Advisory groups—both FACA and non-FACA—exist throughout the executive branch of the federal government, providing input and advice to agencies in a variety of ways, such as preparing reports and developing recommendations. Agencies are not required to implement the advice or recommendations of advisory groups because they are by design advisory. While an advisory group’s input or recommendations may form the basis for a federal agency’s decisions or policies, other factors may play a role in determining what action an agency ultimately takes. However, both types of advisory groups serve as a mechanism for federal agencies to obtain input from internal and external stakeholders such as academics, industry associations, or other agencies. FACA was enacted in 1972 in response to concerns that federal advisory groups were proliferating without adequate review, oversight, or accountability. The General Services Administration (GSA) Committee Management Secretariat oversees each federal agency’s management of FACA advisory groups, develops guidelines and regulations, and conducts an annual review of FACA advisory groups governmentwide. For example, GSA provides guidance to federal agencies sponsoring FACA advisory groups and is involved in the process to establish new and oversee the management of existing FACA advisory groups. GSA collects and makes available governmentwide FACA advisory group information that agencies—including DOT and DOE—are required to provide through a publicly accessible database each fiscal year. In addition, each agency also develops its own policies and procedures for following FACA requirements. For example, DOT and DOE each have policy manuals governing the management of their FACA advisory groups. Each agency sponsoring FACA advisory groups appoints a Committee Management Officer responsible for overseeing compliance with FACA requirements, and appoints to each FACA advisory group a Designated Federal Official (DFO) responsible for attending meetings, approving agendas, and maintaining records on costs and membership, among other duties. Decisions regarding the establishment of new FACA advisory groups and recommendations to terminate or continue existing groups are made by the head of each agency based on recommendations made by the Committee Management Officer, the DFO assigned to each group, or other agency officials. FACA sets forth requirements for FACA advisory groups’ formation, their operations, and how they provide advice and recommendations to the federal government. To help avoid duplication of resources, FACA regulations require that the process to establish, renew, or reestablish discretionary FACA advisory groups—those established under agency authority or authorized by statute—must include an explanation stating why the group’s functions cannot be performed by the agency, another existing group, or other means. FACA also articulates broad requirements for balance, transparency, and independence. For example, for transparency, a range of information is to be reported in the FACA database, and meeting minutes and reports are to be made available to the public. The act also requires that all FACA advisory groups have a charter containing specific information, including the group’s scope and objectives, a description of duties, and the period of time necessary to carry out its purposes. Charters—and thus the FACA advisory groups— generally expire at the end of 2 years unless renewed by the agency, the Congress, or executive order. This requirement was intended to encourage agencies to periodically reexamine their need for FACA advisory groups. As previously noted, not every advisory group that provides advice or recommendations to an agency is subject to the FACA requirements. An advisory group may not be subject to FACA for a variety of reasons, including statutory language that may exempt a group from FACA. Further, certain types of groups are also exempt from FACA, including groups not managed or controlled by the executive branch, groups with membership consisting entirely of federal government officials, or intergovernmental groups. Non-FACA advisory groups are generally less formal than those established under and subject to the requirements of FACA. Because they are not subject to FACA, non-FACA advisory groups are not required to follow FACA requirements to hold public meetings or to make meeting minutes and reports publicly available. Similarly, agencies are not required to collect or report information identifying non-FACA advisory groups, and GSA does not have any oversight responsibilities pertaining to non-FACA advisory groups. While there is no specific entity or office that oversees non-FACA advisory groups, general guidance for the management of some of these groups— such as federal interagency groups—may be included within the agency’s committee management policy manuals. For example, DOT’s committee management policy covers FACA advisory groups, as well as interagency groups—one type of non-FACA advisory group—while DOE’s policy is focused exclusively on FACA advisory groups. Agency-reported fiscal year 2010 costs for DOT and DOE FACA advisory As noted groups were approximately $4 and $13.6 million, respectively. above, agencies self-report cost information, such as travel and per diem costs incurred by FACA advisory group activity or payments to members or consultants. Agencies sponsoring FACA advisory groups determine the level of financial and administrative support for their groups. Variations in costs are common given factors such as the number of meetings held or compensation rates for groups’ members. For fiscal year 2010, the FACA database identified the 15 DOT and 21 DOE actively chartered FACA advisory groups covering various topics and issues related to their respective agency’s mission. The approach used by DOT and DOE to assess duplication amongst advisory groups is often informal, and agency officials are not always clear about what steps should be taken to ensure the assessment of existing advisory groups is consistently made. GSA relies on federal agencies to follow the FACA requirement to check for duplication prior to filing a charter to establish a new, or renew an existing, FACA advisory group under agency authority. Furthermore, guidance for our two selected agencies requires officials to determine whether the objectives or duties of a proposed FACA advisory group could be achieved by an existing entity, committee, or organization within the agency or governmentwide. Some DOT and DOE officials told us they use the FACA database to check for potentially duplicative advisory groups. This may be a good first step to identifying FACA groups working on similar issues; however, it does not necessarily provide an adequate assessment for duplication. While the FACA database contains information on advisory group issue areas, it is limited in its ability to directly identify related groups. For example, a search of the FACA database in the issue area of “surface and vehicular transportation” yielded approximately 60 FACA advisory groups working across 10 federal agencies. Further, issue areas are self- identified by agency officials and may not be consistently defined across agencies. We found that several agency officials were not aware of a process to determine whether the objectives or duties of an advisory group could be achieved by an existing entity, committee, or organization. In cases where officials indicated they were aware of a process, when asked to describe the process, a number described informal approaches for checking for duplication and did not articulate consistent steps taken to make these determinations. Several DOE officials reported that the agency’s Committee Management Office is involved and engages each FACA advisory group’s DFO to be aware of any existing entity or committee that could achieve the objectives being proposed, but they did not provide additional detail outlining formal steps taken to identify these groups. DOT and DOE officials also indicated that agency officials working in a program or issue area are generally able to identify groups that may be addressing similar topics using their existing knowledge of agency offices and programs. For example, some DOT officials noted that high-level program officials are likely to be aware of other groups dealing with an area of possible duplication and that this approach can serve as an informal mechanism to help identify relevant advisory groups working on related issues. However, without a process with specific steps to check for duplication (such as reaching out to key contacts of relevant advisory groups) assessment results may be inconsistent or incomplete. In contrast, one of the DOT agency offices we reviewed, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Rulemaking, has a policy that outlines specific steps agency officials should take prior to establishing a new advisory group. This policy is specific to aviation rulemaking advisory groups, covers both FACA and non-FACA advisory groups, and clearly lays out the process used to determine the need for and how to establish a new group. For instance, when an FAA office identifies an issue on which it would be helpful to obtain advice from industry, officials decide whether to request the standing Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee to accept the task or to charter a new aviation rulemaking committee based on the best fit given the specific topic or activity. The Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee is a formal, standing FACA advisory group; aviation rulemaking committees are non-FACA advisory groups formed on an ad hoc basis, for a specific purpose, and are typically of limited duration. One FAA official involved in these rulemaking advisory groups noted that this guidance offers those offices establishing advisory groups a process they can use to establish and manage their advisory groups, a useful tool because Congress often directs FAA to use these types of advisory groups to conduct rulemakings. While readily available information on FACA advisory groups—such as a designated point of contact and description of objectives—is accessible through a centralized database managed by GSA, similar information is not available for non-FACA advisory groups. Information on all FACA advisory groups—including DOT’s and DOE’s fiscal year 2010 groups—is readily available through the public FACA database, providing agency officials and interested parties with a basic level of transparency. This includes basic information such as contact information and descriptions of activities. In contrast, federal agencies are not required to, and may or may not track their non-FACA advisory groups, and neither of our two selected agencies had an existing inventory of all non-FACA advisory groups that provide advice or input to the agency.