[Code of Federal Regulations]

[Title 45, Volume 3]

[Revised as of October 1, 2005]

From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access

[CITE: 45CFR612.4]



[Page 122]

 

                        TITLE 45--PUBLIC WELFARE

 

                 CHAPTER VI--NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

 

PART 612_AVAILABILITY OF RECORDS AND INFORMATION--Table of Contents

 

Sec. 612.4  Processing requests.



    (a) Monitoring of requests. The NSF Office of the General Counsel 

(OGC), or such other office as may be designated by the Director, will 

serve as the central office for administering these regulations. For 

records maintained by the Office of Inspector General, that Office will 

control incoming requests made directly or referred to it, dispatch 

response letters, and maintain administrative records. For all other 

records maintained by NSF, OGC (or such other office as may be 

designated by the Director) will control incoming requests, assign them 

to appropriate action offices, monitor compliance, consult with action 

offices on disclosure, approve necessary extensions, dispatch denial and 

other letters, and maintain administrative records.

    (b) Consultations and referrals. When the Foundation receives a 

request for a record in its possession that originated with another 

agency or in which another agency has a substantial interest, it may 

decide that the other agency of the Federal Government is better able to 

determine whether the record should or should not be released under the 

FOIA.

    (1) If the Foundation determines that it is the agency best able to 

process the record in response to the request, then it will do so, after 

consultation with the other interested agencies where appropriate.

    (2) If it determines that it is not the agency best able to process 

the record, then it will refer the request regarding that record (or 

portion of the record) to the agency that originated or has a 

substantial interest in the record in question (but only if that agency 

is subject to the FOIA). Ordinarily, the agency that originated a record 

will be presumed to be best able to determine whether to disclose it.

    (3) Where the Foundation reasonably believes that multiple requests 

submitted by a requester, or by a group of requesters acting in concert, 

constitute a single request that would otherwise involve unusual 

circumstances, and the requests involve clearly related matters, they 

may be aggregated. Multiple requests involving unrelated matters will 

not be aggregated.

    (c) Notice of referral. Whenever the Foundation refers all or any 

part of the responsibility for responding to a request to another 

agency, it ordinarily will notify the requester of the referral and 

inform the requester of the name of each agency to which the request has 

been referred and of the part of the request that has been referred, 

unless such notification would disclose information otherwise exempt.