Chairman GLENN. You do not approve them, out of yours, I see. Mr. DEAN. Each agency funds its own committee, so therefore it comes up through that process.

Chairman GLENN. OK. Have you ever recommended to OMB that a committee be terminated or continued, either one, and the agency disagreed with your recommendation?

Mr. WEISS. Not to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GLENN. Who is the final authority, you or OMB, in that case?

Mr. WEISS. In recommending a termination? If it is in the budget process, I would say it is probably theirs.

Chairman GLENN. It has never occurred, and I guess it is academic, but I was just thinking of who has the final say on that one. Mr. DEAN. Well, I believe that the head of the agency has the final authority to terminate. However, OMB has been known to strongly recommend that some things take place

Mr. WEISS. Not only in this area, but others as well.

Chairman GLENN. Well, the OMB head comes before this committee on occasion, too. I have been told by different ones through the years that people look at the Vice President as being the second most powerful spot in government, but I do not agree with that at all. I think the OMB head is the number two man in government, because they make more decisions directly affecting what happens in government than anybody except the President, as I see it, but that is an aside.

The Secretariat function used to be in OMB back years ago and it was transferred over to GSA and you administer it now. Removing yourself and your previous prejudices from it, do you think that that was right to do that? It is a rather-just on the surface of it, it would appear that perhaps OMB is the more logical spot for the Secretariat. It was moved over to GSA, I guess because you have a lot to do with logistics and supporting all of these different groups and so on. Do you think it should be with GSA or should the Secretariat be moved back to OMB?

Mr. WEISS. Well, trying to remove myself from it and be objective about it, I have only supervised this program for the last two years, so I can be fairly dispassionate, I think. I think at the time it existed in OMB, it was able to draw on resources within the Office of Management and Budget that obviously were not available in GSA, the budget examiners, for example.

Since that time, however, it has come to GSA and over the last 2 years we have been working with the Committee Secretariat to enhance its capabilities, I think that the level of expertise is going to improve, I think the level of analysis, the depth of analysis is going to improve, and I think that you are going to see a much more enhanced committee management process coming out of GSA over the coming years.

So, I would have to say, based on the plans that I have seen for it, I would leave it where it is, within GSA. And as another aside to this, I do not believe OMB would have the resources to devote to it. As you know, they are so caught up in the budget process and other things, that I believe this would fall pretty low on their list of priorities.

Chairman GLENN. Is the OMB staff looked at as being part of the White House staff?

Mr. WEISS. They belong to the President, yes, in that sense.

Chairman GLENN. Since it is run out of the Office of the Presi

dent.

Mr. WEISS. Yes.

Chairman GLENN. I think, if we are recalling correctly, that is how this whole thing occurred. It was part of President Carter's pledge when he was running for President that he was going to cut down the size of the White House staff, and this is one place he whacked at once he got in. Since OMB was part of the White House staff technically, he transferred them over to a different agency of Government. It did not change anything as far as the overall budget or anything, except it got the Secretariat off the White House pay roll, I guess. Is that what happened, or do you know?

Mr. WEISS. I have heard the same stories you have, Mr. Chairman. The number I think was five or three positions moved out, three at the time, which is almost insignificant.

Chairman GLENN. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Do any of the staff people have any additional questions to ask? [No response.]

Chairman GLENN. Fine. It has been a long hearing and we appreciate you sticking with us here this morning. It has been good testimony. We may have additional questions from staff or Senators who were not able to be here this morning, and we would appreciate an early reply so we can include those in the record, and we want to work with you on making this whole thing work better. Thank you very much.

Before recessing, there are several statements and documents that we will have printed in the record.

Thank you all.

The Committee will stand in recess subject to the call of the Chairman.

[Whereupon, at 12:50 p.m., the Committee was in recess, subject to the call of the Chair.]

APPENDIX

Statement of Michael H. Cardozo

My involvement in the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) started with my serving as a consultant to the Administrative Conference of the U.S. During 1979 and 1980 for the purpose of preparing a report on the operation of the first fifteeen years of the FACA. My report was considered at the Conference's plenary session in June 1980; it has also been published in the Winter, 1981, issue of the Administrative Law Review. A number of other studies and reports have been completed and published, all contributing to the effective functioning of the advisory committee

system.

New and Importart Committees

The importance of the Federal Advisory Committee Act is exemplified by the continual establishment of new committees to deal with emerging problems and crises and by the strength of feeling on issues arising out of operations under the Act. Each year as many new advisory committees are being created as are dissolved. Right now there is litigation

involving the operation or status of the Presidential Commission to study the AIDS epidemic and the Committee on Judicial Selection of the American Bar Association. In the recent past the Commission of the Three Mile Island Accident and two Commissions on Obscenity and Pornography have dealt with those critical subjects. Only last month the President

created a "task force" to advise on the stock market situation.

Advising in Secret

The Act was introduced and enacted because of a perception that important government decisions were often being made on the strength of

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advice received from representatives of powerful special interests without the benefit of views from other persons, especially those who would be representative of the public interest.

Committees with members

from major industries had been organized without public announcement, and had been meeting with government officials involved in supervising or regulating the industries represented. It was also evident in 1972 that hundreds of committees were advising almost every government department and agency. While most of them did not have the dangerous characteristics of the industry-oriented ones described above, there was concern that they were costing the government more than was justified and might not be serving a function that warranted their continuance. After thorough hearings about these concerns, the Federal Advisory Committee Act was enacted in 1972. The Act established a regime of control of "advisory committees", which was defined generally as any group of private individuals convened by an agency of the government to meet with representatives of

an agency of the government for the purpose of "obtaining advice or

recommendations."

Regulation by the FACA

The principal provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act called for registration, with a designated government office, of a charter stating the functions of the committee and area of its advisory responsibility; a proper "balancing" of membership among various interests; meetings announced in the Federal Register, and, with specified exceptions, open to the public; and preparation and making public of reports of all meetings and activities, including keeping all standing committees of Congress informed of those activities.

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.