[Federal Register Volume 67, Number 52 (Monday, March 18, 2002)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12017-12018]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 02-6432]


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OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT ETHICS


Proposed Collection; Comment Request: Proposed Slightly Revised 
OGE Form 450 Executive Branch Confidential Financial Disclosure Report

AGENCY: Office of Government Ethics (OGE).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: After this first round notice and public comment period,OGE 
plans to submit a slightly revised version of its OGE Form 450 for 
confidential financial disclosure reporting under its existing 
executive branch regulations for review and three-year extension of 
approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act.

DATES: Comments by the agencies and the public on this proposal are 
invited and should be received by June 3, 2002.

ADDRESSES: Comments should be sent to: Mary T. Donovan, Office of 
Administration and Information Management, Office of GovernmentEthics, 
Suite 500, 1201 New York Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20005-3917. 
Comments may also be sent electronically to OGE's InternetE-mail 
address at[email protected](for E-mail messages, the subject line should 
include the following reference--``OGE Form 450 Executive Branch 
Confidential Financial Disclosure Report Paperwork Comment'').

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Donovan at the Office of 
Government Ethics; telephone: 202-208-8000, ext. 1185; TDD: 202-208-
8025; FAX: 202-208-8038. A copy of the proposed slightly revised 
Confidential Financial Disclosure Report form may be obtained, without 
charge, by contacting Ms. Donovan.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The Office of Government Ethics is planning 
to submit, after this notice and comment period a slightly revised 
(pending the minor change noted below) version of the OGE Form 450 
Executive Branch Confidential Financial Disclosure Report for three-
year extension of approval by OMB under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, 44 U.S.C. chapter 35. The OGE Form 450 (OMB control # 3209-0006) 
collects information from covered department and agency officials as 
required under OGE's executive branchwide regulatory provisions in 
subpart I of 5 CFR part 2634. The OGE Form 450 serves as the uniform 
report form for collection, on a confidential basis, of financial 
information required by the OGE regulation from certain new entrant and 
incumbent employees of the Federal Government executive branch 
departments and agencies in order to allow ethics officials to conduct 
conflict of interest reviews and to resolve any actual or potential 
conflicts found.
    The basis for the OGE regulation and the report form is two-fold. 
First, section 201(d) of Executive Order 12674 of April 12, 1989 (as 
modified by Executive Order 12731 of October 17, 1990) makes OGE 
responsible for the establishment of a system of nonpublic 
(confidential) financial disclosure by executive branch employees to 
complement the system of public financial disclosure under the Ethics 
in Government Act of 1978 (the ``Ethics Act''), as amended, 5 U.S.C. 
appendix. Second, section 107(a) of the Ethics Act, 5 U.S.C. app. sec. 
107(a), further provides authority for OGE as the supervising ethics 
office for the executive branch of the Federal Government to require 
that appropriate executive agency employees file confidential financial 
disclosure reports, ``in such form as the supervising ethics office may 
prescribe.'' The current OGE Form 450, adopted in 1999, together with 
the underlying OGE 5 CFR part 2634 executive branchwide financial 
disclosure regulation, issued in 1992 and modified at various times 
since, constitute the basic form OGE has prescribed for such 
confidential financial disclosure in the executive branch.
    The only changes to the OGE Form 450 that OGE is proposing at this 
time (as also referenced on the mark-up copy of the form) are updating 
the contact information to reflect recent OGE organizational changes, 
adding a continuation page to Part I, and the forthcoming adjustment to 
the thresholds for reporting of gifts and travel reimbursements for 
regular employee annual filers in Part V of the OGE Form 450. Currently 
these thresholds require the reporting of gifts and reimbursements 
totaling more than $260 from any one source during the annual reporting 
period, subject to a de minimis exclusion for any item valued at $104 
or less (which is not counted toward the overall threshold). The 
thresholds will have to be adjusted sometime this year when the General 
Services Administration redefines ``minimal value'' under the Foreign 
Gifts and Decorations Act, 5 U.S.C. 7342(a)(5), for the three-year 
period 2002-2004. Currently, foreign gifts minimal value is set at $260 
or less pursuant to 41 CFR 102-42.10 of GSA's regulations. Under 
section 102(a)(2)(A) and (B) of the Ethics Act, 5 U.S.C. app. section 
102(a)(2)(A) and (B), the public financial disclosure reporting 
thresholds are pegged to any adjustment of minimal value over $250 (at 
the same time and by the same amount percentage). The Office of 
Government Ethics has extended the statutory thresholds to confidential 
financial disclosure reporting for the executive branch. See 5 CFR 
2634.907(a)(3), so incorporating the reporting of gifts and 
reimbursements specified in Sec. 2634.304 for public reports but 
without amounts or values. Once GSA adjusts minimal value for foreign 
gifts, OGE will revise the gifts and reimbursements reporting 
thresholds of the OGE Form 450 and amend the underlying part 2634 
regulation (public financial disclosure reporting would also be 
affected). The Office of Government Ethics will advise

[[Page 12018]]

the departments and agencies of any such change and coordinate with OMB 
on the paperwork and rulemaking aspects of the revision.
    The Office of Government Ethics will continue to make the OGE Form 
450 available to departments and agencies and their reporting employees 
in paper and through the Forms, Publications & Other Ethics Documents 
section of OGE's Internet Web site (address: http://www.usoge.gov). The 
latter method allows employees two different options for preparing 
their report on a computer, although a printout and manual signature of 
the form are still required unless specifically approved otherwise by 
OGE. Moreover,OGE also permits departments and agencies to develop or 
utilize their own electronic versions of the OGE Form 450 provided they 
precisely duplicate the paper original to the extent technically 
possible. While OGE sees no legal bar to electronic filing and 
electronic signatures for the OGE Form 450, agencies must meet the 
requirements of the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA) and 
other applicable laws and issues such as security, verification, non-
repudiation, etc. Those agencies seeking to develop or utilize an 
electronic version of the OGE Form 450, and who have not so informed 
OGE, are asked to advise OGE's Deputy Director for Administration and 
Information Management of their intentions to do so and to provide 
assurance of their adherence to the previously mentioned requirements.
    Since 1992 various departments and agencies have developed, with 
OGE review/approval, alternative reporting formats, such as 
certificates of no conflict, for certain classes of employees. Other 
agencies provide for additional disclosures pursuant to independent 
organic statutes and in certain other circumstances when authorized by 
OGE. In 1997, OGE itself developed the new OGE Optional Form 450-A 
(Confidential Certificate of No New Interests (Executive Branch)) for 
possible agency and employee use in certain years, if applicable. That 
optional form continues in use at various agencies. However, the OGE 
Form 450 remains the uniform executive branch report form for most of 
those executive branch employees who are required by their agencies to 
report confidentially on their financial interests. The OGE Form 450 is 
to be filed by each reporting individual with the designated agency 
ethics official at the executive department or agency where he or she 
is or will be employed.
    Reporting individuals are regular employees whose positions have 
been designated by their agency under 5 CFR 2634.904 as requiring 
confidential financial disclosure in order to help avoid conflicts with 
their assigned responsibilities; under that section, all special 
Government employees (SGE) are also generally required to file. 
Agencies may, if appropriate under the OGE regulation, exclude certain 
regular employees or SGEs as provided in 5 CFR 2634.905. Reports are 
normally required to be filed within 30 days of entering a covered 
position (or earlier if required by the agency concerned), and again 
annually in the fall if the employee serves for more than 60 days in 
the position. As indicated in Sec. 2634.907 of the OGE regulation, the 
information required to be collected includes assets and sources of 
income, liabilities, outside positions, employment agreements and 
arrangements, and gifts and travel reimbursements, subject to certain 
thresholds and exclusions.
    Most of the persons who file this report form are current executive 
branch Government employees at the time they complete their report. 
However, some filers are private citizens who are asked by their 
prospective agency to file a new entrant report prior to entering 
Government service in order to permit advance checking for any 
potential conflicts of interest and resolution thereof by agreement to 
recuse or divest, obtaining of a waiver, etc. Based on OGE's annual 
agency ethics program questionnaire responses for 1999 and 2000 (the 
2001 responses have not yet been fully tabulated), OGE estimates that 
an average of approximately 268,450 OGE Form 450 report forms will be 
filed each year for the next three years throughout the executive 
branch. This estimate is based on average number of report forms filed 
branchwide for 1999 and 2000 as indicated in the Questionnaire 
responses, some 271,834 in 1999 and 265,053 in 2000, for a total of 
536,887, with that number then divided in half and rounded to give the 
projected annual average of 268,450 reports. Of these reports, OGE 
estimates that no more than between 5% and 10%, or some 13,422 to 
26,845 per year at most, will be filed by private citizens, those 
potential (incoming) regular employees whose positions are designated 
for confidential disclosure filing as well as potential special 
Government employees whose agencies require that they file their new 
entrant reports prior to assuming Government responsibilities. No 
termination reports are required for the OGE Form 450.
    Each filing is estimated to take an average of one and one-half 
hours. The number of private citizens whose reports are filed each year 
with OGE itself is less than 10, but pursuant to 5 CFR 1320.3(c)(4)(i), 
the lower limit for this general regulatory-based requirement is set at 
10 private persons (OGE-processed reports). This yields an annual 
reporting burden of 15 hours, the same as in OGE's current OMB 
inventory for this information collection. The remainder of the private 
citizen reports are filed with other departments and agencies 
throughout the executive branch.
    Public comment is invited on the unrevised OGE Form 450 as set 
forth in this notice, including specifically views on the need for and 
practical utility of this proposed unmodified collection of 
information, the accuracy of OGE's burden estimate, the enhancement of 
quality, utility and clarity of the information collected, and the 
minimization of burden (including the use of information technology).
    Comments received in response to this notice will be summarized 
for, and may be included with, OGE's future request for OMB paperwork 
approval for the proposed slightly revised OGE Form 450. Any comments 
received will also become a matter of public record. After reviewing 
any comments and deciding on the proposed revisions to the form, OGE 
will publish a second paperwork notice in the Federal Register to 
inform the agencies and the public at the time it submitted the request 
for OMB paperwork approval.

    Approved: March 12, 2002.
Amy L. Comstock,
Director, Office of Government Ethics.
[FR Doc. 02-6432 Filed 3-15-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6345-01-U