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Alert

Due to a lapse in appropriations, the NRC has ceased normal operations. However, excepted and exempted activities necessary to maintain critical health and safety functions—as well as essential progress on designated critical activities, including those specified in Executive Order 14300—will continue, consistent with the OMB-Approved NRC Lapse Plan.

Financial Interests

A criminal conflict of interest law (18 USC 208(a)) prohibits employees, unless they receive a waiver, from participating personally and substantially in any particular Government matter (including a rulemaking) that could directly and predictably affect the employee's financial interest or the financial interest of any of the following:

(a) The employee's spouse or minor child;
(b) The employee's general partner or an organization in which the employee serves as an officer, director, trustee, general partner, or employee; or
(c) An organization with which the employee is negotiating or has an arrangement for prospective employment.

However, government-wide regulations exempt from this prohibition certain financial interests (5 CFR part 2640). For example, employees can participate in a Government "particular matter involving specific parties" if the value of their security holdings does not exceed $15,000. If employees are working on a generic matter, such as a rulemaking, they can also participate if the value of their security holdings in a single entity affected by the rulemaking does not exceed $25,000 (or $50,000 in all affected entities).

Example: An employee may not work on a license amendment if the employee owns stock in the licensee worth more than $15,000 (unless the employee receives a waiver from his or her office director or regional administrator after consultation with OGC). If the employee is assigned to write a rule that could affect a number of licensees, the employee could work on that rule if the value of the stock in one of the licensees affected does not exceed $25,000; the employee could also work on the rule if the value of the employee's stocks in all entities affected by the rule does not exceed $50,000.

Employees can participate in matters affecting holdings in a mutual fund they own if the fund's investments are diversified. (Diversified means that the fund does not have a policy of concentrating its investments in a specific "sector," such as an industry, business, foreign country, or State.) Employees can also participate in matters affecting holdings in a "sector fund" if their investment in the sector fund does not exceed $50,000.

Example: An employee who owns shares in ABC Growth Fund, a "diversified" mutual fund, can work on an NRC contract even though the fund's portfolio contains stock of the contractor. If the employee owns more than $50,000 in a "sector" mutual fund (such as XYZ Telecommunications Fund), the employee could not work on a telecommunications contract if the fund's portfolios contains securities of the contractor.

Page Last Reviewed/Updated Thursday, March 12, 2020

Page Last Reviewed/Updated Thursday, March 12, 2020