Federal Advisory Committees FACA

Federal agencies have long sought advice from outside experts, industry representatives, and citizens. Concerned that such panels had multiplied, met in secret, and given special interests private access to officials, Congress passed the Federal Advisory Committee Act, signed on October 6, 1972. The law requires that each committee have a written charter renewed every two years, that its meetings be announced in the Federal Register and generally open to the public, that its membership be fairly balanced in viewpoints, and that its records be available. The General Services Administration tracks committees governmentwide.

In a typical year there are about a thousand advisory committees with tens of thousands of members, created by law, by the President, or by agency heads. They range from scientific panels such as the Food and Drug Administration's drug advisory committees and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory committee to defense policy boards, trade advisory committees, and panels on national parks and veterans. Their recommendations are not binding, but agencies often follow them, and their public meetings let outside experts and the public weigh in on technical decisions. Panels made up only of federal employees are not covered.

Courts have limited the law's reach, holding in Public Citizen v. Department of Justice in 1989 that it did not cover the American Bar Association's ratings of judicial nominees, and litigation over the 2001 White House energy task force tested whether informal groups count. A February 2025 executive order terminated a number of advisory committees, and in June 2025 the Secretary of Health and Human Services removed all members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee and appointed new ones. Supporters of the changes said panels had become stale or captured by narrow interests, while critics said the moves weakened independent expert input into decisions affecting public health and safety.