As a Congressional Affairs Specialist, you will perform the following duties:

• Lead Legislative Affairs outreach effort to congressional offices, including state and district-based offices and Congressional case workers. Work closely with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) staff to plan briefings, hearings, meetings, and other external events involving Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and their constituents.
• Serve as the policy and planning authority for NOAA's policies and priorities with Congress and the Department. Develop Congressional drafts and other official documentation, hearings, meetings, briefings, and other external events involving Members of Congress and staff and their constituents, to increase the understanding of Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and their constituents about the NOAA work and mission.
• Utilize expert knowledge to provide summaries of feedback from Members of Congress and Congressional staff to inform the Director for Legislative Affairs and Deputy Director about inquiries and requests that come in from Congressional offices and solicit information from senior staff about NOAA's work to be shared with Congressional offices.
• Provide authoritative and substantive guidance on legislative issues. Recommend strategies for Congressional interaction to management based on knowledge of the interests of the appropriate legislative audience. Conduct and coordinate Freedom of Information and Discovery requests for congressional inquiries.

• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Noncritical Sensitive security clearance to carry out duties requiring access to meetings, documents/info, and/or systems labeled as confidential or secret.

Conditions of employment

Key Requirements:

• Applicants must be U.S. Citizens.
• Suitable for Federal employment, as determined by background investigation.
• More requirements are listed under Qualifications and Additional Information.
• Must be registered for Selective Service, if applicable (www.sss.gov)
• Qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.
• If you are a Federal employee applying for a promotion (under merit promotion procedures) you must meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of the announcement.

Additional Considerations:

• Position requires Non-Critical Sensitive Security Clearance.
• Background investigation required. Continued employment is subject to applicant's successful completion of security investigation and favorable adjudication. Failure to successfully meet these requirements will be grounds for termination.

Nature of Employment: This is a career, non-political position designated as policy-influencing (confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating). Employment in this position is at will. Standard civil service adverse action and performance based removal procedures under chapters 43 and 75 of Title 5, United States Code, do not apply. Consequently, traditional appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) regarding performance or conduct-based removals are unavailable.

Conditions of Employment: Selection is made using merit-based evaluation procedures. Applicants and incumbents are not required to personally or politically support the President or the policies of the current administration, but they are required to faithfully implement administration policies to the best of their ability. Schedule Policy/Career employees are at-will employees at all times; therefore, they are not required to serve a trial period.

Qualifications

Qualification requirements in the vacancy announcements are based on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Qualification Standards Handbook, which contains federal qualification standards. This handbook is available on the Office of Personnel Management's website located at: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/

EDUCATION: There is no positive education requirement for this position.

SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess one year of specialized experience equivalent in difficulty and responsibility to the next lower grade level in the Federal Service. Specialized experience is experience that has equipped the applicant with the particular competencies/knowledge, skills and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. This experience need not have been in the federal government.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations e.g., professional; philanthropic, religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies; knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

To qualify for the ZA-4 or GS-13 level:
SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE: Applicants must possess one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience equivalent to the next lower pay band ZA-3 or GS-12 in the Federal service. Specialized experience MUST include all of the following:

• Assessing legislative initiatives on matters concerning programs and activities affecting environmental science and management programs; and
• Developing correspondence or responses to congressional inquiries.