To amend title 5, United States Code, to address the responsibilities of the Administrator of General Services with respect to Federal advisory committees, and for other purposes.
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
ReportedReported by Mr. Peters, with an amendment
Mr. Peters (for himself and Mr. Cassidy) introduced the following …
Summary
What This Bill Does
The Federal Advisory Committee Database Act requires the General Services Administration to create and maintain a comprehensive public database containing detailed information about every federal advisory committee. The database must include committee memberships, operating costs, meeting schedules, and recommendations, all published annually in downloadable, machine-readable formats. The bill aims to increase transparency and public oversight of the thousands of advisory committees that provide expert advice to federal agencies.
Who Benefits and How
Transparency advocates, watchdog groups, and the general public gain unprecedented access to standardized, easily searchable information about advisory committee operations, membership, and influence. Researchers and journalists benefit from reduced time and costs in obtaining advisory committee data, as information that previously required Freedom of Information Act requests or manual research will now be available in a centralized, downloadable database. Congressional oversight committees receive biennial reports with systematic data to better monitor the advisory committee system and ensure committees serve the public interest.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Federal agencies with advisory committees face increased administrative burdens, as they must collect and continuously submit 13 categories of detailed information for each committee, including membership rosters with ethics designations, cost data, meeting summaries, and implementation status of recommendations. The General Services Administration's Committee Management Secretariat must build and maintain the database infrastructure, develop standardized reporting guidelines, and publish machine-readable data annually. Advisory Committee Management Officers at each agency shoulder expanded responsibilities as primary liaisons to GSA and must ensure compliance with new reporting requirements. Importantly, Section 3 explicitly states no additional funding is authorized to carry out these new mandates.
Key Provisions
- Mandates collection of 13 types of information for each advisory committee, including member names, ethics designations, appointment authorities, committee costs, meeting frequencies, and recommendation implementation status
- Requires annual publication of all collected data on a public GSA website in machine-readable format, with historical data maintained according to record retention schedules
- Establishes biennial congressional reporting requirements for the Administrator to review committee compliance and recommend improvements to the President, agency heads, or Congress
- Authorizes the Administrator to prescribe regulations and update administrative guidelines to ensure standardization and consistency in agency reporting
- Expands agency head responsibilities to include establishing performance measures for advisory committees and ensuring timely, accurate reporting to the Administrator
Evidence Chain:
This summary is derived from the structured analysis below. See "Detailed Analysis" for per-title beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
Primary Purpose
Requires the Administrator of General Services to establish and maintain a comprehensive public database containing detailed information about all federal advisory committees, their memberships, costs, meetings, and recommendations.
Policy Domains
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "agency_head"
- → Head of each federal agency with advisory committees
- "the_administrator"
- → Administrator of General Services
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
As defined in section 3502 of title 44
The means by which an advisory committee complies with section 1004(b)(2) requirements for balanced membership representation
As defined in section 202 of title 18
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
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