HR2846-119

What This Bill Does

H.R.2846 adds chapter40, Leave, of title10 to the list in section221(a) of the Public Health Service Act. That existing provision gives Public Health Service commissioned officers and their surviving beneficiaries the listed rights and benefits now or later provided to Army commissioned officers or their surviving beneficiaries. The bill also repeals section219, the separate Public Health Service annual- and sick-leave statute. This is incorporation of a whole leave framework, not just one new category of parental leave.

The House passed the bill on September15,2026, and it was placed on the Senate calendar on September16. The introduced, reported, House-passed and Senate-calendar texts have the same substantive provisions. A stored version difference reflects extraction order around the quoted new paragraph, not a policy change. The measure remains pending, with no new appropriation or special effective-date clause.

Who Benefits and How

Public Health Service commissioned officers would gain an explicit statutory link to Army chapter40 leave rights, including qualifying parental, convalescent and bereavement leave. Their families may benefit from officers being available for caregiving or recovery. The current military framework generally accrues leave at2.5 calendar days per month of active service; qualifying parental leave can reach12 weeks, and bereavement leave can reach two weeks subject to conditions and leave-balance charging rules. These examples are existing rules incorporated by reference, not new quantities written into H.R.2846.

Existing Public Health Service policy already provides12 weeks of parental leave for qualifying birth, adoption and long-term foster placement. The bill therefore should not be described as creating the first paid parental leave for these officers. Its structural benefit is statutory alignment, including future covered Army leave changes, subject to the relevant service, eligibility and authorization requirements. It does not give every civilian HHS employee military leave rights.

Who Bears the Burden and How

Implementation would require HHS leave administrators and agencies hosting commissioned officers to align personnel rules, systems, approvals and staffing coverage with chapter40. Under the unchanged parity statute, the Secretary of Health and Human Services or a designee exercises the corresponding military-department authorities for these officers. This is not a transfer of the Corps to the Army or a new general Defense Department supervisory power.

The replacement also carries limits. The repealed Public Health Service statute permits regulations allowing up to120 days of accumulated annual leave. The military statute generally limits accumulation to60 days, with specified exceptions, including certain authorized excess leave. Officers holding large balances therefore face a potential tighter carryover regime. The bill contains no express grandfathering or conversion rule for those balances; this analysis does not claim that any particular officer immediately forfeits a calculated number of days. Chapter40 also limits unauthorized leave categories and subjects leave use to applicable regulations and operational requirements. The bill is consequently not an unconditional increase in every officer's leave allowance.

Key Provisions

• Adds title10 chapter40 to the existing Public Health Service statutory list of Army-equivalent rights and benefits.
• Repeals section219 and replaces its separate annual- and sick-leave authority with the incorporated framework, including its conditions and accumulation limits.
• Uses existing HHS authority to administer the incorporated benefits, without appropriating funds or expressly protecting existing leave balances.