Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program Administrative History

Federal advisory committees — which may also be designated as commissions, councils, or task forces — are created as provisional advisory bodies that can circumvent bureaucratic constraints to collect a variety of viewpoints on specific policy issues. Advisory bodies have been created to address a host of issues, ranging from policies on organ donation to the design and implementation of the Department of Homeland Security. These committees are often created to help the government manage and solve complex or divisive issues. Such committees may be mandated to render independent advice or make recommendations to various bodies within the federal government by congressional statute, created by presidential executive order, or required by fiat of an agency head.

Congress formally acknowledged the merits of using advisory committees to acquire viewpoints from business, academic, governmental, and other interests when it passed the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in 1972 (5 U.S.C. Appendix — Federal Advisory Committee Act; 86 Stat.770, as amended). Enactment of FACA was prompted by the belief of many citizens and Members of Congress that such committees were duplicative, inefficient, and lacked adequate control or oversight. Additionally, some citizens believed the committees failed to sufficiently represent the public interest — an opinion punctuated by the closed-door meeting policies of many committees. FACA mandated certain structural and operational requirements for many federal committees, including formal reporting and oversight procedures for the advisory bodies. FACA requires that committee membership be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented,” and advice provided by committees be objective and accessible to the public. Additionally, FACA requires nearly all committee meetings be open to the public. Pursuant to statute, the General Services Administration (GSA) maintains and administers management guidelines for federal advisory committees. During FY2008, GSA reported a total of 917 active committees with nearly 64,000 total members that provided advice and recommendations to 50 federal agencies. The total operating costs for these committees in FY2008 was $344.3 million. Agency administrators, the President, and Congress continue to create federal advisory committees in the 111th Congress.

Committees that fit certain FACA criteria and are created by the executive branch are governed by FACA guidelines. FACA was designed to eliminate duplication of committee expertise and make advisory bodies in the executive branch more transparent. Congress may decide, however, to place FACA requirements on a body that it statutorily created. Existing statutes are sometimes unclear as to whether a congressionally created committee would have to comply with FACA requirements — except in cases when the statute explicitly mandates FACA’s applicability.

Legislation (H.R. 1320) was reintroduced in the 111th Congress that would require members of advisory committees be selected without regard to their partisan affiliation. Also pursuant to the legislation, executive branch agency heads would be authorized to require members serving on agency advisory committees to fully disclose any actual or potential conflicts of interest. Additionally, GSA’s Administrator would be given authority to create regulations and guidelines to further ensure that an advisory committee offered impartial advice and recommendations. The bill would also require each advisory committee to create a website, publish advance notice of meetings, and provide public access to proceedings on its website. The bill was sent to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and ordered to be reported from the committee on March 10, 2009. Similar legislation was introduced in the 110th Congress (H.R. 5687), but was not enacted.

Restoration of riverine ecosystems is often stated as a management objective for regulated rivers, and floods are one of the most effective tools for accomplishing restoration. The National Re- search Council (NRC 1992) argued that ecological restoration means re- turning "an ecosystem to a close approximation of its condition prior to disturbance" and that "restoring altered, damaged, O f destroyed lakes, rivers, and wetlands is a high-priority task." Effective restoration must be based on a clear definition of the value of riverine resources to society; on scientific studies that document ecosystem status and provide an understanding of ecosystem processes and resource interactions; on scientific studies that predict, mea- sure, and monitor the effectiveness of restoration techniques; and on engineering and economic studies that evaluate societal costs and benefits of restoration.

In the case of some large rivers, restoration is not a self-evident goal. Indeed, restoration may be impossible; a more feasible goal may be rehabilitation of some ecosystem components and processes in parts of the river (Gore and Shields 1995, Kondolfand Wilcock 1996, Stanford et al. 1996). In other cases, the appropriate decision may be to do nothing. The decision to manipulate ecosystem processes and components involves not only a scientific judgment that a restored or rehabilitated condition is achievable, but also a value judgment that this condition is more desirable than the status quo. These judgments involve prioritizing different river resources, and they should be based on extensive and continuing public debate.

In this article, we examine the appropriate role of science in determining whether or not to restore or rehabilitate the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon by summarizing studies carried out by numerous agencies, universities, and consulting firms since 1983. This reach of the Colorado extends 425 km between Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Mead reservoir (Figure 1). Efforts to manipulate ecosystem processes and components in the Grand Canyon have received widespread public attention, such as the 1996 controlled flood released from Glen Canyon Dam and the proposal to drain Lake Powell reservoir.