Political Quotes

“Again, I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Clay) for his good work on this. The Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 2017 was introduced by Representative Clay to help improve the governance and transparency of the Federal advisory committees. Last Congress, this bill passed through the committee by regular order and passed the House. Congress acknowledged the merits of using advisory committees to acquire viewpoints from business, academic, and other interests when it passed the original act back in 1972. While not necessarily well-known, Federal advisory committees are small bodies of people who provide advice, guidance, and recommendation to Federal policymakers on a wide range of topics. All told, in fiscal year 2015, there were roughly 1,000 Federal advisory committees, and they held roughly 7,400 meetings at a cost to the American taxpayers of more than $369 million. Now, this strikes me personally as an exceptionally high number. It is a large amount of money. We need to learn more about them, and I personally would help champion to reduce the number of overall Federal advisory committees. We have some 2 million Federal employees, I think, who are highly capable, motivated, and compensated to provide this work. It is good to get outside perspective; but, at some point, we are going to have to look at the cost, the size, and the scope of this as well.…”