Cost of 1,000 Federal Committees Leaves Taxpayers With Skyrocketing Bill

For decades, this has been Washington's go-to response for tackling an array of policy challenges big and small, national and local. But that response has added up.

The federal government hosts a network of 1,000 advisory panels that consisted of more than 74,000 members last year, and they are becoming increasingly expensive -- statistics kept by the federal government show the cost of running these committees has nearly doubled over the past decade.

Though the staggering number of committees has remained fairly constant during that time, the bill they rack up every year has grown rapidly, from $215 million in fiscal year 2000 to $386 million last fiscal year. The collective budget is projected to top $400 million for the 2011 budget year.

It's unclear why the price tag is rising so much at a time when inflation is not, though the bulk of the increase can be found in the cost of paying federal staff who work for these committees. That has some government watchdogs and lawmakers paying attention, and questioning whether Washington really needs tens of thousands of committee members advising the public on everything from pesticides to actuarial examinations.

"Some serve a legitimate purpose, but most of them are just bogus ways for some official to appoint who knows who," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told FoxNews.com. "It's a way to punt a tough question."

Plus, he said, "It's very costly."

Chaffetz plans to introduce legislation next month aimed at requiring the executive branch to reduce the number of advisory committees. He said his "gut" instinct is to get rid of them all, but he suggested a review process might have to be implemented.

"I want to make sure we're not getting rid of a committee to oversee nuclear codes," he said.

According to government statistics, there were 74,346 committee members last year, up from about 52,000 a decade ago. Some work on these committees on a volunteer basis; for those who don't, the cost of paying them topped $47 million last year. Separate from that, the largest single cost -- at $180 million, up from $100 million a decade ago -- comes from funding the staff who do the grunt work. Another big factor is travel and related expenses, which amounted to $72 million last year.

As with most expenses outside of Medicare, Social Security and defense spending, these costs are small potatoes when compared with the federal budget shortfall now consistently north of $1 trillion.

But sometimes what they produce is difficult to gauge. A 2010 report showed just 8 percent of committee recommendations had been or will be fully implemented. About a fifth of all committees deal with reviewing grant applications; most committees, though, report "trust in government" as one of their most vital services. Only 35 committees reported tackling any kind of cost-savings for the government.