The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 (Public Law 92-463) created a structured process for creating, operating, and terminating Federal advisory committees that provide advice to the Executive Branch of government. This law also stipulated requirements for:
- public notification of the creation and operation of Federal advisory committees
- public input
- data collection and reporting of Federal advisory committee activities
Between 1972 and 1997 an annual comprehensive review of agency Federal advisory committees was reported to the President and Congress through an annual hard copy report. Since 1998, comprehensive information on Federal advisory committees has been collected by a specialized, Federal government, Interagency, information-sharing database that collects data on Federal advisory committee activities governmentwide and is publicly available on the web. Data for the last 17 years from this database is also available on data.gov.
Built as a data collection and reporting tool, and not a public communication tool, the FACA database may not be intuitive to navigate if someone is not well versed on the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Consistent with the Open Government Directive, the purpose of this website is to make it easier for the public to understand the Federal Advisory Committee Act, to have easy access to highly requested information from the Federal Advisory Committee Act database, and to more easily find, and understand how to participate in, Federal advisory committee meetings across the government.
Timeline of major FACA events
U.S. General Services Administration