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GSA Launches New Webpage on Federal Advisory Committees

April 19, 2011 at 11:42 AM ET by Steven Croley
Summary: 
Steven Croley announces the launch of a new Federal Advisory Committee Act webpage through the General Services Administration.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has launched a new Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) webpage. This new page provides the public with accessible information about federal advisory committees—committees chartered under federal law to develop policy advice or recommendations for federal agencies.

The public will now be able to retrieve information about advisory committee membership, costs, meetings, and contact information. The user friendly site provides not only information about individual committee members but also information about the composition of specific committees. GSA’s new user friendly site also links directly to the websites of many of the individual federal advisory committees.

GSA’s effort to provide more information about federal advisory committees supports efforts to move FACA management and implementation to newer technologies. Electronic FACA, or eFACA, is the broader name given to the agency’s efforts to guide other agencies about the best use of technology to reduce the costs of advisory committee meetings and increase public access. In addition to the information provided on the new website, GSA provides data on executive branch federal advisory committees through:

  • The Shared Management System or FACA Database– The public can view the full GSA data set of advisory committee information from 1995 to the present on www.gsa.gov/facadatabase.  GSA is currently working to expand the availability of data on federal advisory committees for years prior to 1995.
  • Data.gov– In efforts to expand public access to data on federal advisory committees, GSA made 12 years of data sets available (1997 through 2008). Earlier data will be added as made available, as will newer data from fiscal year 2009 and FY 2010.
  • Library of Congress– The Library of Congress and GSA have collaborated since 2008 to make tens of thousands of historic advisory committee documents available online. This has resulted in the materials uploaded to a Library of Congress website and linked to GSA’s current online and public-facing Shared Management System.
  • Individual Executive Departments and Agencies– Agencies provide data on their federal advisory committee management and operation through their own federal advisory committee websites. GSA’s new website provides links to many of these sites.

GSA’s newly designed site shows the agency’s continuing commitment to a more efficient and more open government.

Steven Croley is Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy.