Delivery

All congressional mail received at the NIH, unless marked "personal" or "private," should be delivered to the Executive Secretariat (ES), Office of the Director, NIH, and routed according to the following procedures:

Congressional mail addressed to a Director; a Deputy, Associate, Assistant, Scientific, or Clinical Director; or an Executive Officer of an Institute or Center (IC) will be opened by ES and routed to the appropriate IC correspondence contact. Congressional mail addressed to an organizational entity rather than to a specific person also will be opened and routed by ES.

All other congressional mail will be forwarded unopened to the corresponence contact for the addressee's IC or OD Office with a Congressional Correspondence Report. Unless an IC or Office has a different internal procedure, the addressee is responsible for following the instructions on the form and responding in a timely, appropriate manner. If the addressee is on leave for more than two working days, please notify ES of the addressee's absence and expected return date. Hold the unopened correspondence until the addressee's return. If the addressee's absence means that response is not possible within ten working days, the individual in charge of the office must notify the congressional office that originated the correspondence. If the addressee is no longer with your unit, please return the unopened envelope and the Congressional Correspondence Report to ES for further handling.

If congressional mail addressed to a Director; a Deputy, Associate, Assistant, Scientific, or Clinical Director; or an Executive Officer of an IC does arrive in your office directly from a congressional office, you must send a copy of the correspondence to ES via your correspondence contact as soon as possible; the correspondence contact should have the copy hand-delivered to ES or send a fax (301-496-8276). ES will review the correspondence and send an NIH controlled correspondence assignment back to your correspondence contact with instructions for how your IC or Office should respond.

For any other congressional mail received directly by an addressee, if it concerns official NIH business the recipient must send a copy of the correspondence to ES via his or her IC's or Office's correspondence contact as soon as possible. ES will process the document as outlined just above.

Due Dates

Due dates on controlled congressional correspondence are not flexible. Many congressional inquiries come to the NIH through the Office of the Secretary (OS), with due dates assigned by OS. As with any correspondence received in this way, the NIH cannot change these OS-assigned due dates. If a complete, detailed response cannot be prepared by the due date, you must prepare an interim reply—within five working days of the referral—stating when the final response will be completed and the reason for the delay.