Sponsors
Introduced September 18, 2025 by Kirsten Gillibrand · Last progress September 18, 2025
The bill makes conflict-of-interest rules and the process for divestiture certificates clearer and more consistent for federal employees and taxpayers, but it increases administrative steps and concentrates authority in ways that could cause delays and transitional legal uncertainty.
Federal officers and employees will have clearer, uniform conflict-of-interest rules, reducing ambiguity about prohibited financial interests and making compliance expectations more predictable.
Federal officials, filers, and taxpayers gain clearer, predictable procedures because the bill specifies which authorities may issue certificates of divestiture (reducing uncertainty about who can grant relief).
Federal employees and agencies face less legal confusion because the bill makes conforming statutory edits that align the STOCK Act, the Lobbying Disclosure Act, and the Securities Exchange Act with the new chapter.
Federal officers and employees may face increased administrative burdens and paperwork to obtain certificates or otherwise comply with the new conflict-of-interest rules.
Narrowly assigning authority to issue certificates could centralize decision-making and create delays in approvals or divestitures, which can affect timely tax treatment and financial planning for officers and their families.
Altering or removing statutory cross-references risks transitional confusion and potential litigation as agencies and courts interpret the new numbering and language.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Consolidates federal conflict-of-interest rules into a new title 5 chapter, revises cross-references across statutes, and specifies which officials may issue tax divestiture certificates.
Creates a new, standalone federal ethics chapter that bans conflicted financial interests for covered officials, updates related statutory definitions and cross-references across multiple federal laws, and specifies which officials may issue certificates of divestiture under the tax code. The measure reorganizes and revises citations in existing statutes so the new ethics chapter is the authoritative reference for those rules. Affecting federal employees, judges, certain bank officers, and agency ethics authorities, the bill does not add new spending, deadlines, or dollar amounts; it focuses on prohibitions, definitions, and alignment of statutory references across the U.S. Code, the Internal Revenue Code, the Lobbying Disclosure Act, the STOCK Act cross-references, and portions of the Securities Exchange Act.