Chairman GLENN. You obviously are happy with your staff, and I commend you for putting together a staff that is so closely in touch with what you are trying to do.

Admiral WATKINS. They were all trained well here on Capitol Hill, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GLENN. Well, not all of them, I am sure. [Laughter.] But are you that happy with the balance on the Commission itself?

Admiral WATKINS. I cannot answer that, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GLENN. OK.

Admiral WATKINS. I am sorry.

Chairman GLENN. All right, I understand. Was a draft of this preliminary report circulated to OMB and HHS and the Justice Department and the White House before it was submitted to the President yesterday?

Admiral WATKINS. No, sir, it was not.

Chairman GLENN. Not to any of those groups?

Admiral WATKINS. No, it was not.

Chairman GLENN. Your testimony today here, was that submitted to anyone for approval before you came up here?

Admiral WATKINS. No, sir, it was not.

Chairman GLENN. Fine. I asked those questions very directly because I am concerned that, in this highly visible emotion-charged commission, you keep your independence.

Admiral WATKINS. And I have been told by my contacts in the White House just that, Mr. Chairman-

Chairman GLENN. Good.

Admiral WATKINS [continuing]. There has been no rudder order to me. I am seen as an independent chairman, doing my job and I think I can do that without any interference I do not expect any guidance and I have been told that they are not going to give me

any.

Chairman GLENN. Well, FACA sets forth one guideline for commissions such as yours, which is intended to insure that the advice and recommendations of the committee will not be "inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interests, but will instead be the result of the committee's independent judgment."

I do not know whether you have had to take any additional steps to make sure that you keep that kind of independent judgment, not influenced by what people might want to slant politically or whatever. I would ask, have you taken any steps to make sure that you keep that independence?

Admiral WATKINS. I have been in this town for the last 17 years, about 15 out of those 17 years. I have testified before members on the Hill, I think I have a reputation of doing my job when assigned a job and do it independently and be forthright. I have had no indication from anyone, from any direction that there is going to be guidance to me, nor has anybody tried to give me any steers in running this Commission.

I am running it, I am out in front, I have got the commissioners behind me, and I have nobody prodding me or pushing me or trying to steer me in any direction, and that is the way it is going to remain or I will leave the Commission.

Chairman GLENN. I am glad to hear that, and that is exactly what I think your predecessor did, because he did not have control over the setting up of the Commission. I cannot say that was the problem, I am not quoting, I can only quote out of Dr. Mayberry's letter, as I did earlier, that he felt that the one thing he was willing to answer to all the questions that we submitted to him—he did not want to respond to these things, except he did say that one thing that he felt strongly about was that the chairman should be able to make an input to the selection of the commissioners, and I think that is very fundamental. It makes us be a little suspicious as to what is going on when a chairman is called in to do a certain job and is not given that kind of courtesy, at least, and the Commission was there when you came on board. There have been a couple of people added since then. Did you have an input as to their selection after you came on board?

Admiral WATKINS. It is really not appropriate, Mr. Chairman, for me to take on the selection process from the White House. They have asked that I not discuss the White House selection procedures, even if I were to know them, and I do not know all of the processes followed.

Chairman GLENN. The White House has asked you not to testify on that or the attorneys have told you not to?

Admiral WATKINS. The White House says it is their business on how they select the people for the Commission, and so I respect that and so I do not want to start putting words in the mouths of those in the White House as to what their selection process is.

Chairman GLENN. OK. And to be absolutely fair about this, it is the President's prerogative, if he wants to, to select the people he wants. That is in the law also. But it also means that when that is done without the chairman of the Commission being party to that process, it seems to me that we are quite within our rights to look at it very, very carefully and make certain that the law is being complied with and to make certain that the people selected, and yourself in particular running the program, are going to operate in an independent manner and really try to bring to bear the very finest talents we have to get control of this thing. It is that important.

Do any of the staff have additional questions? We have staff here representing other Senators today. Does anyone have anything burning on your soul here?

[No response.]

Chairman GLENN. OK. Unless you have something else to add, I think we will move on. We may ask you to answer additional questions, and just for the public record here I do firmly now and herewith, as Chairman of the Committee, accept your offer to have you come back up again for future testimony once you have gone a little further with this. And if there is anything you see, Admiral, and I say this with every bit of sincerity, this is so important for the country, the job that you are doing, that anything you see that you need help on from us or you find your independence being impinged upon or anything at all that you need, let me know, privately, publicly, a phone call, a letter, whatever, and I can assure you that we are going to be responsive to what your needs are in doing the job that you are commissioned to do. It is that important to us.

Admiral WATKINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GLENN. We have one more panel, and that is Mr. Paul T. Weiss, Associate Administrator for Administration, General Services Administration; accompanied by Mr. James L. Dean, Director, Committee Management Secretariat, General Services Administration.

Mr. Weiss and Mr. Dean, welcome. We welcome your testimony in its entirety or in part, in either event the entire statement will be included in the record.

TESTIMONY OF PAUL T. WEISS, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR ADMINISTRATION, GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES L. DEAN, DIRECTOR, COMMITTEE MANAGEMENT SECRETARIAT

Mr. WEISS. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on actions taken by the General Services Administration to implement the Federal Advisory Committee Act within the executive branch. My comments this morning will summarize my prepared statement which has been provided to the Committee.1

Accompanying me today is Mr. James L. Dean, Director of our Committee Management Secretariat. The Secretariat, mandated by section 7(a) of the act, is responsible for the direction of GSA's activities to provide governmentwide oversight of all Federal advisory committees.

As we have heard here today and know from our own experience, advisory committees play an important role in assuring that Federal officials have access to information and advice on a broad range of issues affecting government policies and programs.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act is designed to fulfill two important objectives: On the one hand, it provides for a process to monitor the amount of Federal resources devoted to the use of advisory committees, and, on the other hand, provides for the maximum participation possible by the public in committee activities.

These objectives are bound together by the Act's emphasis on the provision of information to the Congress by the preparation of an annual report on Federal advisory committees, and to the public, through provisions calling for advance notice of committee meetings.

In addition, the Act provides that meetings of Federal advisory committees may be closed to public participation only through formal determinations by the heads of executive branch departments and agencies based upon exclusions provided by the Government in the Sunshine Act.

I am pleased to note that since the transfer of the Committee Management Secretariat to GSA in 1977, the costs associated with maintaining advisory committees within the executive branch have increased at an average annual rate of only 2.8 percent. This is graphically displayed in the chart presented to you at this point.2 At the spike you see on the left, it is interesting to note, we have about a 25 to 30 percent increase in costs for that 1978-79 time period. It is related primarily to four or five major committees es

tablished, having to do with world hunger, Three Mile Island, Social Security, coal, and a couple others of major interest to the Federal Government. They accounted for the bulk of the costs for that time period.

At the same time, as shown on our next chart, the total number of such groups have declined by 26 percent. As you noted earlier, Mr. Chairman, the number of committees has declined from a total of 1,343 in 1977, to 997 in 1986.

The next chart shows that during 7 of the past 10 years, the number of Federal advisory committees terminated has exceeded the number of those established by all types of authority. In addition, as the next chart shows, the amount of resources devoted toward compensation of Federal and non-Federal members have been reduced by 79 percent and 7.5 percent respectively during the past 4-year period.

Chairman GLENN. What is your basis for these? Did you discount these for inflation, so we had a comparison in constant dollars here-

Mr. WEISS. No, sir, actual dollars.

Chairman GLENN [continuing]. Because this chart covers periods of inflation, it gives a slightly distorted view of things.

Mr. WEISS. That is right, those lines would be a lot more scaled downward if you factored in the-

Chairman GLENN. Yes, I gave some figures in opening this morning. We have a whole series of charts, about 15 of them, I think, that had drawn up on a basis of discounted dollars so they are discounted for inflation. They give us a little better picture of things.

It comes out where we have had a rather constant picture, surprisingly enough, since we made the big reductions back in 197778. I think you have a break on your charts there on that also, on your first one there. Does it not go back to the seventies or wherever it was?

Mr. WEISS. Yes, 1977 was the first big spread.

Chairman GLENN. That is when the numbers came down, when we had the reductions, but then the amounts spent per person, per committee, numbers of committees, taken in constant dollars, have been fairly constant.

Mr. WEISS. That is exactly the case

Chairman GLENN. It has been reasonably steady.

Mr. WEISS [continuing]. In today's dollars relative to 10 years ago.

Chairman GLENN. Go ahead.

Mr. WEISS. Reflecting the highly dynamic environments within which committees operate, the composition of the Federal advisory inventory has changed dramatically. For example, in 1977, the majority of the advisory committees were established by the executive branch. However, as you can see in this chart, and as the Chairman pointed out earlier today, beginning in 1979, the number of such groups established directly by congressional action increased substantially and now accounts for over 50 percent of the total inventory of our committees.

Another important change that has affected the costs of Federal advisory committees is reflected in the increased use of blue ribbon panels to address issues of complex national concern. Such commit

tees have been established by the Congress and the Executive Branch, to provide advice and recommendations or such matters as the space shuttle Challenger accident the Tre le istand incident, efforts to combat organized me and pornography, the brasing of the MX missile, and many hers

Although representing only 25 persen. If the rainventory in 1964, for example, the resources devaier de acies of such committees accounted for approximately 1 percent of the total reported costs.

Recognizing these changes and the need nasze the quality of contributions rendered to the Feders army by advisory committees, GSA has undertaken aberatives to strengthen the capacity of the Commitee Management Secretariat to fulfill its role.

During 1987, the Secretariat completed a final me on Federal advisory committee management and that me was published in the Federal Register, coincidentally on December 1 I provides for improved guidance on the implementation # FACA streamlines the consultation process between GSA and departments and agenCs sponsoring committees and ciantes temes played by the Secretariat and committee managementers the establishment and management of Federal advisory comm.mees.

GSA also has taken steps to increase the resources available to the Secretariat, despite overall resource recutors which have taken place within GSA. The number of professional staff was increased last year from three to five, and the it will soon receive an enhanced in-house computer support, consisting of state of the art hardware and software. In addition, the Astrator has approved the establishment of a new Inter-Agency Committee on Federal Advisory Committee Management to address the full range of the Secretariats statutory responsibilities.

We also look forward, in concert with this interagency committee, to drafting a handbook to provide guidance to committee management offices throughout the Government.

While we believe these initiatives will result in enhanced oversight of Federal advisory committees, we are also looking forward to working with Congress to identify other improvements which might be effected by amendments to the act.

To summarize our thoughts on these issues contained in my prepared statement, Mr. Chairman, GSA believes that any such proposal by Congress to amend the FACA should at a minimum clarify the definition of an advisory committee as it relates to the act— by the way, you have heard many of these before by earlier witnesses and by yourself-provide increased flexibility to terminate committees created by statute-at the present time, legislation is required to terminate such committees-redefine the requirement for regular review of Government-wide committee management activities to reflect cyclical rather than annual analyses; and clarify the requirement for balanced membership relative to the creation of advisory committees, review the deadline for the submission of the "Annual Report to the President on Federal Advisory Committees" to the Congress for consistency with the congressional calenb, and delete section 7(e) of the act, providing for the provision of Det recommendations relating to advisory committee activities,