§ 3608 — Administration

(a) The authority and responsibility for administering this Act shall be in the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. (b) The Department of Housing and Urban Development shall be provided an additional Assistant Secretary. (c) The Secretary may delegate any of his functions, duties, and powers to employees of the Department of Housing and Urban Development or to boards of such employees, including functions, duties, and powers with respect to investigating, conciliating, hearing, determining, ordering, certifying, reporting, or otherwise acting as to any work, business, or matter under this subchapter. The person to whom such delegations are made with respect to hearing functions, duties, and powers shall be appointed and shall serve in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in compliance with sections 3105, 3344, 5372, and 7521 of title 5. Insofar as possible, conciliation meetings shall be held in the cities or other localities where the discriminatory housing practices allegedly occurred. The Secretary shall by rule prescribe such rights of appeal from the decisions of his administrative law judges to other administrative law judges or to other officers in the Department, to boards of officers or to himself, as shall be appropriate and in accordance with law. (d) All executive departments and agencies shall administer their programs and activities relating to housing and urban development (including any Federal agency having regulatory or supervisory authority over financial institutions) in a manner affirmatively to further the purposes of this subchapter and shall cooperate with the Secretary to further such purposes. (e) The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shall— (1) make studies with respect to the nature and extent of discriminatory housing practices in representative communities, urban, suburban, and rural, throughout the United States; (2) publish and disseminate reports, recommendations, and information derived from such studies, including an annual report to the Congress— (A) specifying the nature and extent of progress made nationally in eliminating discriminatory housing practices and furthering the purposes of this subchapter, obstacles remaining to achieving equal housing opportunity, and recommendations for further legislative or executive action; and (B) containing tabulations of the number of instances (and the reasons therefor) in the preceding year in which— (i) investigations are not completed as required by section 3610(a)(1)(B) of this title; (ii) determinations are not made within the time specified in section 3610(g) of this title; and (iii) hearings are not commenced or findings and conclusions are not made as required by section 3612(g) of this title; (3) cooperate with and render technical assistance to Federal, State, local, and other public or private agencies, organizations, and institutions which are formulating or carrying on programs to prevent or eliminate discriminatory housing practices; (4) cooperate with and render such technical and other assistance to the Community Relations Service as may be appropriate to further its activities in preventing or eliminating discriminatory housing practices; (5) administer the programs and activities relating to housing and urban development in a manner affirmatively to further the policies of this subchapter; and (6) annually report to the Congress, and make available to the public, data on the race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicap, and family characteristics of persons and households who are applicants for, participants in, or beneficiaries or potential beneficiaries of, programs administered by the Department to the extent such characteristics are within the coverage of the provisions of law and Executive orders referred to in subsection (f) which apply to such programs (and in order to develop the data to be included and made available to the public under this subsection, the Secretary shall, without regard to any other provision of law, collect such information relating to those characteristics as the Secretary determines to be necessary or appropriate). (f) The provisions of law and Executive orders to which subsection (e)(6) applies are— (1) title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 [42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.]; (2) this subchapter; (3) section 794 of title 29; (4) the Age Discrimination Act of 1975 [42 U.S.C. 6101 et seq.]; (5) the Equal Credit Opportunity Act [15 U.S.C. 1691 et seq.]; (6) section 1982 of this title; (7) section 637(a) of title 15; (8) section 1735f–5 of title 12; (9) section 5309 of this title; (10) section 1701u of title 12; (11) Executive orders 11063, 11246, 11625, 12250, 12259, and 12432; and (12) any other provision of law which the Secretary specifies by publication in the Federal Register for the purpose of this subsection.