TITLE VI - Executive Branch Transparency

Sec. 606. Prohibition on Secret Advisory Committees (1 Comment) subscribe to the comments feed

  1. Definition- The term `Presidential inter-agency advisory committee' is any committee or task force that--

    1. is composed wholly of full-time, or permanent part-time, officers, or employees of the Federal Government;

    2. includes officers or employees of at least two separate Federal agencies;

    3. is established or utilized to provide advice, ideas, or recommendations to the President or Vice President on a specified topic or topics; and

    4. has at least one officer or employee assigned full-time as a staff member of the committee to support the functions of the committee.

  2. Requirements-

    1. The President shall ensure that the names of the members of the committee are published in the Federal Register.

    2. The committee must make public each substantive contact between the advisory committee, or individual members of the advisory committee acting on the committee's behalf, and any person who is not a full-time or permanent part-time officer or employee of the Federal Government, including--

      1. the date of the contact;

      2. the form of the contact (in person, by telephone, by e-mail, or in writing);

      3. the names and affiliations of the parties involved; and

      4. the substance of the communication and the communication itself, if in electronic or written form.

    3. For purposes of this subsection, a contact shall be considered substantive if the information conveyed influenced or was reflected in any way in the committee's advice, recommendations, or report to the President or Vice President.

  3. Applicability- The requirements of this section do not apply to substantive contacts exclusively with the President or the Vice President or their immediate personal staff.

1 comment on Sec. 606. Prohibition on Secret Advisory Committees

  • I would recommend going a step further with this:

    1- Have the report, characterized in b.2. sent to the appropriate national office(s) (i.e. if the advisory committee is with regards to HIV/AIDS, send the report to a liaison at the NIH and/or CDC).
    2- Allow a consensus response from the office to be added to the report.
    3- Have the combined report made public and offered to the members of the executive branch which received the initial advisory committee's report.

    This way, the expert consensus report is given right next to the "asked for" advisory committee report, making any discrepancies between the two clear to the involved members of the executive branch and to the public.

    posted by Mark Doyal (MD/PhD Student, U. of Pittsburgh) at April 15, 2008

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