	Introduction

Federal advisory committees are designed to collect a variety of viewpoints and to provide advice or recommendations to the executive and legislative branches of the federal government from nonfederal sources. Pursuant to FACA, the General Services Administration (GSA) promulgates regulations and produces management guidelines for federal advisory committees. While there is a cap on the number of discretionary advisory committees that can be created by federal agencies, there are no limitations on the number of advisory committees that Congress and the President may establish. In FY2015, 1,009 FACA committees reported as active. From FY2004 to FY2015, the number of new active FACA committees declined inconsistently from 66 annually to 42 (-36.4%), ranging from a low of 23 new FACA committees in FY2014 to a high of 147 new FACA committees in FY2010. The data show that the Department of Health and Human Services reported the largest number of FACA committees with 248 (25.6% of total active FACA committees). HHS consistently operates the largest number of FACA committees in the executive branch. FACA Committee Members

			Total Number of Members

Roughly 70,000 FACA committee and subcommittee members serve in any fiscal year. In FY2015, 72,200 members served on advisory committees. FACA Meetings

			Total Number of Meetings

According to the FACA Database, in FY2015, 791 federal advisory committees held 7,494 meetings. From FY2014 to FY2015, however, total annual operating costs increased $32,917,950 (9.8%) from $334,650,420 in FY2014 to $367,568,370 in FY2015. This increase in costs from FY2014 to FY2015 can be attributed primarily to increases in the costs of federal staff salaries (a $13,314,594 increase in FY2015), though each of the other five cost categories also experienced increases over the past fiscal year. In contrast, salary costs for members and consultants have remained relatively stable. Potential Policy Options

Federal advisory committees can be effective tools for gathering expertise from a variety of federal and nonfederal experts. The data discussed and analyzed throughout this report show that advisory committees have certain commonalities, but each committee has a unique structure, operation, and mission. Clarifying Data Reporting Requirements

			Consistency in Reporting Information

As discussed earlier in this report, GSA requires committees to report certain data elements (e.g., the number of members serving on the committee or the total costs incurred by the committee). Congress may, however, decide that making such a change to data entry practices could add time and costs to operating and maintaining the FACA Database. Changing Member Pay

In FY2015, FACA committee data demonstrated that the federal government paid nonfederal members of federal advisory committees $37.3 million.
Federal advisory committees are established to allow experts from outside the federal government to provide advice and recommendations to Congress, the President, or an executive branch agency. Federal advisory committees can be created either by Congress, the President, or an executive branch agency.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) requires agencies to report on the structure, operations, and costs of qualifying federal advisory committees. The General Services Administration (GSA) is authorized to collect, retain, and review the reported information, and does so using an online tool called the FACA Database.
Generally, the data show that the number of active FACA committees has remained relatively stable over time, hovering around 1,000 committees in any given fiscal year. Around 70,000 people serve as members of FACA committees and subcommittees in any given year.
The Department of Health and Human Services consistently operates the greatest number of federal advisory committees, with 248 active committees in FY2015. The Department of Agriculture had the second greatest number of active committees in FY2015 with 163. In any given year, around half of the active FACA committees are established by statute. In FY2015, Congress established 20 new FACA committees by statute.
Costs to operate federal advisory committees have varied over time and ranged from a low of $334.7 million in FY2014 to a high of $451.3 million in 2006. Federal advisory committee operating costs dropped from FY2010 to FY2014. In FY2015, however, costs to operate federal advisory committees rose 9.8% from FY2014 levels. The increase in costs from FY2014 to FY2015 coincides with increases in the number of members serving on federal advisory committees as well as the number of meetings held by those committees.
In FY2015, 1,009 federal advisory committees held 7,421 meetings with 72,200 members and cost more than $367 million to operate.
This report provides an in-depth examination of FACA committee operations and costs, using the data collected by GSA. The report also analyzes policy options that Congress can consider when deliberating current or future legislation to amend FACA, including clarifying FACA data reporting requirements, changing FACA committee member pay, and removing advisory committees that assist the grant making process from the FACA Database.