United States General Accounting Office

GAO Report to the Congress

August 1995 DEPARTMENT OF

ENERGY

A Framework for

Restructuring DOE and

Its Missions

GAO/RCED-95-197

GAO United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

Resources, Community, and

Economic Development Division

B-261382 

August 21, 1995

To the President of the Senate and the

Speaker of the House of Representatives

This report on the need to reevaluate the missions of the U.S. Department of Energy is the final

report in a series of GAO management reviews of the Department. The series of reports assessed

the Department’s management, analyzed problems and determined their underlying causes, and

identified ways in which departmental management processes and structures could be

improved. This final report discusses GAO’s overall observations and emphasizes the Congress’s

important role, with the Secretary of Energy, in fundamentally reevaluating DOE’s missions and

alternatives.

We are sending copies of this report to the Secretary of Energy; the Director, Office of

Management and Budget; interested congressional committees and subcommittees; individual

Members of Congress; and others. Copies are available upon request.

This work was performed under the direction of Victor S. Rezendes, Director of Energy and

Science Issues, who can be reached at (202) 512-3841. Other major contributors are listed in

appendix IV.

Keith O. Fultz

Assistant Comptroller General
Executive Summary

Purpose The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is at a critical juncture in its history.

The Department’s original core missions—to develop and test nuclear

weapons, conduct basic energy research, and set national energy

policy—are being replaced by major new challenges in environmental

cleanup and the commercial applications of science. However, because of

organizational structures and processes inherited from its emphasis on

producing nuclear weapons during the Cold War, DOE faces a highly

uncertain future as the Congress moves to reevaluate the Department as

an institution—both its missions and its capacity to manage them

effectively.

GAO has issued a series of reports on DOE that (1) analyzed underlying

causes for the Department’s management problems and (2) identified

ways to improve organizational structures, management systems, and

strategies for the Department’s changing priorities. Building on those

earlier reports, this report presents GAO’s overall observations about DOE

and its missions.

Background Created in 1977 from several diverse agencies, DOE manages the nation’s

nuclear weapons production complex and conducts research and

development on both energy and basic science. DOE operates an elaborate

network of facilities, its core being the nuclear weapons complex—a

collection of 17 major facilities in 13 states that design, develop, test,

produce, and now dismantle the nation’s vast nuclear arsenal. About half

of DOE’s resources are devoted to the nuclear weapons complex, an

allocation that reflects both the buildup of these weapons through the

1980s and, more recently, the rapidly escalating cost of nuclear waste

management and environmental restoration. DOE also maintains one of the

world’s largest networks of scientific laboratories, comprising nearly 30

sophisticated laboratories valued at over $100 billion. Budgeted at

$17.5 billion for fiscal year 1995, DOE has nearly 20,000 federal employees

and 140,000 contract workers.

Results in Brief With the recent dramatic changes in national priorities, now is an ideal

time to reevaluate DOE and its missions. DOE has begun to modify its Cold

War organizational structures and processes to meet newer

responsibilities, from environmental cleanup to industrial

competitiveness. However, until a more fundamental reevaluation of DOE’s

missions and alternatives is undertaken—including opportunities to

restructure and privatize operations—it is not clear if the Department and

Page 2 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Executive Summary

its missions are still needed in their present form or could be implemented

more effectively elsewhere in the public or private sectors.

Although DOE has begun several reinvention efforts, such as contract

reform and a “Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative” to improve

long-standing management weaknesses, the Department has assumed that

existing missions are still valid and are best managed by it. For some

missions, such as those of the civilian nuclear waste program, experts

have argued that DOE is not the best place to conduct them. For other

missions, such as those of the power-marketing administrations (e.g.,

Bonneville and Alaska), petroleum reserves, and the national laboratories,

changing conditions have led many policymakers (including the Congress)

to seriously consider alternatives to DOE’s management.

As a first step in reevaluating DOE, each mission should be assessed to

determine if it fulfills an inherently governmental role and what

alternatives are available in the federal government or private sector to

accomplish it most effectively. Criteria developed by a former DOE

advisory panel can be used to evaluate the best organizational structure

for each Departmental mission according to such factors as stability,

cost-effectiveness, flexibility, responsiveness, and accountability. Experts

GAO consulted, including former Energy Secretaries, offered many

suggestions for restructuring DOE. Most urged that the Department be

streamlined around fewer missions; a minority recommended eliminating

DOE as a Cabinet department; and none argued for DOE’s remaining the

same.

Principal Findings

DOE’s Changing Priorities With the end of the Cold War, DOE’s missions have dramatically changed.

Today, DOE is

• converting its massive nuclear weapons complex from producing weapons

to cleaning up the environmental consequences;

• deciding on the appropriate weapons complex configuration in the

post-Cold War era;

• expanding activities for its multibillion-dollar national laboratories, which

are seeking new uses for their defense-oriented facilities;

Page 3 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Executive Summary

• attempting to find a way to honor the long-delayed legislative mandate to

develop and operate a civilian nuclear waste repository;

• developing a National Energy Policy Plan; and

• continuing traditional core responsibilities in energy policy, information,

and research while defining new roles for itself in industrial

competitiveness and science education.

Responding to these changing missions and new priorities within existing

organizational structures is a daunting task. For example, DOE’s contract

management approach, which it is only now changing, was first put in

place during the World War II Manhattan Project. In contrast to the past

practice of allowing private contractors to manage and operate

billion-dollar facilities with minimal direct federal oversight (yet

reimbursing them for all costs regardless of their actual achievements),

DOE now needs to impose modern standards for accountability and

performance. Also, because management and information systems were

never adequate, DOE has been prevented from exercising effective

contractor oversight. In addition, DOE’s elaborate and highly decentralized

field structure is slow to respond to changing conditions and priorities,

fraught with communication problems, and poorly positioned to tackle

difficult issues requiring a high degree of cross-cutting coordination.

DOE’s Reforms Do Not

Resolve Fundamental

Issues of Core Missions

DOE is grappling with its long-standing internal management problems

while at the same time realigning itself for changing missions and

priorities among these missions. The Department has launched an

aggressive effort to define its core missions around five “business lines”:

industrial competitiveness, energy resources, science and technology,

national security, and environmental quality. DOE is also identifying ways

to reduce overlap and duplication in policy and administrative functions

through its Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative. In addition, the

Secretary has a total quality management initiative and is increasing

stakeholders’ participation in decision-making. These and other

reinvention efforts to modify its management structure, processes, and

policies to pursue changing missions and new priorities reflect a strong

commitment by leadership to improve and will likely strengthen DOE’s

capacity to better manage its responsibilities.

However, resolving internal issues without first evaluating and achieving

consensus on missions is not the best approach to restructuring DOE. For

example, although DOE’s reinvention efforts have assumed that existing

missions are still valid government responsibilities and are still best

Page 4 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Executive Summary

implemented by the Department, some experts have argued that DOE is not

the best place to manage the civilian nuclear waste mission, which has

struggled to meet its goals under DOE. Some experts have also questioned

whether DOE is the best place to manage the cleanup of defense nuclear

waste. Responsibilities in science education and industrial

competitiveness have raised additional questions among experts about

their placement in the Department.

Once agreement is reached on which missions are appropriate to the

government, a practical set of criteria, such as those developed by a

former DOE advisory panel, can be used to evaluate the best organizational

structure for each mission. These criteria allow for rating each alternative

structure according to its ability to promote cost-effective practices,

attract technical talent, be flexible to changing conditions, and be

accountable to stakeholders. These criteria could help identify more

effective ways to implement DOE’s missions, particularly those that might

be privatized or reconfigured under alternative government organizations.

In addition, a panel convened by the National Academy of Public

Administration developed criteria that could be used to determine if DOE

should remain a Cabinet-level department. These criteria center on such

questions as the following: “Is there a sufficiently broad national purpose

for the Department?” “Are Cabinet-level planning, executive attention, and

strategic focus necessary to achieve the goals of DOE’s missions?” “Would a

non-Cabinet-level agency be able to recruit and retain sufficient technical

talent to implement DOE’s missions?”

Many experts GAO consulted—including four former Energy Secretaries,

business leaders, and specialists on DOE’s issues—believed that redefining

DOE’s missions to focus on essential energy activities was the best way to

help the Department achieve future success. Experts had wide-ranging

opinions about the Department’s missions. Most favored streamlining

missions, and some suggested major realignments to other agencies or to

new public-private entities. None of the experts wanted DOE to remain the

same, although most preferred that it continue as a Cabinet-level

department. Overwhelmingly, former DOE executives and energy experts

recommended retaining the following four responsibilities within DOE:

energy policy-making, energy information, the Strategic Petroleum

Reserve, and research and development to increase energy supplies. Most

considered moving weapons-related functions to the Department of

Defense and environmental cleanup to other agencies or a new structure

and sharing the national laboratories with other federal agencies or

perhaps privatizing them.

Page 5 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Executive Summary

Because transferring missions and their related statutory requirements

from DOE to other agencies has broad effects, reevaluating DOE (including

proposals to dismantle it) should be considered as part of an overall

governmentwide restructuring effort. It is imperative that the Congress

and the administration form an effective working relationship on

restructuring initiatives.

Recommendations Because the Congress is actively examining DOE and its missions, GAO is

not making any recommendations at this time. In other reports in this

series, GAO has made several recommendations to strengthen DOE’s

management—for contracting, environmental cleanup, financial and

information management, and the national laboratories.

Agency Comments DOE commented that it would have welcomed a thoughtful and timely

analysis of options for change within the Department. DOE also commented

that many of its reform efforts were not adequately recognized by GAO and

that the survey of former DOE executives and other experts reflected

outdated opinions.

GAO’s intent was to show how changing missions and priorities over time

require a fundamental reassessment of missions and alternatives. GAO did

not set out to develop specific options for DOE. Resolving internal issues

without first evaluating and achieving consensus on missions is not, in

GAO’s opinion, the best approach to restructure DOE. This report provides a

framework—drawn from a former DOE advisory panel—to assess

alternatives and points to the need for a governmentwide approach to

restructuring. GAO’s purpose in surveying former DOE executives and

experts—all of whom have substantial knowledge of DOE’s operations

either as contractors, advisers, or long-time observers of the Department’s

performance—was to focus on fundamental issues related to the

Department’s missions and structures. GAO believes that resurveying the

experts would serve little useful purpose because DOE is essentially the

same now as it was when that survey was conducted; its missions and

structures have not changed.

The report has been updated to include the additional reforms mentioned

by DOE, specifically the initiatives by the Galvin Task Force and the Yergin

Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development.

Page 6 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Page 7 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Contents

Executive Summary 2

Chapter 1 

DOE’s Changing

Missions and

Priorities

10

The Evolution of DOE 10

Objectives, Scope, and Methodology 12

Chapter 2 

DOE’s Reforms Are

Based on Existing

Missions

14

Strategic Plan and Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative 14

Contract Reform 15

Refocusing Research and the National Laboratories 16

Conclusions 16

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 16

Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s

Missions

18

DOE Needs to Change 18

Evaluating DOE’s Missions 19

Expert Opinions on DOE’s Missions 23

Conclusions 26

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 26

Appendixes Appendix I: Experts Consulted by GAO 28

Appendix II: Criteria for Evaluating Cabinet-Level Status 29

Appendix III: Comments From the Department of Energy 31

Appendix IV: Major Contributors to This Report 38

Related GAO Products 39

Table Table 1.1: Comparison of DOE’S Traditional and New and

Emerging Missions

10

Figures Figure 1.1: DOE’s Changing Budget Priorities 12

Figure 3.1: Results of Survey of Experts’ Opinions on

Accomplishing DOE’s Missions

25

Page 8 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Contents

Abbreviations

DOD Department of Defense

DOE Department of Energy

EPA Environmental Protection Agency

ERDA Energy Research and Development Administration

GAO General Accounting Office

M&O management and operating

NAPA National Academy of Public Administration

PMA power marketing administration

R&D research and development

Page 9 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 1 

DOE’s Changing Missions and Priorities

Today’s DOE bears little resemblance to the Department that the Congress

created in 1977. Established from many diverse agencies, DOE manages the

nation’s nuclear weapons complex and funds research and development

on both energy and basic science through its multibillion-dollar national

laboratories. It manages the five power marketing administrations

(hydroelectric producers, such as Bonneville) and maintains petroleum

reserves for military and civilian use. To perform these missions, DOE was

authorized to spend $17.5 billion in fiscal year 1995 and has nearly 20,000

federal employees and 140,000 contract workers.

The Evolution of DOE The end of the Cold War has dramatically altered DOE’s missions and

priorities. Making nuclear weapons, which dominated DOE’s budget for

years, has largely given way to environmental cleanup. The national

laboratories are now highly diversified. Furthermore, DOE has new or

expanded missions in industrial competitiveness; science education;

environment, safety, and health; and nuclear arms control and

nonproliferation.

Table 1.1:Comparison of DOE’S

Traditional and New and Emerging

Missions

DOE’s traditional missionsa DOE’s new and emerging missions

Nuclear weapons production

Energy and technology research

Energy policy development

Civilian nuclear waste

Dismantling nuclear weapons

Environmental cleanup

Industrial competitiveness

Environment, safety, and health

Nuclear arms control and nonproliferation

Science education

aDOE also has nominal responsibilities for the Navy’s nuclear reactor program and in the Federal

Energy Regulatory Commission.

Almost from the time of its creation in 1977, DOE has been in transition.

For its first 3 years, DOE’s programs emphasized research and initiatives to

cope with a global energy crisis that disrupted U.S. and world markets and

economies. By the mid-1980s, accelerating nuclear weapons production

and expanding space-based defense research dominated DOE’s budget

resources. Since the late 1980s, DOE’s budget has reflected a growing

emphasis on solving a half-century’s environmental and safety problems

caused by the nuclear weapons and research activities of DOE and its

predecessors.

With the end of the Cold War, DOE’s missions and priorities have changed

dramatically. Today, DOE is

Page 10 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 1 

DOE’s Changing Missions and Priorities

• converting its massive nuclear weapons complex from producing weapons

to cleaning up the environmental consequences;

• deciding on the appropriate weapons complex configuration in the

post-Cold War era;

• expanding activities for its multibillion-dollar national laboratories, which

are seeking new uses for their defense-oriented facilities;

• attempting to find a way to honor the long-delayed legislative mandate to

develop and operate a civilian nuclear waste repository;

• developing a National Energy Policy Plan; and

• continuing traditional core responsibilities in energy policy, information,

and research while defining new roles for itself in industrial

competitiveness and science education.

Since 1978, DOE’s budget priorities have gradually shifted from energy

policy to defense, and since 1989 they have rapidly shifted from defense to

the environment. (See fig. 1.1) We defined “missions” as the

responsibilities the Department is expected to perform. We considered

DOE’s “priorities” as those missions receiving the highest levels of funding:

at first such programs as energy conservation and renewable resources,

more recently environmental waste and restoration projects. Changes

within DOE’s budget have also been notable. For example, weapons

production has given way to dismantling nuclear warheads and explosive

testing of nuclear weapons has ceased.

Page 11 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 1 

DOE’s Changing Missions and Priorities

Figure 1.1: DOE’s Changing Budget Priorities

Percent

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1993 1994 1995

Years

Administration

National Defense

Energy

Conservation and Renewables

Environmental Programs, Safety, and Health

Note: Percentages from 1992 to 1995 are presented in 1-year increments to more clearly show

recent trends.

Objectives, Scope,

and Methodology

This is one in a series of reports that identify ways in which DOE can make

and sustain management improvements that will clarify and meet the

Department’s fundamental missions. (See the list of related GAO products

at the end of this report.) This report presents overall observations on

DOE’s major activities and evolution, including its missions, changing

priorities, and management initiatives.

This report draws on the results of our past, as well as ongoing, work on

various aspects of DOE’s operations. Over the past 3 years, GAO conducted

hundreds of interviews with DOE staff in its headquarters, field offices, and

Page 12 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 1 

DOE’s Changing Missions and Priorities

national laboratories. GAO also interviewed many contractors and policy

experts in both the public and private sectors.

For this report, GAO studied DOE’s current management reforms,

particularly contracting and strategic alignment and downsizing activities.

To gain a perspective on DOE and its missions, GAO surveyed nearly 40

former DOE officials (including four former DOE Secretaries) and energy

and science policy experts from the public, academic, and private sectors.

(See app. I for a list of the experts we consulted.) This survey was

completed by mid-1994, before the current debate about whether to

abolish the Department.

We obtained comments on a draft of this report from DOE. DOE’s comments

and our response to them appear in appendix III and are discussed, as

relevant, at the end of chapters 2 and 3.

We conducted our work from December 1993 through June 1995. Our

work was performed in accordance with generally accepted government

auditing standards.

Page 13 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 2 

DOE’s Reforms Are Based on Existing

Missions

Recognizing that the Energy Department needs to change, current

leadership has set a course to manage DOE’s missions more efficiently and

effectively. DOE’s Strategic Plan and Strategic Alignment and Downsizing

Initiative, as well as new efforts in contract reform, are the foundation of

the current leadership’s vision to improve the Department. Although these

efforts are important and much needed, they are based on the assumption

that existing missions are still valid in their present form and that DOE is

the best place to manage them.

Strategic Plan and

Strategic Alignment

and Downsizing

Initiative

The need to better match resources to missions and build a more

integrated department led DOE to publish its Strategic Plan in April 1994.

This Plan cited five “business lines” that DOE’s leaders consider the

Department’s principal missions: industrial competitiveness, energy

resources, science and technology, national security, and environmental

quality. These five missions could succeed, DOE maintained, only if four

critical factors were integrated with them: communication and trust;

human resources; environment, safety, and health; and management

practices.

After the Strategic Plan’s release in April 1994, DOE launched a Strategic

Alignment and Downsizing Initiative, which was designed to reorient the

Department’s resources and functions around the Strategic Plan’s

concepts as well as to streamline operations and find ways to reduce its

budget. (As part of this initiative, DOE renamed “industrial

competitiveness” as “economic productivity” and “environmental quality”

as “weapons site cleanup.”) In late 1994, DOE’s Deputy Secretary said that

the Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative promised to

“fundamentally alter how we look and how we conduct business....”1

 On

May 3, 1995, the Secretary announced a variety of actions, such as the

following, that resulted from this initiative:

• reducing DOE employment,

• consolidating functions,

• closing several small offices,

• selling surplus materials,

• removing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from the

Department, and

• privatizing the power marketing administrations (PMA), as well as the

Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves.

1

Memorandum from William H. White, Deputy Secretary of Energy, to Heads of Department Elements,

Nov. 4, 1994.

Page 14 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 2 

DOE’s Reforms Are Based on Existing

Missions

The Energy Secretary stated that the alignment and downsizing actions,

excluding privatization of the PMAs and Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale

Reserves, would save $1.7 billion over 5 years. Sale of the PMAs and Oil

Shale Reserves would bring an additional $5.3 billion, with other reforms

underway providing the balance of $14.1 billion in savings over 5 years.

Contract Reform In 1994, DOE’s Contract Reform Team,2

 which was created to identify basic

contracting weaknesses and determine fundamental improvements,

reported that DOE needs to make major changes to its unique contracting

system to accomplish its changing missions. The Team’s basic premise

was that DOE’s contracting suffers from an over-reliance on cost-based

contracts, a lack of well-defined performance criteria and measures, and

weaknesses in oversight. To correct these conditions, the Team set goals

calling for

• more flexibility in contracting by increasing competition and making wider

use of performance measures,

• wider use of financial incentives for contractors in return for having them

assume greater risks, and

• a willingness to experiment with new types of contracts and contractors.

The Team made more than 45 recommendations, including a call for more

performance-based management contracts. The Team recommended new

incentives to reduce costs, increased use of fixed-price contracts, and

more objective performance criteria by which DOE’s administrators could

judge results. The Team also urged that contracts be competed more

frequently. DOE has started to implement most of these recommendations

and reports that some savings have already been achieved.

We believe these measures will give DOE a stronger basis for selecting and

evaluating its contractors when deciding and budgeting its mission needs.

The major question surrounding the contract reform’s success will be how

effectively the Department will be able to administer them.

2

Making Contracting Work Better and Cost Less, Report of the Contract Reform Team, U.S.

Department of Energy (Feb. 1994).

Page 15 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 2 

DOE’s Reforms Are Based on Existing

Missions

Refocusing Research

and the National

Laboratories

DOE created a task force to examine options for the future of the national

laboratories.3

 The Task Force’s basic findings—that the laboratories’

missions should be redefined and their management should be

improved—are largely consistent with the results of our work.4 DOE

believes that adopting the Task Force’s recommendations could save up to

$1.4 billion.

Perhaps the most far-reaching recommendation made by the Task Force is

to create one or more nonprofit corporations to operate these laboratories

under the direction of a board of trustees that would channel funding to

various laboratories to meet the needs of both government and

nongovernment entities. DOE disagreed with this recommendation,

choosing instead to rely on a board of experts for advice.

To assess DOE’s research and development (R&D) program, the Department

also created what is known as the “Yergin Task Force.”5

 Although its

June 13, 1995, report advised against cutting R&D deeply, it concluded that

DOE could reduce costs by 15 percent through management improvements

and the application of “best practices.”

Conclusions DOE has many ambitious programs, and the current leadership has

expended considerable effort toward achieving its new priorities.

Especially noteworthy activities are now under way for contract reform

and strategic alignment, two important areas in which marked

improvements could greatly increase DOE’s ability to better manage its

diverse missions more effectively. Even with these improvements under

way, however, DOE has little assurance that its proposed reforms are the

best approach for implementing its missions.

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation

In commenting on a draft of this report, DOE stated that GAO had little

appreciation for the many reforms undertaken over the past 2 years. Our

earlier reports and the draft of this report discussed DOE’s major reforms,

3

The Secretary of Energy asked Robert Galvin to chair a task force to analyze the national laboratories.

Its report was officially titled Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories,

Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Task Force on Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy

National Laboratories (Feb. 1995).

4

Department of Energy: National Laboratories Need Clearer Missions and Better Management

(GAO/RCED-95-10, Jan. 27, 1995).

5

Energy R&D: Shaping Our Nation’s Future in a Competitive World, Final Report of the Task Force on

Strategic Energy Research and Development, chaired by Daniel Yergin, President of Cambridge Energy

Research Associates (June 1995).

Page 16 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 2 

DOE’s Reforms Are Based on Existing

Missions

except for the report from the Yergin Task Force, which was not released

until after our draft was prepared. We have expanded our discussion of the

work of the Galvin Task Force in this report, which also was the subject of

our testimony before the Congress in March 1995.6

 We have also expanded

our discussion of DOE’s reform efforts to better recognize DOE’s actions to

date.

This report focuses on the Strategic Plan and Strategic Alignment and

Downsizing Initiative because these had been promoted by DOE to

fundamentally change the Department’s way of doing business. While we

believe these efforts are important and much needed, we have concluded

that neither effort was preceded by a fundamental rethinking of the

Department’s missions and that neither one made a case that DOE is the

best place to accomplish them.

6

Department of Energy: Alternatives for Clearer Missions and Better Management at the National

Laboratories (GAO/T-RCED-95-128, Mar. 9, 1995).

Page 17 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

While DOE’s 1994 Strategic Plan and 1995 Strategic Alignment and

Downsizing Initiative—as well as other reinvention activities—may lead to

a more efficient Department, DOE did not thoroughly reevaluate its

missions. A basic tenet of reinvention is determining which missions still

make sense and where each should be implemented.

Reevaluating missions would help ensure that DOE’s Strategic Plan and

Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative (as well as other reforms)

meet the challenges that will face the Department and its missions.

Because a major restructuring of DOE’s missions would affect other

agencies and institutions—to the extent they would gain these

missions—reevaluating DOE should ideally be part of a governmentwide

restructuring effort with the Congress and the administration working

together to achieve consensus on DOE’s missions.

The following two questions form an essential framework for evaluating

DOE’s missions:

• Which missions should be eliminated because they are no longer a valid

government function?

• For those missions that are governmental, what is the best organizational

placement of responsibilities?

DOE Needs to Change DOE’s structures, systems, and processes are not well matched with its

changing missions and new priorities, as the following examples show:

• DOE’s highly decentralized field network, established to manage nuclear

weapons production during the Cold War, has changed little in terms of

contractors or their staffs, even though mission objectives have shifted

dramatically. DOE still employs many contractors—often the same

organizations for decades, despite changing skill requirements.

• Attempts to establish direct accountability among program offices at

headquarters, administrative units, field offices, and the national

laboratories have been especially difficult. Reporting relationships

changed often and sometimes have been confusing.

• The emergence of important new missions with cross-cutting

responsibilities, such as those in environment, safety, and health matters,

has resulted in additional redundancies that further complicate DOE’s

structures and add to communication and oversight confusion while

causing organizational tensions.

Page 18 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

• Begun under the Manhattan Project’s wartime conditions as an expedient

way to build the world’s first nuclear weapons, management and operating

(M&O) contracts have survived for more than half a century and still persist

as DOE’s principal way to conduct its missions. But the Department’s M&O

contracts have proven to be both difficult to administer and unsuited to

changing conditions. Decades of relying heavily on contractors to conduct

most of DOE’s work, often in strict secrecy and under minimal oversight,

has hampered the Department’s ability to quickly and decisively redirect

itself toward new priorities and new ways to conduct its business.

• Management information systems, particularly financial systems to

support contracting oversight, have only recently received serious

attention from DOE’s leadership. In addition, the Department’s internal

directives have long been characterized as costly, inefficient, and onerous

in their implementation.

DOE has launched many initiatives to resolve some of these issues,

including those aimed at improving its management systems and internal

directives. Of all these efforts, the Strategic Alignment and Downsizing

Initiative, and contracting reform hold the most potential to influence

DOE’s future.

Evaluating DOE’s

Missions

Clearly, many of DOE’s present functions and programs are activities that

only the government can perform, such as stewardship over the nuclear

weapons stockpile. Other activities may qualify as functions and programs

with debatable relevance to inherently governmental missions.

Even without a complete restructuring, some dismantling has already

occurred within DOE, and additional actions such as the following have

been proposed:

• Under the Energy Policy Act of 1992, the federal uranium enrichment

program was transferred to the United States Enrichment Corporation, a

government corporation, with the expectation that it will be privatized

later.

• As early as 1989, the Congress held hearings on whether to create a

separate environmental cleanup commission that would be responsible for

DOE’s facilities.

• The congressional Office of Technology Assessment has developed

cleanup options, including a separate commission to regulate and enforce

cleanup of federal radioactive contamination at federal facilities. This idea

is similar to one supported by DOE’s previous environmental administrator.

Page 19 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

• A RAND study sponsored by the Defense Department recommended

consolidating within DOD all activities related to U.S. nuclear weapons.7

• Because of DOE’s inability to manage waste storage effectively, state

regulators have called for a separate civilian nuclear waste agency.

• DOE’s own study of the future of the national laboratories by the Galvin

Task Force has suggested creating private or federal-private corporations

to manage most or all of them.

Without responding to these and other basic mission issues in a systematic

manner, DOE has little assurance that its current Strategic Plan and

Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative are the best ways to

accomplish its missions. DOE alone cannot make these determinations.

They require a cooperative effort among all stakeholders with the

Congress and the administration responsible for deciding which missions

are needed and how best to implement them.

Those missions that should continue should be analyzed to determine

which public and private sector alternatives would best achieve them. For

example, although over a decade has passed since the Congress

established the repository program for disposing of civilian nuclear waste

and several billion dollars have been spent, siting a repository seems no

closer than when that program was first started. Last year, 39 Members of

Congress called for a presidential commission to review the nuclear waste

program; others have proposed legislation to change the program; and

some experts, including a former DOE internal advisory panel, have called

for moving the entire program out of the Department.8

Various types of alternative organizations for administering a particular

mission might include

• the present DOE cabinet structure,

• another federal subcabinet office,

• an independent federal commission,

• a mixed government-private corporation, or

• a private corporation.

7

An Assessment of Defense Nuclear Agency Functions: Pathways Toward a New Nuclear

Infrastructure for the Nation, National Defense Research Institute, RAND (MR-442-OSD, 1994).

8

Managing Nuclear Waste—A Better Idea: A Report to the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Advisory Panel on

Alternative Means of Financing and Managing Radioactive Waste Facilities (Dec. 1984).

Page 20 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

DOE Criteria for

Evaluating Alternative

Institutions

Each of these organizational alternatives has variations that could be

defined more precisely to meet particular needs. The following criteria,

adapted from a former advisory panel that examined DOE’s civilian nuclear

waste program, offers a useful framework for evaluating alternative ways

to manage the Department’s missions:

• Mission orientation and focus: Will the institution be able to focus on its

mission(s) or will it be encumbered by other priorities? Which

organizational structure will provide the greatest focus on its mission(s)?

• Credibility: Will the organizational structure be credible, thus gaining

public support for its actions?

• Stability and continuity: Will the institution be able to plan for its own

future without undue concern for its survival?

• Programmatic authority: Will the institution be free to exercise needed

authority to accomplish its missions without excessive oversight and

control from external sources?

• Accessibility: Will stakeholders (both federal and state overseers as well

as the public) have easy access to senior management?

• Responsiveness: Will the institution be structured to be responsive to all

its stakeholders?

• Internal flexibility: Will the institution be able to change its internal

systems, organization, and style to adapt to changing conditions?

• Political accountability: How accountable will the institution be to

political sources, principally the Congress and the President?

• Immunity from political interference: Will the institution be sufficiently

free from excessive and destructive political forces?

• Ability to stimulate cost-effectiveness: How well will the institution be able

to encourage cost-effective solutions?

• Technical excellence: Will the institution attract highly competent people?

• Ease of transition: What will be the costs (both financial and

psychological) of changing to a different institution?

GAO’s Observations on

Using Evaluation Criteria

Deciding the best place to manage specific DOE missions involves

assessing the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative institution

on the basis of its potential to achieve that mission and improve efficiency.

Potential efficiency gains (or losses) that might result from transferring a

part of DOE to another agency need to be balanced against the policy

reasons that first led to placing that mission in DOE. While the substantial

short-term costs of a transfer may be offset by long-term gains in

efficiency, in some cases shifting a mission would likely become a

contentious exercise, especially with DOE’s major responsibilities for the

Page 21 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

nuclear weapons complex and its cleanup. For example, transferring the

nuclear weapons complex to the Defense Department would require

carefully considering many management and policy issues. Because of the

apparently declining strategic role of nuclear weapons, some experts

argue that in the long term consolidating all nuclear weapons activities

within DOD is the best option for maintaining the infrastructure for nuclear

weapons. Others argue, however, that civilian agency control over nuclear

weapons has functioned well and should continue. Some experts advocate

creating a new federal agency for weapons production.

Similarly, moving the responsibility for cleaning up DOE’s defense facilities

to another agency or to a new institution, as proposed by some experts,

requires close scrutiny. For example, a new agency concentrating its focus

on cleanup exclusively would not need to allocate its resources for

competing programs. Furthermore, such an agency could maximize

federal research and development investments by achieving economies of

scale in technology. On the other hand, separating cleanup responsibility

from the agency that created the waste may limit its incentives to reduce

waste and to promote other environmentally sensitive approaches. In

addition, considerable startup time and costs would accompany a new

agency, at a time when the Congress is interested in reducing the federal

government. Shifting responsibility to an existing agency, such as the EPA

or DOD, also raises complications from the effects of assuming new

responsibilities.

Need for a

Governmentwide

Perspective

Because transferring missions and their related statutory requirements

from DOE to other agencies will have far-reaching effects, any proposal to

dismantle DOE should be considered as part of an overall governmentwide

restructuring effort. It is imperative that the Congress and the

administration form an effective working relationship on restructuring

initiatives.9

DOE’s Future as a

Cabinet-level Department

Streamlining DOE’s missions raises the question of whether, in a reduced

form, it should remain a Cabinet-level department. To help answer this

question, a NAPA panel has developed 14 criteria for determining if an

9

The Comptroller General of the United States recently testified on the need for an integrated

approach to government reorganization. See Government Reorganization: Issues and Principles

(GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-166, May 17, 1995).

Page 22 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

agency is appropriate for Cabinet status.10 The following three criteria

directly apply to any decision that might be made about today’s DOE.

• Is there a sufficiently broad national purpose for the Department?

Integrating national energy policy was the dominant reason for creating

DOE in 1977 and remains a core mission that would become critical in the

event of another oil supply disruption. As much as any other Cabinet-level

issue, energy policy directly affects all Americans and the U.S. economy.

• Are Cabinet-level planning, executive attention, and strategic focus

necessary to achieve DOE’s missions? We have previously recommended

that DOE develop a strategic approach to managing its changing missions

and believe this is essential to its future success.11 The federal role in both

energy policy and environmental restoration of the nuclear weapons

complex will likely continue to be long-term national priorities.

• Would a non-cabinet-level agency be able to recruit and retain sufficient

technical talent to implement DOE’s missions? Most of DOE’s technical work

is performed by contractors, and this source of talent is unlikely to be lost

to any federal management entity. Cabinet status provides only marginal

benefits for recruiting these specialists.

Expert Opinions on

DOE’s Missions

To gain perspective on DOE and its missions, we asked experts on energy

policy and former DOE executives about the need and proper place for the

Department’s missions. We received responses from 35 individuals.

Although 12 respondents had DOE experience (including four former

Energy Secretaries), there was little difference between their responses

and those from the others. In addition, two other individuals offered

opinions on their views about DOE’s future and its missions. Former

President Jimmy Carter, under whose administration DOE was created, also

sent comments on the Department and its development.

All respondents agreed that DOE needs to change, beyond simply

streamlining operations, and no one believed that the Department should

remain as it is today. A majority also believed that DOE should remain a

Cabinet department but with attention refocused on its original core

missions, which were identified by most respondents as energy

policy-making; energy information; energy-supply research and

10Evaluation of Proposals to Establish a Department of Veterans Affairs, National Academy of Public

Administration (Mar. 1988). See app. II for a complete list of these criteria.

11Department of Energy: Management Problems Require a Long-Term Commitment to Change

(GAO/RCED-93-72, Aug. 31, 1993).

Page 23 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

development; and operation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as an

instrument of energy policy.

Our respondents were divided about evenly over whether to keep certain

missions within the Department, move them elsewhere, or sell them to

private administrators. (See fig. 3.1.) For example, the power marketing

administrations now within the Department could be managed by other

institutions. But a clear majority favored moving the remaining nonenergy

missions from DOE or sharing a few of them with other departments and

agencies. A decisive majority favored shifting DOE’s new mission to

improve U.S. industrial competitiveness to the Commerce

Department—especially its National Institute of Standards and

Technology.

Page 24 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

Figure 3.1: Results of Survey of Experts’ Opinions on Accomplishing DOE’s Missions

Percent

0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

70.0

80.0

90.0

100.0

Energy Policy

Energy Information

Energy Supply R&D

Strategic Petroleum Reserve

Power Marketing

Administrations

Civilian Nuclear Waste

Basic Research

National Laboratories

Nuclear Weapons

Waste Management

Nuclear Weapons Cleanup

Nuclear Weapons Development

Nuclear Weapons Materials

Environment, Safety,

and Health Oversight

Arms Control and Verification

Industrial Competitiveness

Science Education

Missions of the Department of Energy

Other/No Answer

Privatize

Move to Another Federal Agency

Keep in DOE

There was no clear consensus on where to locate the various basic

research functions now performed by the national laboratories. About half

of our respondents favored retaining these functions within DOE but with

the laboratories restructured along clearer mission lines. Others expected

more direction and focus if many basic research functions were moved to

the National Science Foundation or divided among different non-DOE

agencies. The majority of respondents indicated that science education

and some basic research functions now performed by the national

Page 25 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

laboratories should be moved from DOE to the National Science

Foundation.

The majority of respondents also preferred that nuclear weapons cleanup

and waste management for active nuclear weapons sites should be moved

from DOE to the Defense Department or to a new federal agency. “The

Energy Department should get out of the weapons and weapons cleanup

business,” said one respondent. “DOD has many program managers familiar

with handling large programs. DOE has none. The weapons were made for

DOD—they should now handle the cleanup.” But other respondents favored

DOE’s continued role in cleanup because of its traditional expertise. For

civilian nuclear waste, some favored DOE’s continued management, but

more preferred to place these facilities under other federal or

federal-private institutions.

Conclusions Now is an ideal time to fundamentally reevaluate DOE and its missions.

While current reform efforts will strengthen DOE’s management capacity,

such efforts will not likely make DOE an effective, integrated department

because of the problems inherent in managing so many disparate missions.

None of the former DOE executives or energy experts we surveyed favored

keeping the Energy Department as it is today.

According to our survey of experts’ opinions and other reports we have

recently issued in this series, many of DOE’s missions could be performed

either by private institutions or by other government agencies. To the

extent some of DOE’s missions might best be transferred to other federal

entities, a careful evaluation of the costs and effects of such changes

would have to be made, including the effects on the gaining agency. For

this reason, a major restructuring of DOE should ideally be part of a

governmentwide restructuring effort.

Agency Comments

and Our Evaluation

DOE commented that it would have welcomed a thoughtful and timely

analysis of options for changing DOE, that our survey of former DOE

executives and other experts reflected outdated opinions, and that DOE is

still the best institution to fulfill its current missions. Our intent has been

to show how changing missions and priorities over time now require a

fundamental reassessment of DOE’s missions and alternatives to achieve

them. Resolving internal issues without first evaluating and achieving

consensus on missions is not, in our opinion, the best approach to

restructuring DOE. While not providing specific options for DOE, the report

Page 26 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Chapter 3 

Reevaluation of DOE’s Missions

does offer a framework to assess alternatives (drawn substantially from a

former DOE advisory panel) and points to the need for a governmentwide

approach to restructuring. Reevaluating DOE is an effort that involves the

Congress and the administration working together to achieve consensus

on what the Department should be in the future and where its missions

should best be accomplished.

Our purpose in surveying former DOE executives and experts was to focus

on fundamental issues related to the Department’s missions and

structures. Most or all of the survey respondents had substantial

knowledge of DOE operations, either as contractors, advisers, or long-time

observers of DOE’s performance. Resurveying the experts would serve little

useful purpose because DOE is essentially the same now as it was when we

conducted our survey—its missions and structures have not changed, nor

have its major reforms been substantially implemented.

We are unaware of any evidence to support DOE’s contention that it can

perform inherent government responsibilities “better than through any

alternative organizational arrangement.”

Page 27 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix I 

Experts Consulted by GAO

Current and Former Government Officials Research and Academic Institutions Other Private Sector

Jimmy Carter

Former President of the United States

John Ahearne

Former Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Chairman

Exec. Dir., Sigma Xi

Harold Finger, consultant, 

former nuclear industry executive

John S. Herrington

Former Secretary of Energy

Lewis Branscomb

Professor

Harvard University-J.F. Kennedy School

Glenn Schleede

New England Energy Inc.

James D. Watkins

Former Secretary of Energy

Jacob Scherr

National Resources Defense Council

David Packard

Hewlett-Packard Co.

Donald Hodel

Former Secretary of Energy

Roger Noll

Professor

Stanford University

Alex Radin

Radin Assoc.

Former President,

American Public Power Association

James Edwards

Former Secretary of Energy

Elihu Bergman

Americans for Energy Independence

J. Robinson West

Petroleum Finance Co.

Henry Lee

Professor

Harvard University-J.F. Kennedy School

Alan Dean

National Academy of Public Administration

Alvin Alm

Science Applications International Corp.

Richard Farmer

Congressional Research Service

Edward Teller

Hoover Institution

William Carey

Carnegie Corp.

Jan Mares

Former DOE executive

Phillip Verleger

Institute for International Economics

Charles Ebinger

International Resources Group

Leo Duffy

Former DOE Assistant Secretary

Howard Ris

Union of Concerned Scientists

Wil Lepkowski

Chemical & Engineering News

Alan Crane

Office of Technology Assessment

U.S. Congress

John Deutch

Professor,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Mason Willrich

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

Lew Allen, Jr.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Malcolm Weiss

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Terry Lash

consultant

Robert Fri

Resources for the Future

Theodore Taylor

consultant

R.E. Balzhiser

Electric Power Research Institute

William Perkins

Potomac Communications Group

Note: The experts’ affiliations represent those at the time they completed our survey in July, 1994.

Page 28 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix II 

Criteria for Evaluating Cabinet-Level Status

The following criteria were developed by a panel of the National Academy

of Public Administration as an aid to deciding whether a government

organization should function as a Cabinet department.

1. Does the agency or set of programs serve a broad national goal or

purpose not exclusively identified with a single class, occupation,

discipline, region, or sector of society?

2. Are there significant issues in the subject area that are not now

adequately recognized or addressed by the existing organization, the

President, or the Congress that would be better assessed or met by

elevating the agency to a Cabinet department?

3. Is there evidence of impending changes in the type and number of

pressures on the institution that would be better addressed if it were made

a Cabinet department? Are these changes expected to continue into the

future?

4. Would a Cabinet department increase the visibility and thereby

substantially strengthen the active political and public support for actions

and programs to enhance the existing organization’s goals?

5. Is there evidence that becoming a Cabinet department would provide

better analysis, expression, and advocacy of the needs and programs that

constitute the agency’s responsibilities?

6. Is there evidence that becoming a Cabinet department would improve

the accomplishment of the existing agency’s goals?

7. Is a Cabinet department required to better coordinate or consolidate

programs and functions that are now scattered throughout other agencies

in the executive branch?

8. Is there evidence that a Cabinet department (with the increased political

authority of a centralized Secretary’s office) would result in a more

effective balance within the agency, between integrated central strategic

planning and resource allocation, and the direct participation in

management decisions by the line officers who are responsible for

directing and managing agency programs?

Page 29 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix II 

Criteria for Evaluating Cabinet-Level Status

9. Is there evidence of significant structural, managerial, or operational

weaknesses in the existing organization that could be corrected by

elevation to a Cabinet department?

10. Is there evidence that there are external barriers and impediments to

timely decision-making and executive action that could be detrimental to

improving the efficiency of the existing agency’s programs? Would

elevation to a Cabinet department remove or mitigate these impediments?

11. Would elevation to a Cabinet department help recruit and retain better

qualified leadership within the existing organization?

12. Would elevation to a Cabinet department promote more uniform

achievement of broad, cross-cutting national policy goals?

13. Would elevation to a Cabinet department strengthen the Cabinet and

the Executive Office of the President as policy and management aids for

the President?

14. Would elevation to a Cabinet department have a beneficial or

detrimental effect upon the oversight and accountability of the agency to

the President and the Congress?

Page 30 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

Note: GAO comments

supplementing those in the

report text appear at the

end of this appendix.

See comment 1.

Page 31 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

See comment 2.

See comment 1.

Page 32 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

See comment 3.

See comment 4.

See comment 1.

See comment 5.

Page 33 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

See comment 5.

Page 34 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

The following are GAO’s comments on the Department of Energy’s letter

dated June 22, 1995.

GAO Comments 1. Our intent in this report is to show how DOE’s changing missions and

priorities over time require a fundamental reassessment of its missions

and structure. We did not set out to develop specific options for DOE.

Resolving internal issues without first evaluating and achieving consensus

on missions is not the best approach to restructuring DOE. This report

provides a framework to assess alternatives—drawn substantially from a

former DOE advisory panel—and points to the need for a governmentwide

approach to restructuring DOE.

Our purpose in surveying former DOE executives and experts was to focus

on fundamental issues related to missions and structure. Almost all of our

respondents had substantial knowledge of DOE’s operations, either as

contractors, advisers, or long-time observers of DOE’s performance. We did

not ask respondents to comment on the Department’s management

reforms.

Officials directly responsible for the conduct of DOE’s Strategic Alignment

and Downsizing Initiative—the Department’s major restructuring reform

effort—advised us that they assumed existing DOE missions were still valid.

They did not, as part of the analysis conducted for the Initiative,

fundamentally reassess missions or evaluate alternatives to accomplish

them. Furthermore, we are aware of no evidence to support DOE’s

contention that it can perform inherent government responsibilities

“better than through any alternative organizational arrangement.”

2. We agree that reforms underway at DOE are important and impressive

efforts. The draft report that DOE reviewed discussed these reforms. We

described some of DOE’s reforms as “important areas where marked

improvements could greatly increase DOE’s ability to better manage its

diverse missions more effectively.”

We have updated our report to include the additional reforms DOE

mentions, specifically the Galvin Task Force on the national laboratories

and the Yergin Task Force on Strategic Energy R&D (which was completed

after our draft was prepared).

We agree with DOE’s characterization of these reforms for what they are:

“major undertakings to fundamentally improve the efficiency and

Page 35 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

effectiveness of the Department.” However, according to our examination

of the reform efforts, although they were designed to improve operations,

they did not entail a fundamental reevaluation of DOE’s missions.

3. DOE correctly points to proposals it initiated for privatizing power

marketing administrations, the Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves,

and separating the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from DOE.

However, these proposals were products of the Strategic Alignment and

Downsizing Initiative, whose activities appeared to center on streamlining

existing operations. Senior advisers to the Secretary and officials directly

responsible for the leadership of this Initiative told us that as part of the

Initiative, they did not fundamentally reassess missions or evaluate

alternatives to accomplish them. More importantly, as we pointed out,

while the reforms are useful and needed, they do not address fundamental

decisions about DOE’s missions. Only the Congress working with the

administration can decide which missions are still needed and how best to

implement them.

4. DOE’s plan to reduce its staff by 27 percent while simultaneously

achieving billions in productivity savings is a very ambitious undertaking.

We certainly applaud these and other efforts at budgetary savings and

reform. However, the impact of dramatic changes in the budgets of its

missions, especially reduced staff, is highly uncertain. According to the

information contained in DOE’s Strategic Alignment and Downsizing

Initiative and other sources, it is unclear whether DOE will be truly

managing its missions with fewer resources or performing fewer missions

to achieve its budgetary goals.

5. We use “missions” to describe the many diverse activities conducted by

DOE. While “science education” is an activity that receives a small budget,

DOE lists it as one of five “goals” in its Science and Technology business

line. DOE engages in many important activities not necessarily associated

with large budgetary amounts—energy policy being but one.

In our budgetary chart (see fig. 1.1), we included the cleanup of nuclear

waste within environment, safety, and health activities to limit the list to

broad categories. We have corrected the reference to “science policy” as

“science education.”

6.Resurveying the experts would serve little useful purpose because DOE is

essentially the same now as it was when we conducted our survey. Its

Page 36 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix III 

Comments From the Department of Energy

missions and structures have not changed nor have its major reforms been

substantially implemented.

Page 37 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Appendix IV 

Major Contributors to This Report

Resources,

Community, and

Economic

Development Division

Washington, D.C.

Bernice Steinhardt, Associate Director

Gary R. Boss, Assistant Director

William Lanouette, Evaluator-in-Charge

Diane Raynes, Senior Evaluator

Fran A. Featherston, Survey Researcher

Page 38 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Related GAO Products

Department of Energy: Alternatives for Clearer Missions and Better

Management at the National Laboratories (GAO/T-RCED-95-128, Mar. 9, 1995).

Nuclear Weapons Complex: Establishing a National Risk-Based Strategy

for Cleanup (GAO/T-RCED-95-120, Mar. 6, 1995).

Department of Energy: National Priorities Needed for Meeting

Environmental Agreements (GAO/RCED-95-1, Mar. 3, 1995).

Department of Energy: Research and Agency Missions Need Reevaluating

(GAO/T-RCED-95-105, Feb. 13, 1995).

Department of Energy: National Laboratories Need Clearer Missions and

Better Management (GAO/RCED-95-10, Jan. 27, 1995).

Department of Energy: Need to Reevaluate Its Role and Missions

(GAO/T-RCED-95-85, Jan. 18, 1995).

Department of Energy: Management Changes Needed to Expand Use of

Innovative Cleanup Technologies (GAO/RCED-94-205, Aug. 10, 1994).

Department of Energy: Challenges to Implementing Contract Reform

(GAO/RCED-94-150, Mar. 24, 1994).

DOE’s National Laboratories: Adopting New Missions and Managing

Effectively Pose Significant Challenges (GAO/T-RCED-94-113, Feb. 3, 1994).

Financial Management: Energy’s Material Financial Management

Weaknesses Require Corrective Action (GAO/AIMD-93-29, Sept. 30, 1993).

Department of Energy: Management Problems Require a Long-Term

Commitment to Change (GAO/RCED-93-72, Aug. 31, 1993).

Energy Policy: Changes Needed to Make National Energy Planning More

Useful (GAO/RCED-93-29, Apr. 27, 1993).

Energy Management: High-Risk Area Requires Fundamental Change

(GAO/T-RCED-93-7, Feb. 17, 1993).

Nuclear Weapons Complex: Issues Surrounding Consolidating Los Alamos

and Livermore National Laboratories (GAO/T-RCED-92-98, Sept. 24, 1992).

Page 39 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Related GAO Products

Department of Energy: Better Information Resources Management Needed

to Accomplish Missions (GAO/IMTEC-92-53, Sept. 29, 1992).

High-Risk Series: Department of Energy Contract Management (GAO/HR-93-9,

Dec. 1992).

(170020) Page 40 GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions
Ordering Information

The first copy of each GAO report and testimony is free.

Additional copies are $2 each. Orders should be sent to the

following address, accompanied by a check or money order

made out to the Superintendent of Documents, when

necessary. Orders for 100 or more copies to be mailed to a

single address are discounted 25 percent.

Orders by mail:

U.S. General Accounting Office

P.O. Box 6015

Gaithersburg, MD 20884-6015

or visit:

Room 1100

700 4th St. NW (corner of 4th and G Sts. NW)

U.S. General Accounting Office

Washington, DC

Orders may also be placed by calling (202) 512-6000 

or by using fax number (301) 258-4066, or TDD (301) 413-0006.

Each day, GAO issues a list of newly available reports and

testimony. To receive facsimile copies of the daily list or any

list from the past 30 days, please call (301) 258-4097 using a

touchtone phone. A recorded menu will provide information on

how to obtain these lists.

For information on how to access GAO reports on the INTERNET,

send an e-mail message with "info" in the body to:

info@www.gao.gov

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER
United States

General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548-0001

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

Address Correction Requested

Bulk Mail

Postage & Fees Paid

GAO

Permit No. G100
GAO/RCED-95-197 Restructuring DOE and Its Missions