Force . . . ’ ”) with 124 Stat. 541 (“The
Director shall convene an independent Preventive Services
Task Force . . . ’ ”). Congress thus made a conscious choice
to keep convening authority with the Director.
 Tellingly, the majority struggles to find any precedent for
the oblique, two-step theory of vesting that it endorses. The
best analogy it can muster is Hartwell. There, this Court
concluded that Congress had validly vested appointment
authority in a department head where the statute allowed
an assistant treasurer to name clerks with the “approba-
tion” of the Secretary of the Treasury. 6 Wall., at 393 ; see
ante, at 34–35. But, the statute at issue envisioned the two
officers working together in a coherent way. For conven-
ience’s sake, the more junior officer identified the clerks to
be hired. Then, to satisfy the Appointments Clause, the

——————
filling of vacant offices. Congress enacted the provision in a section titled
“Federal Vacancies and Appointments.” Pub. L. 105–277, §151, 112 Stat.
2681–611. And, the provision would be meaningless if it did not author-
ize the President to fill an office. In contrast, §299b–4(a)(1) has a per-
fectly sensible meaning if the Director’s power to convene does not in-
clude the power to appoint. Supra, at 15.
26 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

Secretary gave his personal approval before the appoint-
ment took effect. Here, on the Government’s account, the
Director has no formal role in the appointment process: The
entirety of the Director’s power to convene is transferred to
the Secretary, and the Secretary is free to exercise it with-
out any input from the Director. See ante, at 33. In other
words, according to the Government, when Congress in
2010 provided that “[ t]he Director shall convene [the] Task
Force,” the statute would have had the same legal effect if
it had said, “the Secretary (and not the Director) shall con-
vene the Task Force.” See §299b–4(a)(1). A far simpler ex-
planation is that Congress did not mean to vest appoint-
ment authority when it granted authority to “convene.”11
 b
 Even if the majority had the better reading of “convene,”
it would still be fairly possible to read the term to mean only
“to assemble.” The canon of constitutional avoidance there-
fore forecloses the majority’s interpretation.
 The majority does not suggest that its reading would pre-
vail if the constitutional-avoidance canon applies. It in-
stead concludes that there is no constitutional problem to
avoid, because the Reorganization Plan “transfer[s] all au-
thority of the AHRQ Director to the Secretary.” Ante, at 32.
 According to the majority, the Reorganization Plan is a
mechanism that siphons away any authority granted to the
AHRQ Director and automatically redirects it upward to
——————
 11 The majority also seeks support from Edmond v. United States, 520

U. S. 651 (1997), another case in which the Department’s Secretary “had
not historically appointed” the officers at issue. Ante, at 42. But, the
statute that the Secretary invoked provided that “[t]he Secretary of
Transportation may appoint . . . officers . . . of the Department of Trans-
portation,” including the Coast Guard judges involved in the case. 49
U. S. C. §323 (a); see 520 U. S., at 656 . The vesting of appointment au-
thority could not have been more explicit. There was no need to string
together two ambiguous statutes enacted decades apart to find that Con-
gress had departed from the constitutional default.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 27

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

the Secretary. The AHRQ Director may then exercise only
those powers that the Secretary “delegate[s]” to him, ante,
at 33, n. 6—even if a later statute vests those powers with
the AHRQ Director directly. This reallocation of the Direc-
tor’s powers guarantees that, no matter how clearly Con-
gress vests the Director with authority, the Director never-
theless remains an empty husk with no powers other than
what the Secretary returns to him. Thus, according to the
majority, when Congress provided that “[t]he Director shall
convene” the Task Force, what it really meant was, again,
that “the Secretary (and not the Director) shall convene” the
Task Force. This reading of the Reorganization Plan is in-
correct. But, even if it were right, it would still leave a con-
stitutional problem.
 The simplest response to the majority is that the Reor-
ganization Plan does not in fact transfer any appointment
power that the AHRQ Director may have, for the reasons I
have explained. See supra, at 17–20. But, even if the Re-
organization Plan vested the Director’s convening authority
in the Secretary, it would not follow that the Director auto-
matically loses that authority. It is the norm in the Execu-
tive Branch for subordinates and superiors to possess, in a
sense, the same power. By virtue of the Vesting Clause of
Article II, all executive power ultimately belongs to the
President; to the extent other Executive Branch officials
possess authority, it is only to exercise it “on his behalf.”
Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,
 591 U. S. 197 , 203–204 (2020) (plurality opinion). Congress
frequently recreates this structure in miniature within de-
partments. Several departments, for example, have vesting
clauses conferring all the department’s authority on its sec-
retary, while at the same time other provisions confer spe-
28 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

cific powers and duties on inferior officers within the de-
partment.12 Thus, even if the Reorganization Plan prospec-
tively transfers all authority conferred by later enacted
statutes on officers in the Public Health Service, there is no
reason to think that the Plan meant to depart from the
norm of shared executive power.
 The majority’s empty-husk theory is also hard to square
with Congress’s legislation regarding AHRQ. “ ‘Congress
presumably does not enact useless laws.’ ” Garland v. Car-
gill, 602 U. S. 406, 427 (2024). And, Congress has pains-
takingly defined the powers and responsibilities of the
Agency, and its relationship to other entities in HHS, across
no fewer than 33 U. S. Code provisions. See §§299 to 299c–
7. Congress established AHRQ and provided for all its pow-
ers after the Reorganization Plan. Yet, if the majority is
right, there was no need to structure AHRQ in any detail,
because all the powers conferred on the Agency in fact be-
long to the Secretary alone.
 Not even the majority is willing to follow its interpreta-
tion of the Reorganization Plan to its logical conclusion. Ac-
cording to the majority, the Task Force is a Public Health
Service agency subject to the Reorganization Plan. See
ante, at 14–15, n. 3. Yet, the majority describes the Task
Force as having certain duties conferred by statute, see
ante, at 3–5, and then, in its constitutional analysis, dis-
cusses at length how a “collection of statutes” allows the
Secretary to exercise adequate supervision over the perfor-
mance of those duties, see ante, at 14–18, 20–27. But, this
analysis is all superfluous under the majority’s interpreta-
tion of the Reorganization Plan, wherein all the Task
Force’s nominal powers really belong to the Secretary, who
can exercise them directly or delegate them to any agency

——————
 12 See, e.g., 6 U. S. C. §112 (a)(3) (Department of Homeland Security);

22 U. S. C. §2651a(a)(3)(A) (Department of State); 28 U. S. C. §509 (De-
partment of Justice).
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 29

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

within HHS. On this view, the Task Force can exercise au-
thority only at the sufferance of the HHS Secretary.
 Even accepting the majority’s empty-husk theory, how-
ever, we would still need to apply constitutional avoidance.
If Congress is not utterly irrational, its detailed allocations
of authority to agencies within the Public Health Service in
post-Reorganization Plan statutes must at least carry some
precatory force. In other words, even on the majority’s in-
terpretation of the Reorganization Plan, Congress at least
recommended that the AHRQ Director exercise the power
to convene the Task Force. “Congress is a coequal branch
of government whose Members take the same oath we do to
uphold the Constitution of the United States.” Rostker v.
Goldberg, 453 U. S. 57, 64 (1981). We must therefore pre-
sume that, in all of its “judgments,” even precatory ones, it
means to adhere to the Constitution. Ibid. Thus, even on
the empty-husk view of the Reorganization Plan, we would
still have a duty to avoid reading the power to “convene” as
the power to appoint if fairly possible.
 Finally, the majority suggests that, even if Congress has
“vested appointment authority in both the Secretary and
the AHRQ Director,” that decision raises no “constitutional
concerns so long as the Secretary was the one to actually
make the appointments.” Ante, at 41, n. 7. Not so. When
choosing between possible readings of a statute, we must
adopt the one that will prevent the statute from being un-
constitutional in any respect, even if the statute is constitu-
tional as applied to the case before us. See Clark v. Mar-
tinez, 543 U. S. 371 , 380–383 (2005). And, if the power to
convene includes the power to appoint, then §299b–4(a)(1)
is unconstitutional insofar as it confers authority on the Di-
rector. There is no escaping the canon of constitutional
avoidance, and applying that canon, “convene” clearly can-
not mean “appoint.”
30 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 2
 Even if Congress had vested appointment power in the
Director, the majority is still incorrect to hold that the Re-
organization Plan transfers that power to the Secretary.
 To begin, the power to appoint the Task Force is not a
“function” of the Director because the appointment of an of-
ficer is not a “function” under the Reorganization Act and
because appointment is not a power the Director validly en-
joys. See supra, at 18–20. The majority disregards these
defects in its reading.
 Nor can the majority explain why the Reorganization
Plan extends to later enacted functions. The majority ap-
peals to the Dictionary Act, ante, at 38, but that Act recog-
nizes that “the present tense” does not “include the future”
where “context indicates otherwise.” 1 U. S. C. §1 . Here,
the Reorganization Act supplies critical contrary context by
providing that a reorganization plan cannot “authoriz[e] an
agency to exercise a function which is not expressly author-
ized by law at the time the plan is transmitted to Congress.”
 5 U. S. C. §905 (a)(4) (1964 ed., Supp. II) (emphasis added).
The majority objects that this provision bars the President
from acting, not Congress. Ante, at 38–39. But, while Con-
gress is welcome to confer new powers on the Secretary
whenever it likes, it chose in 42 U. S. C. §299b–4(a)(1) to
confer authority on the Director. The Reorganization Plan
cannot alter that allocation of authority unless the Presi-
dent violated §905(a)(4) by issuing a plan that applies to fu-
ture enactments.13
——————
 13 The majority seeks support from an Office of Legal Counsel memo-

randum authored by the future Chief Justice Rehnquist. Ante, at 38–39.
But, that memorandum merely cautions against an unduly strict reading
of the phrase “ ‘expressly authorized by law.’ ” Rehnquist Memorandum
29. It says nothing about the temporal limit imposed by 5 U. S. C.
§905 (a)(4). The majority also cites 1966 congressional testimony by the
then Secretary stating that the Reorganization Plan would give him “the
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 31

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

 The majority’s concern appears to be that applying
§905(a)(4) as written would produce “untenable—bordering
on absurd—results” by giving the Secretary no control over
post-1966 functions of the Public Health Service. Ante, at
39. That concern is misplaced. As Congress has enacted
new functions for the Public Health Service, it has con-
ferred new grants of supervisory authority to go with them.
When Congress established AHRQ, for instance, it provided
that “[t]he Secretary shall carry out this subchapter acting
through the Director,” thereby giving the Secretary control
over all of AHRQ’s functions. 42 U. S. C. §299 (a). Congress
has also generally provided that “[t]he Public Health Ser-
vice . . . shall be administered by the Assistant Secretary
for Health under the supervision and direction of the Sec-
retary.” §202. Any new enactment concerning the Public
Health Service will therefore fall within the Secretary’s
purview, without any need to rely on the Reorganization
Plan. The real absurdity is to hold, as the majority does,
that Congress can establish an entire agency and set out its
functions in minute detail only for the Reorganization Plan
to automatically deprive the agency of those functions. See
ante, at 33.
 The majority also cannot brush aside the problem that a
presidentially issued reorganization plan is not a “law” that
can confer appointment power. The majority claims that
point is “irrelevant” because Congress made the Plan a law
when it ratified the Plan in 1984. Ante, at 37. But, the 1984
——————
‘flexibility’ ‘to reorganize’ the Service” both in 1966 “and ‘at any future
time.’ ” Ante, at 39. This “legislative history is not the law.” Epic Sys-
tems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U. S. 497 , 523 (2018). And, in any event, the
Secretary never testified that the Reorganization Plan would override
future statutes creating agencies within the Public Health Service or
vesting authority in officers of the Public Health Service. Nor would ap-
plying §905(a)(4) as written prevent the Secretary from restructuring the
powers conferred on him by the Plan at any future time. It would prevent
him only from claiming that later conferred powers fall within the scope
of the Plan.
32 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

Act simply “ratifie[d] and affirme[d]” the Plan as it then ex-
isted. 98 Stat. 2705 . It did not purport to expand the “func-
tions” transferred by the Plan. And, we must presume that
the Plan, when issued, was consistent with both the Reor-
ganization Act and the Constitution. Thus, any reading
that, like the majority’s, would have unnecessarily placed
the Plan in conflict with either of those authorities must be
rejected.
 Finally, the majority mistakenly contends that constitu-
tional avoidance supports its reading of the Reorganization
Plan. Ante, at 41. An essential premise of the majority’s
argument is that Congress has unconstitutionally vested
appointment power in (or, at a minimum, has encouraged
the Secretary to unconstitutionally delegate appointment
power to) the AHRQ Director. Supra, at 16, 29. Reading
the Reorganization Plan to transfer appointment power
does not make that defect disappear. It only creates new
constitutional problems—namely, by authorizing the Secre-
tary to delegate appointment authority to other officers in
HHS and by implying that the Reorganization Act author-
ized the President to vest the appointment of officers. Su-
pra, at 20. The only approach that genuinely avoids a con-
stitutional problem is the one that the majority refuses to
entertain: reading the Director’s convening power not to en-
compass the power to appoint.
 IV
 The majority’s erroneous statutory holding may save the
Secretary’s midappeal claim of authority, but it makes hash
of Congress’s design. Congress established the Task Force
to be an independent agency that answers directly to the
President. By misinterpreting the statute, the Court recon-
figures the Task Force to be subordinate to the Secretary of
HHS.
 Because the majority concludes that Congress has vested
the appointment power for the Task Force in the Secretary,
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 33

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

it must also consider whether the Task Force’s members are
principal or inferior officers under the Appointments
Clause. The majority holds that they are inferior because
(1) the Secretary can remove Task Force members at will,
and (2) the Secretary can directly review and block the Task
Force’s recommendations. Ante, at 10. But, the majority’s
statutory error infects its reasoning on both points.
 As I have noted, the power to remove follows the power
to appoint. Supra, at 9. The majority’s sole basis for finding
that the Secretary can remove Task Force members is its
erroneous statutory holding. See ante, at 11–12.
 The majority’s threshold error likewise leads it to read in
a power of direct supervision that would not otherwise ex-
ist. Because, on the majority’s view, the Task Force’s con-
stitutionality turns on whether it is subordinate to the Sec-
retary, it must find that the Secretary has control over the
Task Force if it fairly can. See supra, at 9. But, viewing
the question as one of pure statutory interpretation, it is
clear that Congress did not mean for the Secretary to exer-
cise control over the Task Force’s recommendations.
 The majority relies on 42 U. S. C. §202 and the Reorgan-
ization Plan to find that the Secretary has “general super-
visory authority” over the Task Force (although, again,
there would be no reason to discuss any other statute if the
majority took seriously its own interpretation of the Reor-
ganization Plan). Ante, at 14. The former provides that the
Public Health Service “shall be administered . . . under the
supervision and direction of the Secretary,” §202, and the
latter that the Secretary may perform “all functions of the
Public Health Service,” Reorganization Plan §1(a). A key
premise of the majority’s analysis is thus that the Task
Force is part of the Public Health Service.
 By statute, the Public Health Service “shall consist of ”
AHRQ and four other agencies not relevant here. 42
U. S. C. §203 . Thus, the only way to conclude that the Task
Force is part of the Public Health Service is to find that it
34 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

is part of AHRQ. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 33–34.
 The Task Force is not part of AHRQ. Section 299b–
4(a)(1) provides that the AHRQ Director shall convene an
“independent Preventive Services Task Force.” (Emphasis
added.) When modifying a federal agency, the term “inde-
pendent” often means “not part of and . . . therefore inde-
pendent of any other unit of the Federal Government.” Col-
lins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. 220 , 248 (2021); see, e.g., Harrow v.
Department of Defense, 601 U. S. 480, 482 (2024); Federal
Election Comm’n v. Beaumont, 539 U. S. 146, 149 (2003); J.
Selin & D. Lewis, Administrative Conference of the United
States, Sourcebook of United States Executive Agencies 17–
18 (2d ed. 2018). That subsection (a)(1) uses “independent”
in this sense is clear from its contrast with subsection (b)(1),
which “establishe[s] within the Agency [i.e., AHRQ] a Cen-
ter for Primary Care Research.” (Emphasis added.) Fur-
ther, subsection (a)(3), entitled “Role of Agency,” provides
that “[t]he Agency shall provide ongoing administrative, re-
search, and technical support for the operations of the Task
Force.” If the Task Force were part of AHRQ, presumably
all of subsection (a), and not simply subsection (a)(3), would
describe the Agency’s role. And, it is awkward to refer to
an agency as “provid[ing] support for” a part of itself. Fi-
nally, subsection (a)(6) provides that the members of the
Task Force and their recommendations “shall be independ-
ent and, to the extent practicable, not subject to political
pressure.” This language implies that the Task Force is not
subject to supervision beyond the supervisory authority
that the President holds over all executive officers under
Article II.
 It is not difficult to see why Congress might have wanted
to make the Task Force independent of the HHS Secretary.
Congress presumably thought that the “individuals with
appropriate expertise” who serve on the Task Force would
be better positioned than the Secretary to determine “the
effectiveness, appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 35

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

clinical preventive services” by the standards of “scientific
evidence.” §299b–4(a)(1). Congress’s choice to make the
Task Force answer directly to the President thus likely re-
flects an important policy judgment.
 Before adopting its new theory on appeal, the Govern-
ment had consistently understood the Task Force to be in-
dependent of AHRQ and HHS. Task Force recommenda-
tions, which are published by AHRQ, contain the disclaimer
that the Task Force’s views are not “an official position of
AHRQ or the U. S. Department of Health and Human Ser-
vices.” U. S. Preventive Services Task Force, The Guide to
Clinical Preventive Services (2014). AHRQ’s website ex-
plains that, “[w]hile AHRQ staff supports the Task Force,
. . . the Task Force is an independent body, and its work
does not require AHRQ or HHS approval.”14 And, in this
very suit, the Government initially asserted that the Task
Force “is not part of ” AHRQ, and characterized the Task
Force as “an independent body of medical experts” acting
“independently for [its] own purposes.” ECF Doc. 64, at 51–
52, and n. 27.
 The majority maintains that the Task Force is part of the
Public Health Service because it is “ ‘convened’ ” and “ ‘sup-
ported by the Public Health Service.’ ” Ante, at 16, n. 5.
Congress has told us, however, that the Task Force is part
of the Public Health Service only if it is part of AHRQ. See
 42 U. S. C. §203 . That “ ‘explicit definition’ ” must “ ‘con-
trol’ ” our analysis. Burgess v. United States, 553 U. S. 124 ,
129–130 (2008). Neither consideration that the majority
raises speaks to the dispositive issue whether the Task
Force is part of AHRQ.15 Perhaps the analysis would be
——————
 14 U. S. Preventive Services Task Force (Sept. 2024), https://www.ahrq.

gov/cpi/about/otherwebsites/uspstf/index.html.
 15 The majority also claims that the Task Force is part of the Public

Health Service because the Public Health Service “ ‘select[s]’ ” and “ ‘su-
pervise[s]’ ” it. Ante, at 16, n. 5. Both assertions are false. First, as I
36 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

different if the only alternative were to deem the Task Force
unconstitutionally structured. But, looking simply to the
best meaning of the language Congress enacted, it is clear
that the Task Force is not part of AHRQ or the Public
Health Service more broadly, and thus that it is not subject
to meaningful supervision by the Secretary.16
 The majority protests that we should not lightly conclude
that Congress created a “powerful independent agency”
——————
have explained, no statute vests the appointment of the Task Force’s
members in the Secretary or any other officer of the Public Health Ser-
vice. The majority’s reliance on this supposed fact further underscores
that its threshold statutory error infects its supervision analysis. Sec-
ond, it begs the question to argue that the Task Force is part of the Public
Health Service because the Public Health Service supervises it. We can-
not know whether the Public Health Service has legal authority to su-
pervise the Task Force unless we first determine that the Task Force is
part of the Public Health Service. See 42 U. S. C. §202 ; Reorganization
Plan §1(a). And, as a matter of historical fact, from 2010 until the start
of this suit, the Public Health Service has not purported to supervise the
Task Force. See supra, at 35.
 The majority further errs in claiming that the challengers concede that
the Task Force is part of the Public Health Service. Ante, at 16, n. 5. The
challengers concede only that the Task Force was “an advisory commit-
tee within the Public Health Service” when it “was first created in 1984.”
Supp. Brief for Respondents 1. They maintain that the ACA elevated the
Task Force to the status of “an independent agency.” Brief for Respond-
ents 53.
 16 The majority also invokes 42 U. S. C. §§300gg–13 and 300gg–92.

The former provision requires the Secretary to impose a minimum inter-
val of at least one year before the Task Force’s recommendations become
legally binding. §300gg–13(b). The latter provision gives the Secretary
authority to issue regulations “to carry out the provisions of th[e] sub-
chapter” containing §300gg–13. The majority concludes that these pro-
visions—when combined with the Secretary’s purported power to remove
the Task Force’s members and to supervise them under §202 and the
Reorganization Plan—empower him to control the content of the Task
Force’s recommendations. Ante, at 12–13, 15. Without those additional
sources of supervisory power, §§300gg–13 and 300gg–92 are best read to
give the Secretary power to determine only when insurers can be ex-
pected to come into compliance with the Task Force’s recommendations,
not to control the substance of those recommendations.
 Cite as: 606 U. S. ____ (2025) 37

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

with “unchecked power in making preventive-services rec-
ommendations of great consequence” for the public. Ante,
at 26. This rhetoric is entirely out of place. Even if the Task
Force is independent of the Secretary, it is still subordinate
to the President, which is all that matters from a constitu-
tional standpoint. The President can remove Task Force
members at will. Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 , 163–
164 (1926). And, the Vesting Clause may also empower the
President to “issue binding orders” to the Task Force and
“nullify” its decisions. S. Calabresi & S. Prakash, The Pres-
ident’s Power To Execute the Laws, 104 Yale L. J. 541, 584,
596 (1994). Nor need an agency be especially “powerful,”
ante, at 26, to be independent. The Railroad Retirement
Board, Peace Corps, and Chemical Safety and Hazard In-
vestigation Board, for example, are all independent agen-
cies despite having relatively narrow authority. See 22
U. S. C. §2503 ; 42 U. S. C. §7412 (r)(6); 45 U. S. C. §231f.
 Even more curiously, the majority professes reluctance to
find that an agency is independent absent language “explic-
itly conferring for-cause removal protection on the agency’s
leadership” and “an express statement that those agency
heads shall be nominated by the President and confirmed
by the Senate.” Ante, at 27. It is unconstitutional for any
agency head wielding “significant executive power” to be re-
movable only for cause. Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 220; ac-
cord, Trump v. Wilcox, 605 U. S. ___ (2025). But, Congress
is free to create independent agencies subject to Presiden-
tial control if it wishes. We therefore have no business say-
ing that we will not recognize an agency as independent un-
less Congress also tacks on removal restrictions. In fact,
“Congress has described many agencies as ‘independent’
without imposing any restriction on the President’s power
to remove the agency’s leadership.” Collins, 494 U. S., at
249 (collecting examples). Likewise, to presume appoint-
ment by a department head absent explicit statutory lan-
38 KENNEDY v. BRAIDWOOD MANAGEMENT, INC.

 THOMAS, J., dissenting

guage to the contrary inverts the default mode of appoint-
ment established by the Appointments Clause.
 In sum, Congress enacted a constitutional, independent
Task Force subject to the President’s control but not to the
control of the Secretary of HHS. To save the Task Force
from its threshold error, the majority alters Congress’s le-
gitimate design.
 * * *
 Under our Constitution, appointment by the President
with Senate confirmation is the rule. Appointment by a de-
partment head is an exception that Congress must con-
sciously choose to adopt. The Framers established this rule
to ensure that the President is accountable for the selection
of officers in the Executive Branch. And, it is the law,
whether we agree with it or not. Had the Court taken seri-
ously this rule, it would not have rushed to rule on the Gov-
ernment’s new theory, much less adopted it. I respectfully
dissent.