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.

The Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (AMP) has been identified as a model for natural resource management. We challenge that assertion, citing the lack of progress toward a long-term management plan for the dam, sustained extra-programmatic conflict, and a downriver ecology that is still in jeopardy, despite over ten years of meetings and an expensive research program. We have examined the primary and secondary sources available on the AMP’s design and operation in light of best practices identified in the literature on adaptive management and collaborative decision-making. We have identified six shortcomings: (1) an inadequate approach to identifying stakeholders; (2) a failure to provide clear goals and involve stakeholders in establishing the operating procedures that guide the collaborative process; (3) inappropriate use of professional neutrals and a failure to cultivate consensus; (4) a failure to establish and follow clear joint fact-finding procedures; (5) a failure to produce functional written agreements; and (6) a failure to manage the AMP adaptively and cultivate long-term problem-solving capacity.

Adaptive management can be an effective approach for addressing complex ecosystem-related processes like the operation of the Glen Canyon Dam, particularly in the face of substantial complexity, uncertainty, and political contentiousness. However, the Glen Canyon Dam AMP shows that a stated commitment to collaboration and adaptive management is insufficient. Effective management of natural resources can only be realized through careful attention to the collaborative design and implementation of appropriate problem-solving and adaptive-management procedures. It also requires the development of an appropriate organizational infrastructure that promotes stakeholder dialogue and agency learning. Though the experimental Glen Canyon Dam AMP is far from a success of collaborative adaptive management, the lessons from its shortcomings can foster more effective collaborative adaptive management in the future by Congress, federal agencies, and local and state authorities.