your official responsibility or you were personaily involved in it. Except where guidance is provided in Subpart B of this part, you should not decide for yourself whether a "matter involving specific parties" is the same as one for which you had “official responsibility” or with which you were "personally involved" while at the NSF. Consult an ethics counselor in the Office of the General Counsel.

(c) Other "matters". The current-employee restriction and the one-year NSF restriction both cover matters that do not "involve specific parties" as well as those that do. Such broader "matters" include:

(1) Determinations to establish or disestablish a particular program or set its budget level for a particular fiscal year;

(2) Decisions to undertake or terminate a particular project;

(3) Decisions to open or not open a contract to competitive bidding;

(4) Decisions on particular NSF rules or formal policy, such as adoption or amendment of a resolution by the National Science Board, promulgation or amendment of an NSF regulation or circular, amendment of standard grant or contract terms, or changes to such NSF policy documents as Grants for Scientific Research and the Grants Policy Manual; and

(5) Agency positions on particular legislative or regulatory proposals.

or

On the other hand, the statutory term is really not just "matter", but "particular matter". The word “particular” is intended to exclude broad technical areas, policy issues, and conceptual work done before a program has become particularized into one more specific projects. You should not, however, rely on this hazy distinction alone to take you out from under either of the representational restrictions that cover matters not involving specific parties without checking with an ethics counselor in the Office of the General Counsel.

(d) Boundaries of matters not involving specific parties. In connection with the current-employee restriction and the one-year NSF restriction, you need not consider whether a "matter" is the same as or separate from any other matter. Those two restrictions

cover any "matter", whether or not you have previously had any responsibility for or involvement with it.

§ 682.14 Restriction on your partners.

While you are a Federal official no person who is legally your partner in a business or professional partnership may act as agent or attorney for anyone in dealings with any other Federal official on any matter under your official responsibility or with which you are or have been personally involved as a Federal official. A partner who violates this rule commits a Federal crime punishable by a fine of up to $5000 or imprisonment for up to one year or both. In general, your partners may safely steer clear of this restriction by using the definitions and guidance in the earlier sections of this Subpart A, treating "act as agent or attorney" as equivalent to "represent" (it may actually be slightly less encompassing). They may consult on this restriction with attorneys in the Office of the NSF General Counsel. If they prefer to consult other counsel, the counsel should be directed to 18 U.S.C. 207(g).

tional activities vs. permitted research or educational activities.

(a) Basic representational restric tions. The same four representational restrictions described in Subpart A of this part apply to representational activities involving proposals or projects. (1) Current-employee restriction. During your Federal employment you must not represent anyone (including yourself) in dealings with any Federal official on any proposal or project.

(2) One-year NSF restriction. For one year after you leave NSF employment you must not represent anyone (including yourself) in dealing with any NSF official on any proposal or project.

(3) "Official responsibility” two-year restriction. For two years after you leave NSF employment you must not

represent anyone else in dealing with any Federal official on any proposal or project if the same proposal or project was active under your official responsibility during your last year at the NSF.

(4) "Personal involvement" permanent restriction. You must never represent anyone else in dealings with any Federal official on any proposal or project if you were personally involved with the same proposal or project as an NSF employee.

(b) Examples. Examples 1 through 4 in § 682.10(b) illustrate the application of these restrictions.

(c) General effect. These representational restrictions do not preclude you from being involved as a researcher or educator with proposals submitted to the Government or projects supported by the Government. They do preclude you from negotiating with NSF officials or other Federal officials and from engaging in other representational activities intended to influence their decisions on certain proposals and projects.

(d) Restricted representational dealings. If you write, call, visit, or otherwise communicate with an official you have "dealt" with the official. Those dealings are representational if you try to influence the official to suggest, recommend, or approve:

(1) An award;

(2) An award amount, a budget, or particular budget items;

(3) Particular award terms or conditions;

(4) An award amendment, increase, or extension;

(5) An administrative approval; or (6) Any other action affecting a proposal or project.

(e) Permitted research and educational activities. You do not engage in representational dealings, and so you violate none of the representational restrictions, by:

(1) Participating in research or other work supported under an award from the NSF or another Federal agency;

(2) Being listed as an investigator in a proposal or award;

(3) Preparing a proposal that will be submitted to the NSF or another Federal agency (but if you prepare it

during your NSF tenure, you must do so entirely on your own time);

(4) Making a scientific or technical presentation to officials of the NSF or another Federal agency (at a site visit, for example) or otherwise communicating scientific or technical information to them on the work being proposed or conducted; or

(5) Communicating with officials of the NSF or another Federal agency, with no intent to influence them, to request routinely available and noncontroversial information, such as the status of the decision process on a proposal.

Be very careful with these last two activities particularly; it would be easy to fall into trying to influence actions of the officials involved. If you can, let someone else make the presentation or request. If in any doubt, consult an ethics counselor in the Office of the General Counsel.

(f) Specifics on proposals. You may prepare a proposal for submission to the NSF or another Federal agency even though you would be precluded by one of the three post-employment restrictions from any representational dealings with agency officials about it. You may sign the cover sheet to signify your agreement to assume responsibility for the scientific and technical direction of the project and for the preparation of required technical reports. You may not, however, sign the cover sheet as "authorized official" or sign any cover letter submitting the proposal for the institution. Nor may you call, write, or visit the agency program officer who is handling the proposal to urge an award, haggle over budgets, or the like. You may respond to requests from the program officer or another NSF official for scientific and technical information relating to the proposal, such as might be needed to respond to reviewer comments. You must not, however, couple the information you supply with any attempt to influence the decision on the proposal other than what inheres in the provision of the information itself. (If possible, have someone else respond.) At the NSF the proposal will receive special scrutiny and may require special handling to avoid conflict of inter

ests, but you have no special responsibility in that connection.

(g) Other issues related to representation. Section 682.12 covers a number of other issues related to representation. Among these are assisting in representation without appearing or communicating with official (generally permitted); assisting by personal presence at an appearance or meeting (generally prohibited); representating the Government (generally permitted); and representing yourself along (depends). The rules and explanations given there apply to proposals or projects just as to other matters. If any confusion persists after you read them, consult an ethics counselor in the Office of the General Counsel.

§ 682.21 Proposals and projects over which you had official responsibility or with which you were personally involved.

(a) The "official responsibility" twoyear restriction applies only if you had official responsibility for the proposal or project in question during your last year at the NSF. The "personal involvement" permanent restriction applies only if you were personally involved with the proposal or project while at the NSF. You will therefore need to know: (1) When a project is the same as one proposed or active while you were at the NSF, and (2) whether you had official responsibility for the project or were personally involved with it.

(b) When is a project the same project? All usual aspects of handling a particular proposal and any award based on it relate to the same "project". These include:

(1) The initial peer review and award-or-declination decision process; (2) Review and approvals of an award recommendation;

(3) Negotiation of budget and award terms;

(4) Negotiation of award amendments;

(5) Consideration grant increments; and

of continuing

(6) Consideration of any extensions or administrative approvals.

(c) Exceptions. (1) A negotiation or determination on disposition of rights in any invention or publication that

arises out of an award normally is a separate matter from the processing and monitoring of the award, but not from discussions or negotiations about disposition of rights that took place before the invention was made or the publication written.

(2) Separate task orders under a continuing order agreement or the like constitute separate "matters" if the tasks and the negotiations are actually separate.

(3) An ethics counselor may determine that other matters arising from a particular proposal or award constitute separate "matters" if the circumstances warrant.

(d) Renewals. An application that involves a continuation or outgrowth of work that the investigators have been doing under a previous NSF and award is part of the same "project" as the original proposal and project unless:

(1) A complete new proposal and a new budget are submitted;

(2) They are subjected to a complete new competitive peer review or evaluation; and

(3) The review or evaluation involves a new group of reviewers, a substantial fraction of whom did not review the earlier proposal.

(e) "Official responsibility". You had "official responsibility" for a proposal or project if you were personally responsible for handling it or if you headed a directorate, division, section, or program that was responsible for handling it. (The Director has “official responsibility" for every proposal or project active at the NSF during his or her tenure.) You will find further elaboration of "official responsibility" in § 682.12(b).

(f) "Personal involvement”. You were "personally involved" with a proposal or project if you handled the peer review of the proposal; if you made any formal recommendation or decision on it, including any approval of an award recommendation or other action; if you reviewed the proposal or made a site visit; or if you otherwise made a substantial contribution to the handling of the proposal or project. You will find further elaboration of "personally involved" in § 682.12(c).

§ 682.22 When you are or would be principal investigator.

(a) Retention of ties to research, etc. permitted. Many scientists and educators interrupt active research and teaching careers to spend a year or two at the NSF as "rotators" and then return to research and teaching, usually at the same institution from which they came. Many such rotators (and a few permanent employees) who have been principal investigators under NSF awards before coming to the NSF, retain some interest or association with the work. If you have been the principal investigator under an NSF award, you are not precluded from retaining ties to the work under the award after you become an NSF employee. Subject to the restrictions on outside employment explained in Part 683 of the NSF conflict-of-interests regulations, you may stay in contact with those who are continuing the work in your laboratory or on your project. You may continue to supervise graduate students. And you may visit and work in the laboratory on your own time for these purposes.

(b) Substitute principal investigator. Before you come to the NSF, however, the NSF requires that you and your institution designate, subject to NSF approval, a substitute principal investigator-i.e., another scientist who will be responsible for the work and equipment and will represent the project and the institution in any dealings with NSF officials while you are at the NSF.

(c) Suspension of work on an NSF award. Appointment of a substitute principal investigator is unnecessary if all work under an award is to be completely suspended while you are at the NSF. If the work is to be suspended, you and your institution should so inform the NSF by letter before your NSF employment begins. Work under the award may be resumed when you complete your NSF employment, and its term may be extended to account for the time lost during your NSF employment.

(d) Substitute negotiator. As soon as you leave the NSF, you may again be principal investigator on an NSF project, may be listed as principal investigator in any proposal or award, and

may sign a proposal as principal investigator. However, the NSF asks that you and your institution formally designate (subject to NSF approval) a "substitute negotiator" who, though not principally responsible for the work, will represent the project and the institution in dealings with NSF officials from which you would be restricted. In the typical case, the oneyear NSF restriction will require that a substitute negotiator continue to serve that function for one year after you leave the NSF. In the rarer case of a proposal or project for which you had official responsibility or with which you were personally involved, there should be a substitute negotiator for as long as the "official responsibility" two-year restriction or the "personal involvement" permanent restriction bar you from such representational dealings.

(e) Renewal proposals submitted during your NSF service. During your NSF service a proposal may be submitted for continuation or extension of work on which you were principal investigator before coming to the NSF and to which you intend to return. The role you will play in the work proposed should be clearly spelled out in the proposal, and the proposal should prominently indicate that you are currently an NSF employee. If work under a resulting award would begin before you leave the NSF, a substitute principal investigator must be named. If the work would not begin until after you leave the NSF, you may be named as principal investigator, but a substitute negotiator must be named.

(f) Your involvement or interest in project to be open. The appointment of a substitute principal investigator or a substitute negotiator is not intended to conceal or obscure your continued involvement or interest in the project. Just the opposite: your involvement or interest should be made unmistakably plain. This will ensure that any proposal or other award-related application will be given the special attention and special handling called for under Part 681.

(g) Purposes of “substitute” requirements. The appointment of a “substitute principal investigator" or "substitute negotiator" ensures against un

thinking violation of the restrictions on dealings with NSF officials. It serves this purpose by flagging proposals or awards affected by the restrictions and by identifying someone else with whom NSF officials can properly discuss them or negotiate over them. Designation of a substitute principal investigator while you are at the NSF has two additional functions: It identifies another person to be responsible for the work and equipment, and it reminds all concerned that during your NSF service your primary attentions must be on your NSF duties.

(h) Proposals and awards of other agencies. The "substitute principal investigator" and "substitute negotiator" requirements described in this section are specific to the NSF. If you are or would be a principal investigator under a project proposed to or supported by another Federal agency, however, you should carefully observe the representational restrictions as they apply to dealings with officials of other Federal agencies. The currentemployee restriction is particularly likely to apply.

§ 682.23 Compensation or reimbursement of expenses from Federal awards. (a) Compensation from NSF awards. While you are an NSF employee, you may not receive any salary, consulting fee, honorarium, or other form of compensation for your services from an NSF award either directly or indirectly. In other words, you may not receive money for your services in connection with a project, a conference, or other work that was supported in whole or in part by funds provided from an NSF award. After you cease to be an NSF employee, you may again receive compensation from an NSF award.

§ 683.10 Who must make general financial disclosure.

(a) If you are an executive level, SES, or supergrade employee, you are a "senior employee" and must file public Financial Disclosure Reports. See § 683.11.

(b) If you are not a "senior employee", but serve as either a program officer, a directorate administrative official, a grants and contracts officer, an auditor, or a lawyer, you must file con