Under Secretary for Science (2020 Presidential transition)

Book 3 - Organization Overview
Entire 2020 DOE Transition book As of October 2020

The Under Secretary for Science (S4) is one of the statutory principal officers of the Department and holds such responsibilities as assigned by the Secretary.

As of November 2020, the S4 oversees five Department Elements: The Office of Science (SC); the Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO); the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT); the Office of Environmental Management (EM); and the Office of Legacy Management (LM). These elements advance the Department’s strategic goals of maintaining American leadership in fundamental research as the foundation for groundbreaking innovation and national security; supporting commercialization and deployment of innovative technologies to deliver reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy and enhance American energy dominance; and meeting the Department’s obligations to address environmental impacts of historic projects to create the nuclear deterrent and develop civilian nuclear power technology.

The S4 supports the DOE Mission by:

Advising and supporting the Secretary (S1) and Deputy Secretary (S2).
Participating in establishing strategy, priorities, and resource allocations for the Department (including development of budget requests).
Engaging with high-level external audiences such as Members of Congress ; senior Executive Branch counterparts; state, local, and tribal government officials; foreign government and international organization counterparts; and key DOE contractors.
Providing executive oversight to ensure the effective execution of missions by SC, AITO, OTT, EM, and LM.

Mission Statement

The mission of S4 and the Immediate Office staff is to provide strategic leadership and educate stakeholders to enable SC, AITO, OTT, EM, and LM to perform their respective missions (a) to maintain American preeminence in science and technology and (b) to deliver safe, timely, and measurable progress in reducing the Department’s environmental liabilities.

Budget

Fiscal Year	Budget
FY 2019 enacted	$ 13,928,000,000
FY 2020 enacted	$ 14,634,000,000
FY 2021 requested	$ 12,238,000,000

Human Resources

FY 2020 authorized full-time equivalents (FTEs) in organizations reporting to the Under Secretary for Science total 2,237.

History

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 established the office of Under Secretary for Science . According to the Act, this office was created to enhance “top- level coordination of research and development [R&D] programs.” This office has been labeled with different titles from time to time (e.g., Under Secretary for Science & Energy during 2013–17). Since 2005, the S4 has overseen SC. The S4 has at times also been assigned by S1 to oversee other Department Elements; those assignments have varied under different administrations:

2005–2013: The S4 oversaw only SC. Anecdotally, a person who served as S4 before 2013 observed that oversight of SC alone (an element with its own statutory, Senate-confirmed Director) made either S4 or that Director redundant.
2013–2017: The S4 oversaw SC, the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs , and the Assistant Secretaries for i) Fossil Energy; ii) Nuclear Energy; iii) Electricity Delivery & Energy Reliability (now just Electricity); and iv) Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. This allocation of responsibilities encompassed certain policy and applied technology missions as well as fundamental R&D.
2017–present: The S4 currently oversees SC, AITO, OTT, EM, and LM. This allocation combines fundamental R&D with work to
Commercialize technologies born in the national Functions

By statute, S4 serves as the science and technology advisor to the Secretary and advises S1 with respect to specified research and development topics, and to the management of the DOE national laboratories. The statute also specifies that S4 shall carry out additional duties as assigned by S1 “relating to basic and applied research.” The S1 also may assign other functions to S4, such as the current oversight of AITO, OTT, EM, and LM.

The S4 serves as a member of the Department’s Research and Technology Investment Committee (RTIC), along with the S2; the Under Secretary for Energy (S3); the Under Secretary for Nuclear Security (S5); and the Director of the Advanced Energy Research Projects Agency-Energy. The RTIC provides a periodic venue in which these officers coordinate and prioritize R&D programs and investments throughout the Department.

The S4 also acts as DOE’s principal liaison with the national security community on certain topics pertaining to science and technology.

Recent Organization Accomplishments

Elements in the S4 organization have achieved many important accomplishments since mid-2018. A few highlights are described below.

S4 Immediate Office

In 2018, S1 directed S4 to oversee the development of policies to improve the protection of DOE-funded R&D against illicit foreign influence and misappropriation, including policies to enhance scientific integrity and address conflicts of interests (this is known within the S4 office as the Science & Security arena). In June 2019, DOE adopted a policy prohibiting personnel working in its national labs from participating in so-called “talent recruitment programs” sponsored by the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia (Foreign Talent Programs). Other policies to address similar Science & Security issues concerning DOE-funded R&D are under development by a cross-cutting intradepartmental task force of career staff.

Relatedly, DOE anticipates the issuance of a National Security Presidential Memorandum in late 2020, directing all agencies to develop and implement broad policies to address conflicts of interest and of commitment in federally funded R&D.

Science (SC)

Since March 2019, SC has organized and managed the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory , which incorporates the biotech capabilities of all 17 DOE national labs and coordinates the prompt assignment of research projects among them to provide timely scientific and technical responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December 2019, DOE approved the mission need statement (CD-0) for the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) project, the first greenfield U.S. particle collider project in decades. In January 2020, DOE selected Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) as the site for the EIC, which will be developed and constructed in partnership with Jefferson Lab; in September 2020, leaders from DOE, Congress, and New York gathered at BNL to mark the launch of the project.
In late 2018, S4 challenged the fusion energy sciences community to follow the example of the high-energy physics community’s P5 process to develop better consensus about their field’s research and infrastructure priorities.
In response, the American Physical Society convened workshops that culminated in delivery of the Community Plan for Fusion Energy and Discovery Plasma Sciences to DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) in early 2020.
In June 2018, DOE commissioned the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab . With capabilities exceeding 200 petaflops,
Summit became #1 on TOP500’s list of global supercomputers until June 2020 and is currently exceeded only by the Fugaku machine in Japan. Designed to be optimized for machine learning and deep learning, Summit also has demonstrated unsurpassed AI capabilities.

Artificial Intelligence and Technology Office (AITO)

Secretary Perry established AITO in September 2019 as a direct report to S4, to enhance the coordination of DOE’s development and deployment of AI technologies.

Office of Technology Transitions (OTT)

Since September 2018, OTT has worked with DOE national labs to convene a series of Innovation XLab summits on specified topics (e.g., energy storage, grid modernization, quantum information science). These summits gather experts from across the entire DOE lab complex to engage with academics and industry attendees to facilitate innovation and commercialization. The two most recent summits occurred virtually in October 2020 and attracted many hundreds of online participants.

Environmental Management (EM)

In October 2020, EM celebrated the achievement of Vision 2020, a project to accelerate the decommissioning and demolition (D&D) of the Manhattan Project K 25 facility located at the East Tennessee technology Park (ETTP) campus of the Oak Ridge Reservation . This initiative completed the D&D at ETTP under budget and four years ahead of schedule, thereby avoiding $500 million of future costs.
In September 2020, the S2 endorsed the Project Completion/Authorization to Operate (CD-4) milestone for the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) at Savannah River Site (SRS), a bespoke facility that had been under development since 2002 to accelerate the closure of liquid tank wastes at SRS. The SWPF began treating its first radioactive waste in October 2020.
In May 2020, EM issued the Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new stand-alone management and operation (M&O) contract for the Savannah River National Lab (SRNL), removing the lab from the portfolio of the site-wide M&O contractor in order to attract a research-focused contractor and expand the scope of SRNL’s R&D mission.
In May 2020, DOE resolved a longstanding impasse with state regulators in California, which allowed EM to commence the demolition of structures at the Energy Technology Engineering Center (ETEC) site within the former Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County.
In late November 2019, operations concluded at the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) at the Idaho Cleanup Project . AMWTP retrieved, packaged, and shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for final disposition over 65,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste that had been removed from the Rocky Flats weapons facility in Colorado and buried in Idaho.
EM is implementing the innovative end-state contract model for procurements. In contrast to long-term contracts with broad objectives but mostly unspecified interim goals, end-state contracts establish indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) relationships for services during the contract period, with specific tasks to achieve near-term cleanup progress (end-states) and corresponding pricing to be determined from time-to-time during the contract’s term. In December 2019, EM awarded a 10-year, end- state contract for decommissioning, demolition, and remediation projects on the central plateau at Hanford, and end-state model procurements are underway with pending RFPs for other appropriate EM sites.

Leadership Challenges

Important and challenging topics that are likely to benefit from ongoing attention by S4 leadership include the following:

S4 Immediate Office

Developing DOE policies for Science & Security must take into account complex factors, including DOE’s reliance on contractor-operated national labs and grants of financial assistance to third parties like universities; national security concerns; and inherent tensions between open scientific inquiry and prevention of illicit disclosure.

SC

Despite DOE’s long history in biological science, the COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated that more can be done to establish the appropriate, prominent place of DOE and its national labs in the federal bioscience enterprise.
Since 2018, the field of fusion energy has made important progress, but maintaining that momentum will be challenging.
U.S. investment in the ITER fusion project experiment in France continues to demand a large share of the budget of DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) office, yet recent improvements in the management of that project have not put to rest all concerns about the cost and timing of that project.
Building on the consensus-building Community Planning effort, FES’s Advisory Committee is working on a proposed long-range fusion R&D strategy for the field. Because this entails setting priorities, leadership will be needed to preserve the recently forged cohesion within the community.
Well-financed private enterprises are showing progress toward fusion energy with a variety of technical approaches. To support such innovation, DOE has proposed a cost-sharing program for collaboration based on NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program that nurtured SpaceX. Should Congress appropriate the necessary funds, FES will need to deploy staff with the appropriate skills to establish and oversee such public-private partnerships.

EM

At Hanford, DOE’s relationship with the State of Washington has been contentious and marked by evident State frustration and distrust. DOE has been working to increase trust through transparency and by maintaining a consistent focus on completing the direct-feed low-activity waste (DFLAW) treatment facility to vitrify certain tank wastes. As a result, the parties have recently been able to discuss difficult issues without the State seeking intervention by the court that issued an amended consent decree in 2016. Constructive engagement by DOE leadership will be needed to maintain that positive trend.
Ongoing D&D efforts require a new solid waste disposal cell at Oak Ridge, which falls under U.S. EPA jurisdiction pursuant to a federal facility agreement. EPA’s Region 4 seeks to mandate technical requirements for this cell that are inconsistent with protective standards for radioactive wastes established by DOE and by Nuclear Regulatory Commission . Pursuant to the facility agreement, DOE has formally appealed the Region 4 standards to EPA Administrator Wheeler. The objections have been presented by DOE leadership to the Administrator, but he has not resolved the dispute as of late October 2020 and this inter-agency controversy may continue into 2021.

Critical Events and Action Items

Critical events or actions that will take place within the first 3 months of the next Presidential term include the following:

S4 Immediate Office

More decisions regarding Science & Security are forthcoming. The prohibition concerning Foreign Talent Programs will be extended to all DOE financial assistance in the first quarter of FY21. A career- staff team is developing, for consideration by DOE leadership in 2021, specific department-wide conflict of interest policy to implement that direction. Leadership will also be presented with options of additional protective measures relative to DOE- funded R&D in sensitive, strategic areas of science and technology.

EM

At Hanford, DOE is in the midst of high-level, holistic negotiations with the State and U.S. EPA. The topics include disposition options for so-called supplemental low-activity waste (LAW)—that is, volumes of LAW that exceed the treatment capacity of the DFLAW facility now under construction. No disposition plan for supplemental LAW has been established; these negotiations may require critical DOE policy decisions on that issue in the spring of 2021.
EM is preparing to treat radioactive liquid waste in a new facility at Idaho, the Integrated Waste Treatment Unit (IWTU). IWTU was completed in 2014, but technical problems emerged before “hot” (radioactive waste) operations began. The contractor expects in the spring of 2021 to confirm the remedies have worked and will request DOE’s CD-4 decision to allow hot waste treatment to begin.

AITO

AITO operated in FY20 (and now under the continuing resolution) with a small PD budget and no funds for sponsoring R&D on its own initiative. While DOE requested increased AITO funding, HEWD’s FY21 budget included no funds for it. Given this uncertain situation, the ultimate FY21 appropriation may require critical decisions regarding AITO in early 2021.^[1]