United States Secretary of the Navy
statutory office and the head of the U.S. Department of the Navy
The secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) is a statutory officer (10 U.S.C. § 8013) and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department within the United States Department of Defense. On April 22, 2026, Hung Cao became acting Secretary of the Navy following the removal of John Phelan.
By law, the secretary of the Navy must be a civilian at least seven years removed from active military service (10 U.S.C. § 8013). The secretary is appointed by the president and requires confirmation by the Senate.
History
The position of Secretary of the Navy was created in 1798. It was a member of the president's Cabinet until 1949, when the secretary of the Navy (and the secretaries of the Army and Air Force) were by amendments to the National Security Act of 1947 made subordinate to the secretary of defense.
From 2001 to 2019, proposals to rename the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps, which would have also renamed the secretary of the Navy to the secretary of the Navy and Marine Corps, were introduced with wide support in the United States Congress, but failed due to the opposition of Senator and retired U.S. Navy officer John McCain.
Responsibilities
The Department of the Navy (DoN) consists of two uniformed services: the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. The secretary of the Navy is responsible for, and has statutory authority (10 U.S.C. § 8013) to "conduct all the affairs of the Department of the Navy", i.e. as its chief executive officer, subject to the limits of the law, and the directions of the president and the secretary of defense.
The public source identifies “United States Secretary of the Navy” as statutory office and the head of the U.S. Department of the Navy. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around United, States and Secretary.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q940135. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2026, 1798, 1949 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “United States Secretary of the Navy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.