Shadow Government
 
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At least 900 committees, boards, commissions, councils and panels give advice to federal agencies and the White House, forming a vast but largely unnoticed network that influences policy and spends nearly $400 million a year. The Center launches an ongoing investigation into these panels with a look at the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health.
Congress Moves to Curb Abuses by Advisory Councils
Federal watchdogs target secrecy, industry influence by "Fifth Branch of Government"
WASHINGTON, May 6, 2008 — In the spring of 2006, Boeing paid one of the largest fines ever imposed on a U.S. company for violating the Arms Export Control Act. From 2000 to 2003, the aerospace and defense giant had defied State Department regulations and warnings about the unauthorized export of commercial aircraft equipped with a microchip that had military applications. >>
A Science Panel's Curious End
How a Critical Advisory Group Got Sidelined by Two Administrations
WASHINGTON, May 6, 2008 — Growing up in southeastern Washington State, Trisha Pritikin played among the waters and islands of the Columbia River and gave little thought to the looming neighbor upstream: the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, a sprawling complex of factories where, beginning in the mid-1940s, the U.S. government secretly manufactured plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. Pritikin, whose parents worked at the Hanford site, was unaware that radioactive residues from the facility had not only contaminated her riverside playgrounds but had also leached into her yard, tainted the milk she drank, and possibly even been tracked across the rugs in her family's home. >>
Network of 900 Advisory Panels Wields Unseen Power
Concerns raised about secrecy, industry influence and political interference
WASHINGTON, March 29, 2007 — They counsel the Department of Defense on terrorism, help the National Institutes of Health dispense billions of dollars in grants and vet proposed food safety rules for the Department of Agriculture. They weigh in on human rights, climate change, Medicare, Social Security, sexual assault in the military, prescription drugs, national parks, child abuse and countless other subjects. >>
Radiation Panel Fairness Questioned
Ailing Cold War veterans say compensation program biased
WASHINGTON, March 29, 2007 — Fourteen months after the fact, Dr. Henry Anderson and Richard Espinosa say they still aren't sure why they were removed from the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, a presidential panel that helps the government weigh claims for compensation by current and former nuclear weapons workers. >>