Opinion ID: 545467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Federal Advisory Committee Act

Text: 11 We also conclude that the FACA imposes no special traffic-cop responsibilities upon the President or his delegates that would permit us to ignore established rules governing disclosure of government documents. Section 10(b) of the FACA states: 12 Subject to section 552 of title 5, United States Code [the FOIA], the records, reports, transcripts, minutes, appendixes, working papers, drafts, studies, agenda, or other documents which were made available to or prepared for or by each advisory committee shall be available for public inspection and copying at a single location in the offices of the advisory committee or the agency to which the advisory committee reports until the advisory committee ceases to exist. 26 13 Accordingly, Section 10(b) renders the disclosure provisions of the FOIA applicable to advisory committees and designates each committee as the appropriate repository for its own records. It does not, by any word or implication, impose upon the President or upon the Office of Administration a special responsibility to guide document requests. Nor does appellant point to anything in the legislative history of the FACA that suggests that Congress intended to create such an obligation. 14 It is true that the President is given certain specific responsibilities elsewhere in the FACA. Section 6 requires him to submit to Congress a report on his proposals for action or his reasons for inaction, with respect to the recommendations of an advisory committee, and an annual report on the activities, status, and changes in the composition of advisory committees in existence during the preceding fiscal year. 27 In addition, section 10 makes the President generally responsible for deciding whether an advisory committee meeting will be open to public attendance and participation. 28 In contrast, no provision of the FACA could be read as burdening the President with the responsibility described by appellant. 15 Even if, as appellant argues, the FACA requires the President to ensure that the advisory committee complies with the FACA, 29 he would presumably do so by directing the committee to comply with a properly submitted document request. Since appellant did not, in this instance, submit its requests to the proper entity, the President cannot have failed in whatever responsibility he may have to enforce the requirements of the FACA. 16 We are also unpersuaded by appellant's reliance upon Founding Church of Scientology, Inc. v. NSA 30 for the proposition that the FACA requires the Office of Administration to make reasonable efforts to satisfy document requests by forwarding them to the appropriate entity. In that case, we held that when an agency receives a document request under the FOIA, it must make a reasonable effort to identify and retrieve the requested material from its files. Nothing in our opinion can be read to require an entity that does not have possession or control of requested documents to forward a request to the appropriate entity. 17 Finally, appellant contends that the Office of Administration circumvented the FACA by engaging in a shell game 31 with the documents sought, first by failing to direct its request to the custodian of the pertinent records, and then by transferring the records to the Counsel to the President when the Tower Commission terminated its activities. 32 The Supreme Court, in Kissinger v. Reporters Committee, raised but did not decide whether the possession or control requirement might be displaced in the event that it was shown that an agency official purposefully routed a document out of agency possession in order to circumvent a FOIA request. 33 The district court found it unnecessary to address this issue, having found that appellant never submitted a proper request for the documents sought. 34 Because we agree that appellant never directed any request to the appropriate entity, the Tower Commission, we need not consider whether the Government improperly transferred documents with the intent of evading a proper request or what the consequences of such a transfer would be.