Last week, USTR announced that it was closing a “partially open” meeting of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Small and Minority Business. No reason was given for the closing of the meeting. But this led an office in Congress to request the Congressional Research Service to find out just how many open meetings of the ITACs there have been. The answer:
Since 2004, there have been 13 “partially open” meetings of ITACS. Oddly, all but one of the open meetings were of the small and minority business committee. The one other open meeting of an ITAC was a meeting of ITAC chairs held to oppose a USTR proposal to include public interest representation on ITACS. That meeting propose instead the separate committee model for public interest representation ultimately adopted with USTR’s endorsement of a Public Interest Trade Advisory Committee “PITAC.”
Here is the full list of open meetings of ITACS since 2004 provided by CRS:
FY2013 ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 10/15/2012, Partially-Opened/Closed
- 12/4/2012, Closed/Partially Opened
FY2012 ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 10/12/2011, Closed/Partially Opened
- 4/4/2012, Closed/Partially Opened
- 8/10/2012, Closed/Partially Opened
FY2011 – ITAC Committee of Chairs
- 10/12/2010, Closed/Partially Opened
FY2010 – ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business, 8/9/2010 Open
FY2009 – ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 12/8/2008, Partially Open/Closed
- 9/14/2009, Closed/Partially Open
FY2008 – ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 6/9/2008 Closed/Partially Open
FY2007 – ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 3/19/2007 Partially Open/Closed
- 6/10/2007 Partially Open/Closed
FY2006 – ITAC 11 on Small and Minority Business
- 10/3/2005 Partially Open/Closed
