Value of Advisory Committees

In recommending enactment of the Act, the Congressional committees expressly recognized that advisory committees can provide "a means by which the best brains and experience available in all fields of business, society, government and the professions can be made available to the Federal Government at little cost." They were also characterized as "a contribution by the governed to the government," because very few of the members of advisory committees receive any compensation for their services. Concern about cost, however, has recurrently arisen, largely because of the number of committees in existence at all times and the number of

persons serving on those committees. This has led to recurring questions about the longevity of some committees and what means can be used to assure termination when their work is completed.

When the House Committee started to consider legislation, about

1,800 committees were known to exist, with over 25,000 individual members. It seemed to many members of Congress that so vast an operation, involving so many people, must be expensive and should be controlled. After the Act was passed, efforts to reduce the numbers succeeded in diminishing them, so that five years later there were half as many committees and far fewer individual members. A recurring question is how to abolish committees established by express provisions of legislation. Reductions in numbers of committees, however, do not necessarily mean any significant saving in costs, as most advisory committees involve very little direct expense.

Also, as noted before, the advisory committee

system is actually a means of obtaining valuable skills and experience for government operations that would be far more expensive if obtained through the use of consultants and salaried employees.

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Definition of "Advisory Committee"

One of the most troublesome questions has involved the definition

of "advisory committee", determining the scope of the Act. Much difference of opinion arose over the so-called "one-time meeting.' Did Congress

intend to include a gathering of a few selected individuals at the instance of an agency head to discuss the handling of an immediate emergency confronting the agency? Could the Attorney General, without chartering and public notice, invite three or four law professors to his office to discuss the ramifications of an incident involving criminal law and the Constitution? If not, the Government is obviously hampered

in obtaining the kind of advice that can help to solve a difficult problem. Many commentators have felt that a group of individuals, convened one time without committee structure and without any continuance as a group, are not a "committee" as that word is used in the Act. On the other hand, it may be in the public interest for the composition of such a group and the nature of the meeting to be made public.

Similarly, a group of individuals affiliated with some organization, such as a university, convened spontaneously for the purpose of conducting research and preparing a report on a matter of interest to a government agency, does not look like a committee "established or utilized" by the agency, even if a report from the group is studied and implemented by the agency. It would be highly impractical to declare the whole University, for example, an advisory committee and subject to the Act. An argument can be made that the group in that case is not "established or utilized" by an agency as Congress used that expression in the Act, and the group is not a "Committee" as defined in the Act.

Operational and Sub-Committees

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tee system is widely accepted as useful, Beatval and severally well managed, one significant weakness has troubled weerver there is so etective procedure for follow-up to gasure full contact and implementation of the recommendations and proposals of the way expert and experienced committee members. Often, ommittees "burst on the scene and as Lloyd Cutler remarked in 1970,

then pass from public view-like comets, only to appear again in much the same form years or even decades later." He was alluding to the successive commissions created to consider crime and law enforcement: Wickersham In 1930; Katzenbach in 1965; and Eisenhower (Milton) in 1969. Later examples are commissions on pornography and obscenity of 1970 and 1985.

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The waste of effort, money and expertise represented by the relegation to obscurity of these studies might be prevented by assigning oversight of follow-up to an appropriate place in the government.

Congress, in

the original Act, assigned it to the OMB. The annual President's reports to Congress might be a good medium for this kind of oversight, especially if the concerned Congressional committees took note of them.

The Committee on Governmental Affairs is probably concerned with the question of the need for amendments to the FACA as a means of dealing with the kinds of questions described above and with better means of enforcing its provisions. Some of those concerned with the administration

of the Act have recommended amendments. Others feel that the problems can be solved by proper general regulations, by separate agency action or by due attention in the president's domain. Our testimony during these hearings is intended to help the Committee to decide among these different

views.

I am happy to have had the opportunity to introduce the subject.