Committee passes advisory panel accountability bill
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday passed a bill to beef up laws to ensure transparency and accountability among nearly 1,000 federal advisory committees.
Sponsored by Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Oversight and Government Reform Information Policy Subcommittee Chairman William Lacy Clay, D-Mo., the legislation passed unanimously by voice vote.
The measure strengthens a 1972 act governing the advisory committees by requiring appointment of committee members without consideration of political affiliation, mandating agencies obtain conflict of interest disclosures from committee members and increasing disclosure requirements for committees.
The changes "will improve balance, transparency and independence," among advisory committees, Clay said.
In an April 2 hearing, Clay said the bill responds to reports that the Bush administration "has employed litmus tests to push its ideological agenda and exclude otherwise qualified individuals from federal advisory committees."
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported that advisory committee members are often designated improperly as representatives of organizations and thus are not screened for conflicts. GAO said many should instead be classified as "special government employees" subject to more rigorous conflicts reviews.
Clay said advisory committees that suffered from that problem include an energy policy task force formed by Vice President Dick Cheney, which has been widely criticized for its secrecy.
The bill includes language clarifying which committee members must be designated as special government employees. It also requires that interagency committees or task forces established by the President or Vice President publicly release all communications.
The measure imposes extensive disclosure requirements on all advisory committees, requiring they release information including their charters, descriptions of their appointment process, names of members, descriptions of why they were appointed and recordings of meetings.
On a voice vote, the committee approved an amendment offered by Waxman requiring the advisory committees also make public written transcripts of meetings. The bill requires that the General Services Administration post information provided by the committees online.
COMMENTS
- Many people on these advisory committee's aren't paid so why would they give up their personal information??? Dan ketter Posted April 14, 2008 3:22 PM
- The State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is another agency of the federal government that has for years been criticized by the national media for operating under a shroud of secrecy. The bureau is currently being sued in Federal Court by the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild, a small group that opposes the State Department's use of an emergency provision to create what amounts to general restrictions on the importation of collector coins. The suit charges failure to comply with Freedom of Information Act requirements and refusal to release information about deliberations of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, which operates without any public scrutiny. Passage of the bill presently in committee will certainly help in theory. What the bureaucracy does in practice may be another matter since they routinely ignore FOIA which was supposed to accomplish similar objectives. Wayne G. Sayles Posted April 14, 2008 12:28 PM
