(a) The Bureau shall not impose record retention requirements over and above those established by the grantee except that financial records, supporting documents, statistical records, and all other records pertinent to a Bureau grant, or to any subgrant (or negotiated contract exceeding $2500) under a grant, shall be retained for a period of three years, with the following qualifications:

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(1) The records shall be retained beyond the three-year period if audit findings have not been resolved.

(2) Records for nonexpendable property which was acquired with Bureau grant funds shall be retained for three years after its final disposition.

(3) When grant records are transferred to or maintained by the Bureau, the three-year retention requirement is not applicable to the grantee.

(b) The retention period starts from the date of submission of the final expenditure report or, for grants which are renewed annually, from the date of the submission of the annual expenditure report.

(c) Grantees are authorized, if they desire, to substitute microfilm copies in lieu of original records.

(d) The Bureau shall request transfer of certain records to its custody from grantees when it determines that the records possess long-term retention value. However, in order to avoid duplicate recordkeeping the Bureau may make arrangements with the grantee for the grantee to retain any records which are continuously needed for joint use.

(e) The Secretary of the Interior and the Comptroller General of the United States, or any of their duly authorized representatives shall have access to any books, documents, papers, and records of the grantees and their subgrantees which are pertinent to a specific grant program for the purpose of making audit, examination, excerpts, transcripts and copies at government expense.

(f) Unless otherwise required by law, the Bureau shall not place restrictions on grantees which will limit public access to the grantee’s records created as part of the grant except when records must remain confidential. Following are some of the reasons for withholding records:

(1) Prevent a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy;

(2) Specifically required by statute or Executive Order to be kept secret;

(3) Commercial or financial information obtained from a person or firm on a privileged or confidential basis.