Interest Groups, Advisory Committees, and Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy

Abstract

(NDWAC), an advisory committee within the Environmental Protection Agency, to test whether the active interests in the legislative debate over drinking water are represented on the advisory committee, and thus in the EPA's policymaking process. Although agency officials are responsible for appointing the members of NDWAC, we find that public endorsements by interest groups are influential in the agency's selection process. These groups provide reliable information to Congress about applicants' true policy preferences. ne of the persistent power struggles in American national politics is that between Congress and the bureaucracy. Scholars have theorized that the outcome of this struggle depends significantly on which institution has superior information about the costs and consequences of policy implementation (Banks and Weingast 1992; Bendor, Taylor, and Van Gaalen 1985; Miller and Moe 1984). When agencies have an informational advantage, they can often implement programs at higher costs and with different beneficiaries than intended by Congress. limit bureaucratic discretion in policy making, Congress must control the information available to agencies. The information available to agencies depends, among other factors, on the number and kind of interested parties that participate in agency proceedings. Through formal comments, ex parte communications, hearings, stakeholder meetings, and other forums, agencies collect information about the costs and consequences of policy options in some of the same ways as Congress collects information. Policy information across the two institutions is likely to correspond when both Congress and agencies collect information from the same parties. If policy decisions depend on available information, then the more closely information corresponds between institutions, the more likely policy decisions will correspond as well. Our question in this article is To what extent, and by what means, do interests that realize representation in Congress also realize representation in the bureaucracy? Our explanation parallels the structure and process argument of McCubbins, Noll, and Weingast (1987, 1989) and the informational theories of Gilligan and Krehbiel (1987) and others. We propose that Congress controls the flow and content of information to the bureaucracy