# How a Federal Advisory Committee Is Chartered and Terminated A federal advisory committee is the formal channel by which someone who does not work for the government — a scientist, a manufacturer, a state insurance regulator, a fisherman — gets a seat at the table inside it. There are roughly a thousand of them. [[Federal Advisory Committee Structure Tree]] maps that system as a structure: who sits where, which office refers to which, and the several different ways a committee can stop existing. This page maps the same system as a *sequence of documents*: what has to be written, who signs it, where it is filed, how many days must pass, and when the clock runs out. The governing statute is the [[Federal Advisory Committee Act]] of 1972, codified at 5 U.S.C. chapter 10. The rules that carry it out are at 41 C.F.R. part 102-3, written and administered not by a department but by a small office inside [[GSA]] called the Committee Management Secretariat. The whole of part 102-3 was replaced on 16 December 2025 by a final rule published at 90 FR 58408, so the sequence below is the current one and differs in several specific places from the sequence that ran until then. ⭐ **The organizing finding is that the way in is a timed, documented, multi-party filing and the way out is not a procedure at all.** Creating a committee requires a determination, a consultation, a published notice that must appear before anything else happens, a charter containing thirteen enumerated items, and that charter filed in five places. Ending one requires a determination and a letter to the Secretariat — or nothing whatsoever, because a charter nobody renews terminates the committee by itself on its second birthday. The notice section of the regulation lists four events that require telling the public: established, renewed, reestablished, merged. Termination is not among them. **The second finding is that the public-notice window was cut from fifteen days to seven, and the agency may ask for less.** Until December 2025 a notice of establishment or reestablishment had to appear in the [[Federal Register]] at least **15 calendar days** before the charter was filed. The current § 102-3.65(b) sets that interval at **7 calendar days**, and keeps the escape hatch: the Secretariat may approve fewer than seven when an agency asks in exceptional circumstances. ★ The shortened window is already in ordinary use — the Treasury notice reviving the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance, published 10 March 2026, states that the charter will be filed with Congress no earlier than seven days after publication. **The third finding is that a committee's birthday is the day a document reaches two congressional committees, not the day anyone decides anything.** Under § 102-3.70(a)(2) the charter must be filed with the standing committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives having legislative jurisdiction over the agency, and the date of that filing "constitutes the official date of establishment." Every deadline downstream — above all the two-year clock — counts from a mailroom date. For a presidential committee the governing date is instead the date of filing with the Secretariat. **The fourth finding is that the flat requirement of balanced membership left the regulation in December 2025.** The rule that ran until then said at § 102-3.30(c) that an advisory committee "must be fairly balanced in its membership in terms of the points of view represented and the functions to be performed." That section is now **[Reserved]**. What stands in its place, at § 102-3.60(b), is that agencies "should consider" points of view and "should conduct broad outreach." The 2024 version of the rule had also required a membership balance plan as a mandatory component of the pre-establishment consultation, uploaded to the committee database when the charter was filed; the current rule asks instead for a written public interest determination whose six listed factors "should be addressed." ✕ The statute above all of this is untouched: 5 U.S.C. § 1004(b)(2) still says membership "shall be fairly balanced." **The fifth finding is that the filing list grew by one, and the new entry is the budget office.** The charter used to be filed in four places: the agency head, the two congressional committees, the Library of Congress, and the Secretariat. The current § 102-3.70(a) adds a fifth — the Office of Management and Budget. ◈ Nothing in the section says what [[Office of Management and Budget]] does with it, and the regulation attaches no review period, no objection and no consequence to that filing; it is a copy, and the sources surveyed do not establish any function for it. **The sixth finding is that amendments to a charter moved off the Federal Register and onto the committee's own website.** Under § 102-3.80(c) an agency must post an announcement and a copy of a charter amendment on the advisory committee website, and must publish a notice in the *Federal Register* only "if an advisory committee website is not available." The durable, indexed, searchable record of record is now the fallback. **The seventh finding is what the one real termination notice in the series looks like.** On 10 June 2025 the Commerce Department published a single notice, at 90 FR 24383, terminating fourteen discretionary advisory committees at once — three of them the [[Census Bureau]]'s. The determination was that the committees' purposes "have been fulfilled." ◎ The notice gave an effective date of **28 February 2025**, one hundred and two days before it was published. That is not an irregularity; nothing in the regulation requires advance public notice of a termination, so a notice published after the fact is a notice published on time. > [!note] How to read this chart > `──▶` = the main path · `└─▶` = a branch · `■` = a stage of the sequence · `◆` = a document or an office inside a stage · `◇` = a decision point · `☐` = **a public notice is required at this step** · `⊘` = **no public notice is required at this step**, which is the spine of the chart · `◎` = the hinge, where a clock replaces a decision · `✕` = a requirement that used to bind and no longer does · `⚑` = a duty with no due date attached · `★` = used or decided in 2025–26 · `◈` = a reading made on this page rather than published anywhere · `≠` = two paths that are not mirror images. Bare section numbers are 5 U.S.C.; `§ 102-3.x` means 41 C.F.R. part 102-3, in the version in force since 16 December 2025. Day counts are calendar days. No officeholder is named inside the chart; names and dates are in the Notes. Officeholders on this page were verified in November 2026. ``` CHARTERING AND TERMINATING A FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE — THE DOCUMENT TRAIL (November 2026) │ Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 · 5 U.S.C. ch. 10 · 41 C.F.R. part 102-3 │ Part 102-3 replaced in full by 90 FR 58408, 16 December 2025 · ~1,000 chartered committees │ ☐ a public notice is required here ⊘ no public notice is required here │ ◎ a clock replaces a decision ✕ a requirement that no longer binds │ ⚑ a duty with no due date ★ used or decided in 2025–26 │ ◈ a reading made on this page ≠ the two directions are not mirror images │ ■ STAGE 0 — THE DECISION TO WANT ONE ⊘ │ An agency decides it needs outside advice. Nothing is published. No trigger, │ no threshold, no petition right: a committee exists because an agency head │ wanted one, and the first public document comes four stages later. │ │ ◆ Four authorities, § 102-3.50 — and the split that governs everything after │ ├─ NON-DISCRETIONARY required by statute, or directed by the President │ └─ DISCRETIONARY created by an agency head under general authority │ ◈ The discretionary route is the one with a complete paper sequence, │ and the one an agency can close by itself. The chart follows it. │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 1 — THE DETERMINATION AND THE CONSULTATION § 102-3.60(a) │ │ │ │ ◆ "the agency head must first consult with the Secretariat" ← MUST │ │ ◆ a written public interest determination, approved by the agency head ← MUST │ │ │ │ ◇ what must the determination SAY? ──▶ six factors that "should ← SHOULD │ │ be addressed": need · budget and operating cost · members · │ │ duplication of other committees · justification · scope │ │ │ │ ◈ The document is mandatory and its contents are advisory. An agency │ │ head who files a determination addressing none of the six factors │ │ has done what the section requires of them. │ │ │ │ ✕ WHAT USED TO BE HERE: through 20 May 2024 to 15 Dec 2025 the │ │ consultation "must, as a minimum, contain" three items, one of them a │ │ MEMBERSHIP BALANCE PLAN, uploaded to the committee database at filing. │ │ The plan requirement is gone. So is § 102-3.30(c), the flat sentence │ │ that a committee "must be fairly balanced in its membership." │ │ § 1004(b)(2) — "shall be fairly balanced" — is unchanged above it. │ │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 2 — THE SECRETARIAT LOOKS AT IT § 102-3.65(a) │ │ │ │ ◆ Committee Management Secretariat · inside GSA · referees ~1,000 committees │ │ ◇ the Secretariat MAY provide an assessment ──▶ it goes in the notice │ │ └─▶ or it notifies the agency that no assessment will be produced │ │ ⚑ No period is set for this step and no outcome turns on it. The │ │ Secretariat cannot refuse a committee; it can decline to comment. │ │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 3 — THE ONE PUBLISHED DOCUMENT ☐ § 102-3.65 │ │ │ │ ◆ A notice in the FEDERAL REGISTER, carrying the public interest │ │ determination and any Secretariat assessment │ │ │ │ ◇ which events require it? ──▶ ESTABLISHED · RENEWED · REESTABLISHED · MERGED │ │ └─▶ TERMINATED ────────────▶ NOT ON THE LIST ⊘ │ │ ≠ the asymmetry the chart is built around │ │ │ │ ◎ TIMING, § 102-3.65(b): the notice "must appear at least 7 CALENDAR DAYS │ │ before the charter is filed" — and the Secretariat may approve fewer │ │ than seven when an agency asks in exceptional circumstances. │ │ │ │ ✕ IT WAS 15 CALENDAR DAYS from 2001 until 15 December 2025, with the │ │ same escape hatch. Renewals were exempt from advance notice │ │ altogether and could be published the day the charter was filed. │ │ ⚑ Whether that renewal exemption survived the rewrite is not │ │ established by the sources surveyed. │ │ │ │ ★ 10 MARCH 2026 — the seven-day window in ordinary use. Treasury's notice │ │ reviving the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance states the charter │ │ "will be filed with Congress no earlier than seven (7) days following │ │ the date of publication." Earliest filing: 17 March 2026. Under the │ │ rule in force three months earlier it would have been 25 March. │ │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 4 — THE CHARTER § 102-3.75 │ │ │ │ ◆ "The charter must contain the following information:" — thirteen items │ │ (a) official designation (h) estimated number of meetings │ │ (b) legal authority (i) time needed to carry out purpose │ │ (c) objectives and scope (j) planned termination date, if under │ │ (d) duties, and the authority two years from establishment │ │ for any non-advisory function (k) estimated members and the │ │ (e) who receives its advice expertise required │ │ (f) who supports it (l) whether subcommittees may be made, │ │ (g) estimated annual cost in and by whom │ │ dollars and person-years (m) the date the charter is filed │ │ │ │ ◈ Twelve of the thirteen are answerable by the agency writing them, and │ │ item (m) is answerable only by the act of filing. Nothing on the list │ │ requires naming a member, and no item asks who asked for the committee. │ │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 5 — FILED IN FIVE PLACES § 102-3.70 │ │ │ │ ◆ "No advisory committee may meet or take any action until a charter │ │ has been filed." ◎ The filing is the on-switch. │ │ │ │ ├─ (1) the agency head │ │ ├─ (2) ◎ THE STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE having │ │ │ legislative jurisdiction over the agency — "the date of filing │ │ │ with which constitutes the official date of establishment" │ │ │ ◈ The committee's birthday is a delivery date, not a decision. │ │ ├─ (3) the Library of Congress │ │ ├─ (4) the Secretariat, stating the date of the filing at (2) │ │ └─ (5) OMB ★ │ │ ✕ NOT ON THE LIST BEFORE 16 DECEMBER 2025 — four destinations, not │ │ five. ◈ No review period, objection or consequence attaches to │ │ it; the sources surveyed establish no function for the copy. │ │ │ │ └─▶ PRESIDENTIAL COMMITTEES, § 102-3.70(b): same filings, but the │ │ official date is the date of filing with the Secretariat. ◈ The │ │ President's committee does not start its life in a congressional │ │ mailroom; the agency's does. │ │ ──▶ ■ STAGE 6 — THE COMMITTEE EXISTS, AND THE CLOCK STARTS § 102-3.55 │ │ ◎ "automatically terminates TWO YEARS after its date of establishment" │ │ ◇ unless one of four things happens ──▶ │ ├─ (1) a statute sets a different duration or termination ⊘ │ ├─ (2) the President or agency head determines the purpose is │ │ FULFILLED and terminates it early ⊘ │ ├─ (3) the President or agency head determines it is NO LONGER │ │ CARRYING OUT its purpose and terminates it early ⊘ │ └─ (4) it is RENEWED "not later than two years after its date of │ establishment, renewal, or reestablishment" ☐ │ ├──▶ ◆ EXIT A — RENEWAL ──▶ back to STAGE 1, and a notice is required. │ Renewal is the only exit that re-enters the sequence, and the only │ one the public is told about. Two years later, the same gate again. │ ├──▶ ◆ EXIT B — TERMINATION BY DETERMINATION § 102-3.55(b) │ ├─ the agency head determines (2) or (3) above │ └─ "the agency shall notify the Secretariat of the effective date │ of the termination." ⊘ That is the entire publication duty. │ No Federal Register notice. No advance notice. No comment. ⚑ No │ due date — the section fixes no interval between the effective │ date and the letter. │ │ ★ 10 JUNE 2025 · 90 FR 24383 — the Commerce Department published one │ notice terminating FOURTEEN discretionary committees: two economic- │ statistics committees, THREE CENSUS BUREAU COMMITTEES, five trade │ committees and four ocean and climate committees. Ground: purposes │ "have been fulfilled." Cited authority: the Act and E.O. 14217. │ ◎ EFFECTIVE DATE 28 FEBRUARY 2025 — 102 days before publication. │ ◈ Nothing was skipped. A rule with no advance-notice requirement │ cannot be breached by a notice that arrives late. │ └──▶ ◆ EXIT C — THE CHARTER LAPSES § 102-3.55(a) ⊘ Nobody terminates it. Nobody signs anything. Nobody files anything. The two-year date passes and the committee is over. ◎ This is the exit with no document of any kind — which means it is also the exit that cannot be counted. ≠ Stage 3 required a notice SEVEN DAYS BEFORE a committee could begin. Nothing is required at any remove from the day it ends. ★ THE WORKED EXAMPLE, AND WHAT IT SHOWS ABOUT THE RECORD: Treasury's 10 March 2026 notice revives the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance "following the lapse of its previous charter." ◈ The lapse itself produced no public document. The only notice in the Federal Register that this committee ever stopped existing is the notice bringing it back. ■ THE SIDE DOOR — AMENDING A CHARTER WITHOUT REPLACING IT § 102-3.80 │ ◆ (b) "The agency must amend the charter" when its provisions become │ inaccurate or obsolete │ ◆ (c) "Agencies must post an announcement and a copy of the charter │ amendment on the advisory committee website. If an advisory committee │ website is not available, the agency must publish a notice of │ amendment in the Federal Register." │ ◈ The indexed, dated, permanently archived record is now the fallback, and │ a page an agency controls is the default. An amendment is also the one │ change to a chartered committee that never restarts the two-year clock. │ ■ WHAT THE SEQUENCE ADDS UP TO ☐ ONE published notice on the way in, 7 days ahead, plus 5 filings and a 13-item charter. ⊘ ZERO published notices required on the way out, by any of the three exits. ◈ A system can be made quieter without repealing anything in it: shorten the one notice, move the amendments to a website, delete the sentence that said membership must be balanced, and leave the exits as they were. ``` ## Notes **Officeholders and dates (verified November 2026).** The Administrator of [[GSA]], the agency that houses the Committee Management Secretariat, is [[Edward Forst]], confirmed by the Senate on 18 December 2025 in a batched 53–43 vote and sworn in on 24 December 2025. GSA's own page naming the Administrator, last updated 4 November 2026, gives him the title with no acting qualifier and describes him as the agency's 24th Administrator. He succeeded [[Michael Rigas]], who served as acting administrator and who approved the December 2025 rule in that capacity. No source published in 2026 names the current Director of the Committee Management Secretariat, so this page relies on the office rather than on a person. **The December 2025 rule, precisely.** "Federal Management Regulation; Aligning the Federal Management Regulation (FMR) With the Administration's Deregulatory Priorities," 90 FR 58408, published and effective 16 December 2025 (FMR Case 2025-05, RIN 3090-AK92). Its amendatory instruction for this part is a single line — revise part 102-3 to read as follows — so the whole part was replaced rather than edited section by section, and the changes can only be found by comparison. The preamble describes the goal as streamlining and consolidating the part, removing unnecessary language, and increasing accountability, and cites E.O. 14192 and E.O. 14219. The rule added a severability provision at § 102-3.190. It was signed by the Associate Administrator for Government-wide Policy under authority delegated by the then-acting Administrator, and the confirmed Administrator ratified it on 14 January 2026 at 91 FR 2314. **Which sections went empty.** §§ 102-3.15 through 102-3.20, § 102-3.30 and § 102-3.85 are all marked [Reserved] in the current part. Of these the consequential one is § 102-3.30, whose paragraph (c) carried the balanced-membership sentence quoted above and whose paragraph (b) pointed to § 102-3.55 for termination. **On the 15-day figure.** The fifteen-day interval is confirmed in two independent printings of the former rule: the 2013 annual edition of 41 C.F.R. (part 102-3 as of 1 July 2013), and the April 2024 final rule at 89 FR 27673, effective 20 May 2024, which carried the same number forward. The wording of the escape hatch changed over that period — the older printing allows the Secretariat to approve a shorter interval "for good cause," the 2024 text and the current text say "exceptional circumstances" — and the current text's phrasing is the one quoted on this page. The sources surveyed do not cover every intervening amendment between 2013 and December 2025, so what is established here is that the figure was fifteen in both of those printings and is seven now. **On the fourteen-committee notice.** 90 FR 24383, published 10 June 2025, signed 4 June 2025 by the Commerce Department's Chief Privacy Officer and Director of Open Government, and attributed to a determination by the Secretary of Commerce, who is not named in it. The three [[Census Bureau]] committees were the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, the Bureau of the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, and the Census Bureau National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations. The other eleven were the Bureau of Economic Analysis Advisory Committee, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, four International Trade Administration committees on supply chains, civil nuclear trade, renewable energy and manufacturing plus the United States Investment Advisory Council, and four committees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on space, climate services, marine and coastal management and marine fisheries. The notice cites [[Executive Order 14217]] of 19 February 2025 as the occasion for the review. ◈ The effective date precedes the executive order's thirty-day reporting deadline and the notice's own signature by months, which is possible because no provision ties the two dates together. **On the insurance committee.** 91 FR 11615, published 10 March 2026, a Treasury notice signed by the Director of the Federal Insurance Office. It records that Treasury reviewed all of its advisory committees after Executive Order 14217 and determined that reestablishing this one was in the public interest "following the lapse of its previous charter." The notice gives no date for the lapse and no account of how it happened beyond the word. The reestablished committee is described as having up to twenty-five members, an initial two-year term subject to two-year reauthorizations at the Secretary's discretion, and an expectation of roughly four meetings a year. **What this page does not resolve.** Whether the renewal exemption from advance notice, express in the rule from 2001 through 2025, survived the December 2025 rewrite — the current § 102-3.65(b) states the seven-day rule without restating the carve-out, and the sources surveyed do not settle it either way. What the Office of Management and Budget does with the charter copy it now receives, which the regulation does not say. How many of the roughly one thousand chartered committees currently hold an unexpired charter, which the committee database could answer and no published analysis has. How many have ended by lapse rather than by determination, which by construction no notice-based count can reach. And whether any court has enforced § 1004(b)(2)'s balance requirement against an agency's membership choices now that the regulation's own version of the sentence is gone. ## See also - [[Federal Advisory Committee Structure Tree]] — the same system drawn as a structure: the coverage test, the chain of officials, and the five ways a committee stops existing - [[Federal Advisory Committee Act]] — the 1972 statute behind the sequence, including the balance requirement the regulation stopped restating - [[GSA]] — the agency housing the Committee Management Secretariat, which referees the paperwork government-wide - [[Office of Management and Budget]] — added to the charter filing list in December 2025 - [[Federal Register]] — the publication the one required notice appears in, and the fallback for charter amendments - [[Executive Order 14217]] — the February 2025 order whose review produced both worked examples on this page - [[Census Bureau]] — three of its advisory committees ended by the single notice of 10 June 2025 - [[Census Bureau Org Chart]] — the structure those three committees advised - [[Environmental Defense Fund v. Wright]] — what happens when an agency runs a committee without going through any of this - [[National Science Board]] — the statutory committee that could not be terminated, and was emptied instead - [[Executive Branch Org Chart]] — the departments these committees hang off - [[Administrative Procedure Act]] — the other channel public comment runs through, with deadlines that do bind - [[How an Inspector General Is Appointed and Removed]] — the same notice-versus-cause question for a single office - [[Edward Forst]] · [[Michael Rigas]] - [[Federal Agencies Hub]] · [[Foundations Hub]]