Energy Task Force: Process Used to Develop the National Energy Policy
Published: 2003-08-22T00:00:00

Fast Facts:

Highlights:
section_title: Why GAO Did This Study
paragraphs: On January 29, 2001, the President established the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG)--a group of cabinet-level and other senior administration officials, chaired by the Vice President--to gather information, deliberate, and recommend a national energy policy. The group presented its final report to the President in May 2001. GAO was asked to (1) describe the process used by the NEPDG to develop the National Energy Policy report, including whom the group met with and what topics were discussed and (2) determine the costs associated with that process. Although appointed NEPDG Chair, the Vice President elected not to respond to GAO's request for certain factual NEPDG information. Accordingly, as authorized by GAO's access-torecords statute, and after exhausting efforts to achieve a resolution and following the processes specified in that statute, GAO filed suit in U.S. District Court to obtain the information. The district court later dismissed GAO's suit on jurisdictional grounds, without reaching the merits of GAO's right to audit and evaluate NEPDG activities or to obtain access to NEPDG records. For a variety of reasons, GAO decided not to appeal the district court decision. DOE, Interior, and EPA reviewed the draft report and chose not to comment. OVP declined an offer to review the draft and comment.
section_title: What GAO Found
paragraphs: According to the best information that GAO could obtain, the National Energy Policy report was the product of a centralized, top-down, short-term, and labor-intensive process that involved the efforts of several hundred federal employees governmentwide. In the 3 = months between the inception of NEPDG and its presentation of the final report, the Principals (the Vice President, selected cabinet-level and other senior administration officials) and their support staff (Support Group) controlled most facets of the report's development, including setting meeting schedules and agendas, controlling the workflow, distributing work assignments, rewriting chapters, and approving recommendations. Senior agency officials served on a select interagency Working Group, while the majority of agency staff working on the NEPDG effort played a tributary role, helping their agencies fulfill their NEPDG-related obligations and responding to the Support Group's subsequent requests for information, review, or comment. In developing the National Energy Policy report, the NEPDG Principals, Support Group, and participating agency officials and staff met with, solicited input from, or received information and advice from nonfederal energy stakeholders, principally petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, and electricity industry representatives and lobbyists. The extent to which submissions from any of these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations, or were incorporated into the final report cannot be determined based on the limited information made available to GAO. NEPDG met and conducted its work in two distinct phases: the first phase culminated in a March 19, 2001, briefing to the President on challenges relating to energy supply and the resulting economic impact; the second phase ended with the May 16, 2001, presentation of the final report to the President. The Office of the Vice President's (OVP) unwillingness to provide the NEPDG records or other related information precluded GAO from fully achieving its objectives and substantially limited GAO's ability to comprehensively analyze the NEPDG process. None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG effort provided GAO with a complete accounting of the costs that they incurred during the development of the National Energy Policy report. The two federal entities responsible for funding the NEPDG effort--OVP and the Department of Energy (DOE)--did not provide the comprehensive cost information that GAO requested. OVP provided GAO with 77 pages of information, two-thirds of which contained no cost information while the remaining one-third contained some miscellaneous information of little to no usefulness. OVP stated that it would not provide any additional information. DOE, the Department of the Interior, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided GAO with estimates of certain costs and salaries associated with the NEPDG effort, but these estimates, all calculated in different ways, were not comprehensive.

section_title: Letter
paragraphs: As one of the new administration’s first major actions, on January 29, 2001,  the President created a group of cabinet-level and other senior federal  officials, chaired by the Vice President, to develop a national energy policy.  The President charged the group, called the National Energy Policy  Development Group (NEPDG), with developing “a national energy policy  designed to help the private sector, and government at all levels, promote  dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and  distribution of energy for the future.” NEPDG presented its final report to  the President on May 16, 2001. The report contained over 100  recommendations for executive actions or new legislation. The Congress is  now considering the energy-related legislative proposals.
You asked us to examine the process used by the President’s energy policy  taskforce. Specifically, our objectives were to (1) describe the process  used by NEPDG to develop the National Energy Policy report, including  whom the group met with and the topics discussed at these meetings, and  (2) determine the costs associated with that process. In order to close out  this request, we are providing a limited analysis based on the best  information that has been made available to us.
To address our objectives, we followed a two-pronged information  gathering effort. First, starting in the spring of 2001, we began gathering  information from several federal agencies involved in the report’s  development—the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of the  Interior (Interior), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At  each of the agencies, we interviewed senior agency officials that were  involved in the NEPDG effort and received written correspondence and  other materials from them providing detailed responses to our questions.  Agency officials based most of their answers on their best recollections or  on information reconstructed from electronic schedules. Our meetings  with officials yielded information regarding the meetings that Cabinet-level  agency officials attended and meetings that agency officials held with  NEPDG support staff (Support Group). Officials also provided us with  selected information on meetings held with nonfederal energy stakeholders  to discuss issues related to energy aspects of their agency’s activities.
Second, also starting in spring of 2001, we initiated contact with the Office  of the Vice President (OVP), as NEPDG Chair, to obtain NEPDG records  responsive to your request. From the outset, OVP did not respond to our  request for information, including descriptive information on the process  by which the National Energy Policy report was developed, asserting that  we lacked statutory authority to examine NEPDG activities. We were also  denied the opportunity to interview staff assisting the Vice President on the  NEPDG effort. As a result, throughout the spring and summer of 2001, we  engaged in extensive attempts to reach an agreement with OVP on our  information request in an effort to fulfill our statutory responsibilities in a  manner that accommodated the Vice President’s asserted need to protect  certain executive deliberations. Importantly, we significantly narrowed the  scope of our review by, among other things, withdrawing our initial request  for minutes of NEPDG meetings. We also offered flexibility in how we  would access certain documents. Despite our concerted efforts to reach a  reasonable accommodation, the Vice President denied us access to  virtually all requested information, with the exception of a few documents  purportedly related to NEPDG costs that OVP provided to us. The Vice  President’s denial of access challenged GAO’s fundamental authority to  evaluate the process by which NEPDG had developed a national energy  policy and to obtain access to records that would shed light on that  process. As authorized by GAO’s access-to-records statute, after exhausting  the processes specified in that statute for achieving a resolution and  receiving a request from two senate full committee chairs and two senate  subcommittee chairs to pursue our evaluation, we filed suit in the U.S.  District Court for the District of Columbia on February 22, 2002, to obtain  the limited factual NEPDG information that we had requested. On  December 9, 2002, the district court dismissed GAO’s suit on jurisdictional  grounds, without reaching the merits of GAO’s authority to audit and  evaluate NEPDG activities or to obtain access to NEPDG records. After  considerable bipartisan outreach efforts to the Congress, GAO decided not  to appeal the district court decision. A detailed chronology of our efforts  to obtain access to NEPDG records can be found on GAO’s Web site.
OVP’s unwillingness to provide NEPDG records and other related  information precluded us from fully achieving our objectives in accordance  with generally accepted government auditing standards and substantially  limited our ability to answer the questions you asked and the depth of our  analysis. Yet, given the unique circumstances surrounding this request, our  protracted attempts to acquire this information, and the availability of  certain related documents in the public realm, we gathered and analyzed  available information on the NEPDG effort to provide as robust an account  as possible under the circumstances. Specifically, in order to more fully  analyze and describe the NEPDG report development process, beginning in  March 2002, we obtained, reviewed, and analyzed NEPDG-related  information from federal agencies involved in the NEPDG effort that was  released under court order in four other ongoing lawsuits filed under other  statutes. The agencies releasing documents included DOE, Interior, and  EPA, as well as the Department of Transportation, Department of  Commerce, Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Management and  Budget. We could not independently verify some of the information  contained in these documents because the agencies had redacted data from  more than one-third of the pages. The agencies asserted that the redacted  information was exempt from production under the Freedom of  Information Act because it reflected deliberative processes among other  things. For the thousands of pages that contained some information  responsive to our objectives, we compared and contrasted their contents,  sought corroboration from other sources, and pieced together a general  description of the National Energy Policy report development process.  Included in these pages were several hundred E-mails and other documents  generated by OVP or the Support Group. Some of these documents  revealed information about the process used to develop the NEPDG report,  but none of them contained cost information beyond that which we had  previously obtained.
subsections: section_title: The National Energy Policy Report Was the Product of a Centralized, Top-Down Process
paragraphs: The National Energy Policy report was the product of a short-term, labor- intensive process that involved the efforts of several hundred federal  employees governmentwide. In the 3½ months between NEPDG’s inception  and its presentation of the final report, the Principals and Support Group  controlled most facets of the report’s development, including setting  meeting schedules and agendas, controlling the workflow, distributing  work assignments, rewriting chapters, approving recommendations, and  securing the report’s contents from premature disclosure. Senior agency  officials served on a select interagency Working Group, while the majority  of staff working on the NEPDG effort played a tributary role, (1) helping  their agency fulfill its NEPDG-related obligations, (2) providing NEPDG  with analytical information, and (3) responding to the Support Group’s  subsequent requests for information, review, or comment. In developing  the National Energy Policy report, the NEPDG Principals, Support Group,  and participating agency staff also met with, solicited input from, or  received information and advice from nonfederal energy stakeholders,  primarily petroleum, coal, nuclear, natural gas, electricity industry  representatives and lobbyists. To a more limited degree, they also received  information from academic experts, policy organizations, environmental  advocacy groups, and private citizens. NEPDG met and conducted its work  in two distinct phases: the first phase culminated in a March 19, 2001,  briefing on challenges relating to energy supply and the resulting economic  impact; the second phase ended with a May 16, 2001, presentation of the  final report to the President. Figure 1 depicts the top-down process and its  participants.
subsections: section_title: Cabinet-Level Officials and Support Group Staff Controlled the Report Development Process
paragraphs: In a January 29, 2001, memorandum, the President established NEPDG— comprised of the Vice President, nine cabinet-level officials, and four other  senior administration officials—to gather information, deliberate, and  make recommendations to the President by the end of fiscal year 2001.  The President called on the Vice President to chair the group, direct its  work and, as necessary, establish subordinate working groups to assist  NEPDG. The President requested NEPDG to submit two reports: the first,  an assessment of the difficulties experienced by the private sector in  ensuring that local and regional energy needs are met; the second, a report  outlining a recommended national energy policy designed to help the  private sector, and as necessary and appropriate, federal, state, and local  governments, to promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally  sound production and distribution of energy for the future. More  specifically, the memorandum mentioned four areas of concentration: (1)  growing demand for energy; (2) the potential for disruptions in energy  supplies or distribution; (3) the need for responsible policies to protect the  environment and promote conservation; and (4) the need for  modernization of the energy generation, supply, and transmission  infrastructure.
subsections: section_title: NEPDG Principals
paragraphs: The 14 NEPDG members—the Vice President, 9 Cabinet-level officials, and  4 other senior administration officials—were responsible for developing  the National Energy Policy report. In a series of formal meetings convened  by the Vice President, the group presented briefings, received assignments  and the latest drafts, and discussed agenda items and recommendations.  The following list shows the NEPDG members.
The Vice President, NEPDG Chair;   The Secretary of State;  The Secretary of the Treasury;  The Secretary of the Interior;  The Secretary of Agriculture;  The Secretary of Commerce;  The Secretary of Transportation;  The Secretary of Energy;  The Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency;  The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency;  The Director of the Office of Management and Budget;  The Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy;  The Assistant to the President for Economic Policy; and  The Deputy Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs.
NEPDG formally convened 10 times between January 29, 2001, and May 16,  2001. Meetings were held on the following dates: January 29, February 9  and 16, March 12 and 19, April 3, 11, and 18, May 2 and 16, 2001. All but  two of the meetings were held in the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office.  According to OVP staff and other federal officials who attended these  formal meetings, attendance was strictly limited to officers and employees  of the federal government. These officials indicated that none of the  Principals’ meetings was open to the public nor did any nonfederal  participants attend. However, no party provided us with any documentary  evidence to support or negate this assertion. Due to space constraints, the  Principals’ meetings typically included the Vice President, the Principals  and their accompanying staff, the Support Group, and members of the Vice  President’s staff. For meetings that took place when the Principals could  not be present, or when the Principal had yet to be appointed, another  agency official would attend instead. Agency officials participating in these  meetings could not recollect whether official rosters or minutes were kept  at the meetings.
The 10 Principals’ meetings covered a variety of topics, depending on the  status of efforts on the report and concerns raised about these efforts. The  Support Group developed the meeting agendas and sent them out to  agencies shortly before the meetings commenced. According to the  proposed meeting agendas and our discussions with agency officials, the  meetings generally lasted between 1 and 2 hours, and nearly all of them  included a brief update on the California energy situation. The early  meetings involved more procedural discussions than the later meetings,  which focused more on a discussion of specific policy recommendations.  (See table 1.)
A support staff of seven—six DOE employees assigned to OVP and one  White House fellow—assisted NEPDG in developing the National Energy  Policy. The Support Group consisted of an executive director, a deputy  director, two senior professionals, a communications director, the fellow,  and a staff assistant.
The Support Group served as the hub of the overall NEPDG effort and  coordinated its workflow. Among its many tasks, the Support Group  assigned specific responsibilities and chapters to individual agencies;  established and presided over an interagency Working Group; scheduled  and attended NEPDG-related meetings and determined their agendas; set  internal deadlines; controlled the workflow; served as a central collection  and distribution point for participating agencies’ draft outlines, report  chapters, comments, and recommendations; and drafted the final report.  The executive director and deputy director also held meetings with various  agency staff to discuss their agencies’ input to individual chapters, conduct  peer review sessions, and discuss other issues.
The Support Group did not generally discuss its activities with staff at the  agencies. Instead the Support Group frequently used meetings as a forum  to unveil new assignments, drafts, topics, and guidance for Working Group  members to deliver back to their respective agencies. The Support Group  staff, specifically the executive director and deputy director, provided  instructions to the Working Group participants and coordinated the  activities of each participating agency. Agencies transmitted their work  product to other Working Group members largely through the White  House.
section_title: NEPDG Interagency Working Group
paragraphs: To coordinate the day-to-day work of developing the National Energy  Policy report, the NEPDG executive director established an interagency  Working Group, comprised of staff-level officials from each participating  agency and several White House and Support Group staff. The NEPDG  executive director and deputy director oversaw the Working Group’s  activities, instructed participating agencies on their roles and assignments,  and facilitated communication among the Working Group participants. The  Working Group developed a draft outline for the energy policy report and  relayed work assignments to the agencies responsible for particular areas.  Available information did not allow us to determine the number of Working  Group meetings held or the number of attendees at any given meeting.
NEPDG members were free to assign one or more staff to the Working  Group. The Working Group met frequently in February and March 2001 to  review the latest outlines and drafts, report on the status of their specific  assignments, represent agency views, provide comments to other agencies,  and obtain further instructions. For example, the first Working Group  meeting held on February 9, 2001, concentrated on the group’s approach to  developing a national energy policy and the milestones for completing the  process. The second meeting held on February 13, 2001, focused on  determining the chapters that would be included in the final report.  Subsequent meetings typically involved a review of drafts in which the lead  authors would lead discussion on a chapter’s main points. Attendees would  comment on the chapters or propose new or revised text for the group’s  discussion. The Working Group considered various alternatives in  language, tone, and recommendations for the report and then decided on a  particular course of action to recommend to the Vice President.
The Working Group met often in February and March 2001, generally  several days before and immediately following the Principals’ meetings.  Most of these meetings took place in the Vice President’s Ceremonial  Office, although several had to be rescheduled elsewhere. Working Group  meetings were frequently cancelled or postponed as a result of scheduling  conflicts. In a sworn declaration submitted to the court in one of the  lawsuits seeking NEPDG records, the NEPDG deputy director stated that  all attendees at the Working Group meetings were federal employees, with  one exception—a contractor, who engaged in providing technical writing  and graphic design services, worked with the group and sat in on portions  of no more than three of the meetings. However, attendance lists and  minutes of these meetings, if kept, were not made available to us, nor were  members of the Support Group allowed to discuss these meetings with us.  Thus we were unable to verify any assertions about the composition of  personnel at the meetings or about the general subjects discussed.
The Working Group met with Support Group staff for the last time on April  3, 2001. For the remainder of April 2001, the Support Group worked alone,  condensing the list of potential recommendations for NEPDG discussion  and recasting the chapters to fit the recommendations. During this period,  the Support Group contacted agencies primarily to verify facts or rewrite  specified sections of the report. Agency officials rejoined the process after  April 30, 2001, when the Support Group released the draft chapters for final  comment.
section_title: Staff from Multiple Federal Agencies Participated in the NEPDG Effort
paragraphs: The development of the National Energy Policy report involved hundreds  of staff from nine federal agencies and several White House offices.  Agencies had considerable latitude in determining how to staff their  NEPDG assignments. Most agencies developed a multilevel, top-down  process coordinated by the agency’s lead NEPDG contact or Working  Group member. Generally, the NEPDG Support Group forwarded specific  writing assignments, information requests, meeting times and agendas to  the agency contacts, who then disseminated the information to a  coordination team. The coordination team distributed assignments to lead  officials in offices or bureaus throughout the department. These officials  then assigned staff to complete the tasks. When the completed work had  interoffice concurrence, it was then passed back up the chain of command.  The NEPDG agency staff contact then reviewed and approved all agency  submissions before releasing them to the Principals, the Support Group, or  other agencies for review or comment. Agency staff contacts also held  regular update meetings with the coordination team and provided assorted  updates and briefings to the agency Principal. Not all agencies experienced  the same workload. For example, DOE, which was assigned the lead role in  developing multiple chapters, had greater responsibilities, more meetings  to attend, and larger efforts to coordinate than some other agencies, such  as Interior, that played more of an advisory role. Frequent interaction also  took place between agencies in developing the report chapters.
More than 80 DOE employees from eight departmental offices had direct  input into the development of the National Energy Policy report, including  science specialists and representatives with significant science expertise.  DOE’s Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary led the department’s internal  effort to develop information for an interim and final report, and to identify  policy recommendations for the report. The official joined the Acting  Director of the then Office of Policy in periodic meetings with the Support  Group staff and other agency officials to discuss drafts of specific chapters.  In addition, the official joined DOE Office of Policy and program officials to  relay comments from NEPDG meetings and to coordinate writing activities  within DOE. The Acting Director of the Office of Policy, who was  responsible for the day-to-day coordination and management of the  process of producing DOE’s contributions to the NEPDG effort, led a  coordination team of senior managers from the department’s Office of  Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy, Office  of Fossil Energy, Office of Policy, Office of International Affairs, Energy  Information Administration, and the Bonneville Power Administration. The  team was charged with coordinating the writing of chapters, and each  office formed a similar group within their areas of expertise to write its  respective chapters. The Office of Policy took the lead on chapter 1  (Taking Stock), Energy Efficiency took the lead on chapter 4 (Using  Energy Wisely) and chapter 6 (Nature’s Power), and Fossil Energy took the  lead on chapter 5 (Energy for a New Century). In addition, DOE  contributed draft sections to chapters for which other agencies had been  assigned the lead role. Each office developed recommendations and, after  internal discussions, forwarded them for high-level review within DOE  before they were released to the NEPDG Principals for review.
DOE staff researched historical information about energy and energy  markets; identified key energy issues; examined and analyzed the current  situation in energy markets; discussed likely energy issues, such as energy  production, conservation and energy efficiency, energy prices, renewable  and alternative energy sources, and national energy security; and prepared  issue papers, memoranda, and talking points relating to these subjects.  They also assisted with writing and reviewing drafts of report chapters,  providing supporting statistical and other information, reviewing and  responding to comments from other executive branch components, fact- checking, developing citations and graphics, and briefing the Secretary on  energy policy issues.
Interior was not assigned a lead role in writing any of the report chapters.  The department’s relationship with NEPDG, including the Working Group  and Support Group staff, therefore consisted of the discussions at  Principals’ and Working Group meetings, comments on drafts, provision of  an options paper, and responses to questions from NEPDG staff. To  support the NEPDG effort, Interior’s Office of Policy Analysis formed an  energy task force comprised of 11 issue teams to examine opportunities to  make more energy available from public lands and to streamline and  improve various planning and permitting processes for facilitating energy  development. Approximately 100 Interior employees, representing 13  departmental offices or bureaus, helped to develop information for the  NEPDG effort. These teams helped develop an internal paper that agency  officials used during Working Group discussions of other agencies’ draft  chapters.
EPA’s general role was to ensure that environmental issues were accurately  and adequately addressed and reflected in the development of the report.  More than 110 EPA employees participated in the agency’s internal NEPDG  efforts. EPA’s Associate Administrator for Policy, Economics, and  Innovation served as the lead manager of the agency’s NEPDG activities,  overseeing its role in drafting the report chapter on the environment  (Protecting America’s Environment) and analyzing environmental issues  contained in the other draft chapters of the report. This EPA official and  two senior managers from the Office of Air and Radiation worked closely  with senior staff from other offices within EPA and senior officials from  other contributing agencies. The office leads circulated the draft to others,  usually to staff within their particular office, as they deemed appropriate.  The managers reviewed documents each time EPA staff prepared or  revised them. Upon approval, EPA’s draft was then conveyed to the Support  Group.
section_title: Nonfederal Energy Stakeholders Contributed to the NEPDG Effort
paragraphs: The NEPDG Principals, Support Group, Working Group, and participating  agency officials met with, solicited input from, or received information and  advice from a variety of nonfederal energy stakeholders while developing  the National Energy Policy report. According to our analysis of agency  documents produced under court order, stakeholder involvement in the  NEPDG process included private citizens offering general energy advice to  the President, industry leaders submitting detailed policy  recommendations to NEPDG, and individual meetings with Principals as  well as the Vice President. The extent to which submissions from any of  these stakeholders were solicited, influenced policy deliberations, or were  incorporated into the final report is not something that we can determine  based on the limited information at our disposal. Nor can we provide a  comprehensive listing of the dates or purposes of these meetings, their  attendees, or how the attendees, when solicited, were selected, because of  OVP’s unwillingness to provide us with information.
The Principals met with a variety of nonfederal entities to discuss energy  issues and policy. DOE reported that the Secretary of Energy discussed  national energy policy with chief executive officers of petroleum,  electricity, nuclear, coal, chemical, and natural gas companies, among  others. The Secretary of Energy also reportedly asked nonfederal parties  for their recommendations for short- and long-term responses to petroleum  product price and supply constraints. Several corporations and  associations, including Chevron, the National Mining Association, and the  National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, provided the Secretary of  Energy with detailed energy policy recommendations. EPA reported that  agency managers—including the EPA Administrator—held many meetings  with outside parties, where the issue of energy policy was raised. For  example, according to the Administrator’s schedule, the Administrator and  agency staff met separately with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers,  the Edison Electric Institute, and a group of environmental and  conservation leaders. Interior reported that the Secretary of the Interior  and staff attended meetings with private industry to discuss energy issues,  including one meeting with Rocky Mountain-based petroleum companies  interested in leasing federal lands and another meeting with an Indian tribe  from Pyramid Lake, Nevada interested in building a power plant on its  lands. In addition, in its response to a congressional inquiry, OVP reported  that the Vice President met with the chairman and chief executive officer of  Enron Corporation to discuss energy policy matters. The Vice President  also received a lobbying group’s appeal to stop treating carbon dioxide as a  pollutant and policy recommendations from a coalition of utilities, coal  producers and railroads calling itself the Coal-Based Generation  Stakeholders. We cannot determine the extent to which any of these  communications with NEPDG Principals affected the content or  development of the final report.
In response to another congressional inquiry, the NEPDG executive  director reported that the Support Group staff held meetings with  individuals involved with companies or industries, including those in the  electricity, telecommunications, coal mining, petroleum, gas, refining,  bioenergy, solar energy, nuclear energy, pipeline, railroad and automobile  manufacturing sectors; environmental, wildlife, and marine advocacy; state  and local utility regulation and energy management; research and teaching  at universities; research and analysis at policy organizations; energy  consumers, including consumption by businesses and individuals; a major  labor union; and about three dozen Members of Congress or their staffs.  However, the NEPDG executive director did not specify the frequency,  length, or purpose of the meetings, or how participants were selected to  attend. In addition, OVP reported that the Support Group staff also met  with numerous nonfederal stakeholders during the development of the  final report, including a meeting with representatives of various utilities  and two meetings with representatives of Enron Corporation.
Finally, senior agency officials participated in numerous meetings with  nonfederal energy stakeholders to discuss the national energy policy.  Based on our analysis of the agency documents produced under court  order, senior DOE officials, in addition to attending meetings with the  Secretary of Energy, met with a variety of industry representatives,  lobbyists, and energy associations, including the American Coal Company,  Small Refiners Association, the Coal Council, CSX, Enviropower, Inc.,  Detroit Edison, Duke Energy, the Edison Electric Institute, General Motors,  the National Petroleum Council, and the lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith  & Rogers. These senior DOE officials also solicited recommendations,  views, or points of clarification from other parties. For example, one senior  DOE official solicited detailed energy policy recommendations from a  variety of nonfederal energy stakeholders, including the American  Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical and Refiners’ Association,  the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, and Southern  Company. This official also received policy recommendations from others,  including the American Gas Association, Green Mountain Energy, the  National Mining Association, and the lobbying firms the Dutko Group and  the Duberstein Group. Senior EPA officials, in addition to accompanying  the Administrator to meetings with nonfederal energy stakeholders,  discussed issues related to the development of an energy policy at meetings  with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the American Public  Power Association, and the Yakama Nation Electric Utility. Interior told us  that senior agency officials met with nonfederal parties to discuss energy  policy or other energy-related issues, but provided us with no further  details about these meetings.
In addition to the meetings listed above, the agency documents reveal that  the NEPDG Principals, Support Group, and agency staff received a  considerable amount of unsolicited advice, criticisms, meeting requests,  and/or recommendations from other parties, including private citizens;  university professors; local, state, and international officials; regional  energy stakeholders; and a variety of interest groups representing energy- related causes. Again, because of the limited information available to us,  we cannot determine the extent to which these communications affected  the content or development of the final report.
section_title: The National Energy Policy Report Was Developed in Two Distinct Phases
paragraphs: The National Energy Policy report was developed in two distinct phases,  in accordance with the general criteria defined in the President’s January  29, 2001, memorandum. The first phase involved the development of an  outline; the distribution of research and writing assignments to  participating agencies; and the development of narrative, topical chapters  that ultimately formed the basis of the final report. The first phase  culminated in a March 19, 2001, presentation to the President on energy  supply disruptions and their regional effects. In the second phase, agency  officials reviewed and finalized draft chapters; consolidated a list of  options and recommendations and discussed them with the Working  Group; and developed short position papers on each of the  recommendations that the Working Group considered to be controversial.  These papers served as the primary basis for discussion at subsequent  Principals’ meetings. After the final meeting of the Working Group on April  3, 2001, the Support Group took the provided materials under  consideration and drafted the final report. Agency officials had a final  opportunity to review the partial draft of the recommendations before the  report was finalized, published, and presented to the President on May 16,  2001, as the National Energy Policy.
subsections: section_title: NEPDG Drafted Chapters and Prepared an Interim Report in the First Phase
paragraphs: In the first week of the administration, the Vice President worked with the  soon-to-be-named NEPDG executive director to define the process for  developing a proposed national energy policy. They decided that a group of  senior federal officials would generate an interim report that would detail  energy supply problems and a final report that would outline solutions. The  President’s memorandum, released on January 29, 2001, reflected this work  plan.
In early February 2001, the NEPDG executive director distributed a  memorandum at the first Working Group meeting detailing the group’s  mission, reporting requirements, and a proposed structure of seven  targeted interagency workgroups to review specific issue areas. At the  meeting, the Support Group named lead agencies to coordinate the  development of each of the 10 assigned chapters.
The Support Group tasked the lead agencies—DOE, DOT, EPA, Treasury,  and the State Department—with developing a report outline for each of  their assigned chapters to be forwarded to the White House for final  approval. The Support Group instructed agencies to write chapters without  proposing improvements, noting that the draft chapters would not be sent  to the President, but would serve as the basis of a more detailed version  that NEPDG would use when drafting the final report. While the drafting of  chapters for the final report continued, the Support Group, Working Group,  and participating agency staff focused much of their collective effort  throughout February on developing sections of an interim report. The  Support Group released the interim report to the Principals for review in  early March 2001, then shifted its attention to the second phase of the  process—finalizing the draft and making recommendations. The interim  briefing, which took place at the White House on March 19, 2001, mostly  consisted of oral presentations on the energy supply and demand situation  and short-term regional energy supply disruptions.
section_title: NEPDG Selected Recommendations and Finalized the Report in the Second Phase
paragraphs: Immediately following the March 19, 2001, presentation of the interim  report to the President, the Working Group met to refine the chapters of the  final report and to discuss potential recommendations that agencies had  accumulated. The Support Group provided the agencies with a copy of the  Bush-Cheney energy-related initiatives developed during the presidential  campaign, asking them to ensure that they incorporated these initiatives  when developing their respective recommendations. They asked each  agency in the Working Group to prepare an “option paper” that included  proposals for streamlining energy production and steps to implement them.
In March 2001, the Working Group continued to develop chapters and  discuss recommendations, and pared down each agency’s list of potential  recommendations. The Support Group prepared five one-page issue paper  summaries of the recommendations that the Working Group considered to  be controversial—a multi-pollutant strategy, fuel efficiency standards,  energy efficiency, nuclear energy, and the moratoria on Outer Continental  Shelf leasing—to the Principals for further discussion. Shortly before the  April 3, 2001, Principals’ meeting, the Support Group added a last-minute  agenda item to be discussed with the other recommendations. The actual  agenda item, however, had been redacted from the documents that we  reviewed.
In early April 2001, the Support Group stopped accepting comments on the  proposals and began sorting through them, asking agencies to incorporate  what the Support Group deemed to be the less controversial  recommendations into the draft chapters. For the remainder of April 2001,  the Support Group mostly worked alone, selecting recommendations to  present to NEPDG Principals and rewriting the chapters to fit the  recommendations. The Principals met to discuss several of the potentially  more controversial recommendations and to decide which proposals to  add to the chapters. In some cases, agencies were told to rewrite sections  of the chapters to incorporate the proposed recommendations.
The agencies continued to draft their chapters and incorporate various  other agencies’ comments until the Support Group issued a deadline and  requested the final submission of chapters for editing. The Support Group  then released the drafts to all of the agencies for a cursory review,  informing agency officials that the drafts were now considered “final” and  that only high priority comments would be accepted.
The Support Group asked agencies to protect their lists of proposed  recommendations, instructing officials to hold all proposals closely and not  to circulate them. The Support Group then sent the draft chapters to the  agencies without any recommendations. On April 30, 2001, the Support  Group invited each agency’s Principal or chief of staff to visit the White  House for an on-site review of the final draft recommendations. The  Support Group continued to make last-minute alterations to the report to  incorporate revised recommendations, called on the agencies to verify  facts and to provide citations, and ushered the final draft through the  editing and printing processes. On May 16, 2001, the Vice President  presented the final National Energy Policy report to the President. The  final report contained over 100 proposals to increase the nation’s energy  supply. The presentation brought the National Energy Policy report  development process to a close.
section_title: Federal Agencies Did Not Track the Amount of Public Money Spent on NEPDG Activities
paragraphs: None of the key federal entities involved in the NEPDG effort provided us  with a complete accounting of the costs they incurred during the  development of the National Energy Policy report. Several agencies  provided us with rough estimates of their respective NEPDG-related costs;  but these estimates, all calculated in different ways, were not  comprehensive. The two federal entities responsible for funding the  NEPDG effort—OVP and DOE—did not provide us with the comprehensive  cost information we requested. OVP provided us with 77 pages of  information, two-thirds of which contained no cost information, while the  remaining one-third contained miscellaneous information of little to no  usefulness. In response to our requests seeking clarification on the  provided information, OVP stated that it would not provide any additional  information. DOE, EPA, and Interior provided us with their estimates of  costs associated with the NEPDG effort, which aggregated about $860,000.  DOE provided us with selected cost information, including salary  estimates, printing and publication costs, and other incidental expenses.  EPA and Interior provided salary cost estimates for some of their senior  officials involved in the report’s development. DOE and Interior officials  reported that although most of the identified costs were salary-oriented,  employees had not specifically recorded the amount of time they had spent  on NEPDG-related tasks because many of them already worked on energy  policy and thus would have likely conducted a substantial portion of the  work, even without the NEPDG project taking place. An Interior official  cautioned us not to expect a precise estimate, noting that the estimate  primarily had been based on employee recollection and guesswork.
subsections: section_title: DOE and OVP Were Responsible for Funding NEPDG Activities
paragraphs: In his January 29, 2001, memorandum that established NEPDG, the  President instructed the Vice President to consult with the Secretary of  Energy to determine the need for funding. DOE was to “make funds  appropriated to the Department of Energy available to pay the costs of  personnel to support the activities of the Energy Policy Development  Group.” The memorandum further stated that if DOE required additional  funds, the Vice President was to submit a proposal to the President to use  “the minimum necessary portion of any appropriation available to the  President to meet the unanticipated need” or obtain assistance from the  National Economic Council staff.
section_title: OVP Provided Limited Cost Information Responsive to Our Request Regarding NEPDG’s Receipt, Disbursement, and Use of Public Funds
paragraphs: In response to our inquiry about the NEPDG’s receipt, disbursement, and  use of public funds, OVP provided us with 77 pages of “documents  retrieved from the files of the Office of the Vice President responsive to  that inquiry.” The Vice President later referred to these documents as  “responsive to the Comptroller General’s inquiry concerning costs  associated with the Group’s work.” Our analysis of the documents,  however, showed that they responded only partially to our request.
The documents that OVP provided contain little useful information or  insight into the overall costs associated with the National Energy Policy  development. Of the 77 pages that we received, 52 contained no cost  information while the remaining 25 contained some miscellaneous  information of little to no usefulness. For example, OVP provided us with  two pages illustrating a telephone template and four pages containing  indecipherable scribbling, but no discernible cost information. OVP also  provided documents that contained some miscellaneous information,  predominantly reimbursement requests, assorted telephone bills and  random items, such as the executive director’s credit card receipt for pizza.  In response to our requests seeking clarification of the provided  information, OVP stated that it would not provide us with any additional  information. Consequently, we were unable to determine the extent to  which OVP documents reflected costs associated with the report’s  development.
section_title: DOE Did Not Comprehensively Track Overall NEPDG Costs
paragraphs: DOE reported spending about $300,000 on NEPDG-related activities, more  than half of which was used for the salaries of its employees detailed to  OVP and two designated DOE staff contacts for the period from January 29,  2001, through May 29, 2001. DOE reported spending most of the remaining  funds to print and produce 10,000 policy publications and graphic support,  pay for 16 large briefing boards, and reimburse the NEPDG executive  director for his lodging and per diem expenses. DOE did not provide any  information on the Support Group members’ requests for the  reimbursement of taxi, parking, meal, or duplicating expenditures  contained in the 77 pages of OVP documents. However, DOE officials noted  that the department did not pay for furniture, telephones, or other  expenses that DOE employees on the Support Group may have incurred  setting up their offices, saying that they assumed that the White House paid  these costs.
section_title: EPA Provided Estimates of Its NEPDG-Related Salary Costs, but Did Not Include Its Incidental Expenses
paragraphs: EPA reported spending an estimated $131,250 in NEPDG-related costs to  pay the salaries of the officials most involved in NEPDG activities. EPA  officials calculated this estimate by taking the number of full-time  equivalents, the officials’ average annual salaries, and prorating the amount  for the 3½ months they spent working on the NEPDG effort. EPA officials  also reported that the agency incurred multiple incidental expenses in  helping to prepare the NEPDG report, such as taxi fares, duplication costs,  and courier fees, but they neither itemized these expenditures nor provided  us with any further documentation.
section_title: Federal Employee Salaries Accounted for All of Interior’s Reported NEPDG- Related Costs
paragraphs: Interior reported spending an estimated $430,000 on salary-related costs  associated with the NEPDG report development. It also reported that it did  not incur any NEPDG-related contracting costs. The agency official who  provided us with the estimate warned that although it was the best  possible, its precision was uncertain because it had been based on  employees’ personal recollections and guesswork as to the amount of time  they spent working on NEPDG-related activities. The official then added an  additional 20 percent to the estimated sum to reflect the employee benefits  that accrued during the period. Interior did not create a unique job code or  accounting process to track the time that Interior employees spent on  developing the NEPDG report. According to one official, many of the staff  involved with the NEPDG effort already worked on energy policy for their  respective bureaus or offices and thus a substantial portion of the work  would likely have been conducted, even without the NEPDG project taking  place.
section_title: Agency Comments
paragraphs: We provided DOE, Interior, and EPA with an opportunity to review and  comment on a draft of this report. Representatives from each of these three  agencies reviewed the report and chose not to provide written comments.  Interior and EPA provided several technical clarifications orally, which we  incorporated, as appropriate, into the final report. We also provided OVP  with an opportunity to review and comment on our draft report, but the  office did not avail itself of the opportunity.
We conducted our review from May 2001 through July 2003. We plan no  further distribution of this report until August 25. On that date, we will send  copies of this report to interested congressional committees. This report is  also available on GAO's home page at http://www.gao.gov.
If you or your staffs have any questions about this report, please call me at  (202) 512-3841. Key contributors to this report are listed in appendix I.
section_title: GAO Contacts and Staff Acknowledgment
subsections: section_title: GAO Contacts
section_title: Acknowledgment
paragraphs: In addition to the individuals named above, Doreen Feldman, Lynn Gibson,  Richard Johnson, Bob Lilly, Jonathan S. McMurray, Susan Poling, Susan  Sawtelle, Amy Webbink, and Jim Wells made key contributions to this  report.
section_title: GAO’s Mission
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