ATTACHMENT II

2-19-87

1987

ATTACHMENT II

Secretary of the Navy Advisory Board on Education and Training

RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS FROM CHAIRMAN GLENN

Question 1

GAO Response

Question 2

GAO Response

At our first hearing on FACA last December, you
discussed your review of the President's AIDS
Commission operations and compliance with the Act.
What is the current status of that review?

Most of our audit work at the President's Commission on AIDS is complete, and we are drafting a report on the Commission's compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. As agreed with the Committee, our report will highlight the public's access to Commission records and the process used by the Commission to prepare its reports.

In addition to the requested work at the
Commission, you asked that, as part of our review,
we evaluate the process through which the White
House identified and resolved potential conflicts
of interest on the part of AIDS Commission
members. In order to accomplish this objective,
we requested access to the financial information
submitted by Commission members which provided the
basis for the White House's conflict-of-interest
reviews. Our informal efforts to obtain the
necessary records were unsuccessful, and
therefore, we submitted a written request to the
Counsel to the President for access pursuant to
31 U.S.C. S 716(b)(1). This request was made in a
letter dated April 13, 1988.

In your recent review of DOD scientific advisory
committee operations, you found that the Defense
Science Board requests names of additional
candidates from independent organizations to
broaden the base of potential board membership.
Do you believe that Congress should write this or
some other such affirmative requirement into FACA
to clarify what must be done by the appointing
authority to achieve "balanced membership?"

The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires that
advisory committee membership be "fairly
balanced," but neither the act nor GSA's
implementing regulations define the concept of
balance. In the preamble to GSA's regulations
issued on December 2, 1987, GSA expressed the view
that the balance provisions of the act are

Question 3

GAO Response

Question 4

sufficiently broad to permit agency discretion in determining advisory committee membership.

An

In view of the widely divergent functions
performed by advisory committees, we believe that
it would not be practical to write into the act a
requirement that certain groups and interests must
be solicited for potential membership or
represented on every advisory committee.
alternative way to impose controls on the
selection of advisory committee members while at
the same time preserving flexibility in the
selection process would be to require agencies to
document the factors they will be considering in
selecting committee members in view of the
specific functions to be performed by the
committee. Such a documentation requirement could
be built into GSA's regulations by elaborating on
the existing requirement that agencies proposing
to establish or use advisory committees must
submit to the GSA Secretariat in their

consultation letters a plan for achieving balanced
committee membership.

It seems to me that at a minimum, the agencies should be required to establish a plan for achieving balanced viewpoints for each of its advisory committees, and that the plan should be made public so that interested parties can have something by which to judge the integrity of the appointment process. Do you see any problems with this approach?

We see no problems with this approach. Making
public agency plans for achieving balanced
membership would be consistent with one of the
underlying objectives of the Federal Advisory
Committee Act, which was to open the advisory
committee process to public scrutiny. In this
vein, section 2(b)(5) of the act states that the
Congress and the public should be kept informed of
various aspects of advisory committees, including
committee membership.

Your testimony states that there are a number of
possible ways for a committee member to resolve
actual or potential conflicts of interest. The
Committee's review indicates that the preferred
method of resolution is to have the member
"disqualify" himself from considering any matters

85-796 0-88-6

GAO Response

relating to these interests. Does that method work to ensure that members do recuse

themselves?

We, too, found in our work at the Department
of Defense and other agencies that
disqualification is a common method of
resolving conflicts but we do not believe it is
necessarily the preferred method. The choice

of method for resolving a conflict depends on
the nature and extent of the particular
interest.

With respect to the disqualification method, we found at the Defense Science Board that the designated federal official is responsible for reviewing all task force members' financial disclosure statements to determine if a conflict of interest arises in connection with task force activities. At another agency, we also found that the designated federal official monitored conflicts of interest.

Ultimately, it is the responsibility of each
advisory committee member to recuse himself
from any committee matter which may have a
direct and predictable effect on a personal
financial interest. The prohibition against
self-dealing in 18 U.S.C. 208 applies with
equal force to regular and special government
employees, and an advisory committee member who
does not disqualify himself from matters
involving a personal financial interest makes
himself vulnerable to criminal prosecution.