The state control terminal agency then votes for five state and two local representatives out of which the top four state and one local representative are chosen. There is only one vote per state. The four nominees receiving the highest number of votes for the statelevel openings and one receiving the highest number of votes for the local opening are elected to the Board from that region. Any vacancy on the Board (with the exception of the six members selected by the Director of the FBI) is filled by appointment by the Regional Chairman wherein that vacancy was created utilizing the next highest vote totals from the prior election. The person appointed is of the same category (state, county, municipal) as the member vacating that position. This appointment is for the unexpired term of the member vacating that position. Senator METCALF. The committee will be in recess until tomorrow at 10:30 in room 6202, at which time we will continue these hearings. [Thereupon, at 12:05 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 9, 1976.] TO AMEND THE FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ACT-P.L. 92-463 TUESDAY, MARCH 9, 1976 U. S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON REPORTS, ACCOUNTING, AND MANAGE MENT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS, The subcommittee met at 11 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 3302, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Lee Metcalf (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senator Metcalf. Also present: Vic Reinemer, staff director; E. Winslow Turner, chief counsel; Gerald Sturges, professional staff member; Jeanne McNaughton, chief clerk; James George, minority, professional staff member. Senator METCALF. This is the second of 3 days of hearings by the Subcommittee on Reports, Accounting, and Management, on two bills to amend the Federal Advisory Committee Act. They are S. 2947, introduced by Senator Hatfield and me, and S. 3013, introduced by Senator Percy. Today's scheduled witnesses are Professor Henry Steck, of the department of political science, State University of New York at Cortland, and Mr. Reuben Robertson, legal director, Aviation Consumer Action Project. The testimony Professor Steck has prepared makes a number of excellent points. I agree with his observation that, despite the Federal Advisory Committee Act, we really do not know very much about the advisory committee process. I welcome his suggestion that the second generation task for the act is a close and critical look at the advisory process. Professor Steck also reminds us that advisory committees are lobbying with a difference, "since membership on advisory groups is cloaked with the mantle of institutional legitimacy and public authority." He adds: "Such is the danger presented by the military industrial complex, perhaps the preeminent example of the merger of public and private power." This would be a suitable moment to summarize the results of a subcommittee staff study of the representation of the top 100 defense contractors on Department of Defense advisory committees in 1974. In brief: Twenty-nine of the top thirty defense contractors are represented on DOD advisory committees. Of the top 50 companies, only 13 are not represented on them. Lockheed, the top defense contractor, has 11 employees on 12 DOD advisory committees. Boeing, No. 2, has 12 employees serving on 13 DOD advisory committees. The leader is 14th ranked A.T.&T., with 19 employees serving on 21 DOD advisory committees. What the numbers alone do not reveal is that a good many of these contractor representatives are old recycled Pentagon handsretired_generals, former high-ranking civilian officials of the Defense Department or the individual services, and former congressional staff. The subcommittee intends to publish the study, which names the contractors, their representatives, and the advisory committees on which they serve. It will also include biographies of some of them such as Willis M. Hawkins of Lockheed, and Barry J. Shillito of Teledyne to show the clubbiness of the Pentagon, its contractors, and its advisers. Now we will call on Prof. Henry Steck, who has a prepared statement. 1 TESTIMONY OF PROF. HENRY J. STECK, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK, COLLEGE AT CORTLAND Senator METCALF. Professor, are you a doctor? Professor STECK. Yes. Senator METCALF. Do you want to be called a doctor? Senator METCALF. All right. Professor Steck, we are delighted to have you here. You have made several reports on this very question, so we recognize you as an expert to give us some advice and counsel as to where we go from here. Go right ahead. Professor STECK. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) is a significant addition to a series of legislative enactments designed to broaden the administrative process. Such successive measures as the Administrative Procedures Act, the Freedom of Information Act, section 102 of the National Environmental Policy Act, and the proposed Government in the Sunshine Act have all reflected a congressional determination to open the administrative process to public view, to enlarge puplic access to the arenas of administrative decisionmaking, and to instill into the administrative process the procedural and participatory rights and opportunities available in the legislature and the courts. Even before Watergate, a strong current flowed in the direction of greater public accountability on the part of administrative agencies. Whereas reformers of a bygone era focused on the dangers. of concentrated economic power, contemporary reformers are as responsive to the dangers of unregulated and exclusionary bureau 1 Dr. Henry J. Steck is a professor of political science at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. Professor Steck received his Ph. D. from Cornell University and has taught at Vassar College and the University of British Columbia as well as at SUNY Cortland. A former chairman of the department of political science, Professor Steck is the co-author of a book, Our Ecological Crisis: Its Riological, Economic, and Political Dimensions (Macmillan, 1974). He has written several papers on advisory committees, including "Private Influence on Environmental Policy: The Case of the National Industrial Pollution Control Council," in 5 Environmental Law 241 (Winter 1975). |