825.1 Purpose and scope

(a) Section 202 of the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA) (2 U.S.C. 1312) applies the rights and protections of sections 101 through 105 of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) (29 U.S.C. 2611-2615) to covered employees. (The term “covered employee” is defined in section 101(3) of the CAA (2 U.S.C. 1301(3)). See Sec. 825.800 of these regulations for that definition.) The purpose of this part is to set forth the regulations to carry out the provisions of section 202 of the CAA.

(b) These regulations are issued by the Board of Directors, Office of Compliance, pursuant to sections 202(d) and 304 of the CAA, which direct the Board to promulgate regulations implementing section 202 that are “the same as substantive regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Labor to implement the statutory provisions referred to in subsection (a) [of section 202 of the CAA] except insofar as the Board may determine, for good cause shown . . . that a modification of such regulations would be more effective for the implementation of the right sand protections under this section.” The regulations issued by the Board herein are on all matters for which section 202 of the CAA requires regulations to be issued. Specifically, it is the Board’s considered judgment, based on the information available to it at the time of the promulgation of these regulations, that, with the exception of regulations adopted and set forth herein, there are no other “substantive regulations promulgated by the Secretary of Labor to implement the statutory provisions referred to in subsection (a) [of section 202 of the CAA].”

(c) In promulgating these regulations, the Board has made certain technical and nomenclature changes to the regulations as promulgated by the Secretary. Such changes are intended to make the provisions adopted accord more naturally to situations in the legislative branch. However, by making these changes, the Board does not intend a substantive difference between these regulations and those of the Secretary from which they are derived. Moreover, such changes, in and of themselves, are not intended to constitute an interpretation of the regulation or of the statutory provisions of the CAA upon which they are based.