Sorry Augie, I may have jumped the gun on my understanding. If I'm tapping a 500A feeder and feeding a 200A ECB, is the tap grounding conductor sized for the 500A or the 200A? Since this ground is upstream of the 200A, it's twisting me up a little.
It's sized based on the 500 amp BUT does not need to exceed the phase conductor size.
Your 500 amp OCP would require a #2 equipment ground. Since you are feeding a 200 amp device your phase condutors would be larger than #2 so the full size #2 would need to extend to your device.
IF you happened to be feeding a 60 amp device with a #6, then the EGC could be reduced to a #6.