Fewer respondents who were members of general advisory committees said “no”—about 77 percent of them said their committees were never asked by agency officials to give advice or make recommendations on the basis of inadequate data or analysis. About 92 percent of the respondents said that to their knowledge, no agency official had ever asked their committees to give advice or make a recommendation that was contrary to the general consensus of the committees. Of these nine agencies, seven considered the requirements about as burdensome as useful, and two said the requirements were somewhat more burdensome than useful. In comparison to the number of FACA requirements considered as useful, far fewer requirements were considered as especially burdensome by a majority of the agencies. However, some agencies have been involved in litigation over their compliance with FACA. Twelve of the 19 agencies said the ceilings did not deter them from seeking to establish any new advisory committees. These three agencies were among the six agencies that identified committees that they believed should be eliminated. According to the agencies, Congress terminated one of those committees. Their opinions were mixed. We asked the advisory committee members and the agencies that we surveyed a series of different questions about public participation. About 27 percent of the respondents said that all of their committee meetings were open to the public, and 37 percent said that all meetings were closed to the public. Views of the 19 Agencies

In general terms, most of the agencies—16 of the 19—said FACA had not prohibited them from receiving or soliciting input from public task forces, public working groups, or public forums on issues or concerns of the agency. Moreover, six agencies, including five of the previous eight agencies, said there were at least eight instances over the fiscal year 1995 through 1997 period when they decided not to solicit or receive outside input because of their concern about the possibility of future litigation. Our objectives in this review were to obtain (1) federal advisory committee members’ perceptions on the extent to which their advisory committees were providing balanced and independent advice and recommendations as required by FACA; (2) federal agencies’ views on the extent to which they found compliance with FACA useful or burdensome, the impact of Executive Order 12838 on their ability to accomplish their missions, and whether any of their advisory committees mandated by Congress should be terminated; and (3) advisory committee members’ and federal agencies’ views on the extent to which they believed the public was afforded access to advisory committee proceedings and a means to express their views to agencies and their advisory committees.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the views of federal advisory committees and federal agencies on Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requirements.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) overall, the views presented by both the committee members and agencies GAO surveyed provided useful insights into the general operation of FACA as Congress explores possible improvements to FACA; (2) the responses of committee members to a series of questions, when taken together, conveyed a generally shared perception that advisory committees were providing balanced and independent advice and recommendations; (3) although the percentage differed by question, 85 percent to 93 percent of the respondents said their committees were balanced in membership, had access to the information necessary to make informed decisions, and were never asked by agency officials to give advice or make recommendations based on inadequate data or analysis or contrary to the general consensus among committee members; (4) FACA requirements were considered to be more useful than burdensome by 10 of the 19 agencies; (5) for the other nine agencies, the requirements were considered either as burdensome as they were useful or somewhat more burdensome than useful; (6) the ceilings on discretionary advisory committees imposed by Executive Order 12838 did not deter a majority--12 of 19--of the agencies from seeking to establish such committees, according to their responses; (7) agencies identified a total of 26 advisory committees mandated by Congress that they believed should be terminated; (8) this number represented about 6 percent of congressionally mandated advisory committees in existence during fiscal year (FY) 1997; (9) the overall responses GAO received from committee members on the issue of public participation were mixed; (10) about 27 percent of the respondents said that all of their committee meetings were open to the public, and 37 percent said that all of their committee meetings were closed to the public; (10) advisory committee meetings can be closed to the public to protect such things as trade secrets or information of a personal nature; (11) most of the agencies--16 of the 19--did not believe that FACA had prohibited them from soliciting or receiving input from the public on issues or concerns of the agency independent of the FACA process; (12) still, some agencies were reluctant to get input from parties that were not chartered as FACA advisory committees because of concern that this could lead to possible litigation over compliance with FACA requirements; and (13) more explicitly, six agencies reported that they decided not to obtain outside input at least eight times during FY 1995 through FY 1997 because of the possibility of future litigation over compliance with FACA.