Corporate overview (2020 Presidential transition)

Book 1 - Corporate overview
Entire 2020 Transition book As of October 2020

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is entrusted with a broad and diverse portfolio across its major mission areas of nuclear security, science, energy, and environmental remediation. At its core, DOE is a science and technology powerhouse with an unparalleled network of 17 National Laboratories. DOE spearheads innovation to successfully address national security challenges, promote energy independence, create jobs, increase economic prosperity, and boost U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. The Laboratory network provides a unique capability to the Nation in that it serves not only DOE’s missions but also provides research and development support to multiple other Federal departments and agencies (e.g., Department of Defense; Intelligence Community; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and National Institutes of Health), as well as numerous universities and industry partners.

A Rich History

The Department of Energy has a rich and diverse history; one that is inextricably linked with the history of the National Laboratories and the evolution of science-based public policy. DOE’s origins start with the Manhattan Project and the race to develop the atomic bomb during World War II. Some of the world’s foremost scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, including Ernest O. Lawrence and J. Robert Oppenheimer, led the theoretical research that became the basis for the design of the atomic bomb. Both Lawrence and Oppenheimer went on to become the leading scientists of the Manhattan Project and, along with Brigadier General Leslie Groves, established a laboratory at an isolated site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was designed and developed.

Following the war, Congress engaged in a vigorous and contentious debate on whether authority over atomic power should reside with the civilian or military branches of government. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 settled the debate by creating the civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which took over the Manhattan Engineer District’s sprawling scientific and industrial complex. The Los Alamos site later became DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In 2015, parts of LANL were included in the newly-established Manhattan Project National Historical Park along with other DOE sites that were integral to the development of the atomic bomb at Hanford, Washington and Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The government had a clear interest in controlling the production of fissionable materials while continuing to benefit from the kind of academic scientific expertise and industry capabilities that were brought to bear for the Manhattan Project. To address these competing interests, the government developed a flexible agreement for managing government-owned, contractor-operated (aka “GoCo”) scientific, engineering, and production facilities, later known as Management and Operating (M&O) contracts. With few exceptions, DOE still uses the M&O contract model to manage its National Laboratories, sites, and facilities, and this model is credited with being an important reason for the sustained vitality of the DOE National Laboratories.

In 1953, President Eisenhower gave his famous “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nation’s General Assembly to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Shortly thereafter, the President asked Congress to pass legislation “making it possible for American atomic energy development, public and private, to play a full and effective part in leading mankind into a new era of progress and peace.” The result was the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, which ended exclusive government use of the atom and began the growth of the commercial nuclear power industry, to be regulated by the AEC. This also added an international dimension to the AEC’s responsibilities in that nuclear technology was to be advanced globally for peaceful purposes. Much of DOE’s authority today is still based on this Act.

In response to changing needs in the mid-1970s, in particular the oil embargoes, the AEC was abolished and, in its place, the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 created two new agencies: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to regulate the nuclear power industry and the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) to manage the nuclear weapons, naval reactor, and energy development programs.

The extended energy crisis of the 1970s soon demonstrated the need for more coherent governmental organization and planning around energy. The Department of Energy Organization Act created DOE in 1977 by bringing together several Federal agencies and programs. The Department of Energy, activated on October 1, 1977, as the 12th Cabinet agency, assumed the responsibilities of the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Energy Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and parts of several other agencies. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was also established within the Department as an independent commission to regulate the natural gas, electricity, oil, and hydropower industries.

The Department of Energy brought many Federal energy activities under one umbrella and provided the framework for a comprehensive and balanced national energy plan. The Department undertook responsibility for long-term, high-risk scientific research and development of energy technologies, Federal power marketing, energy conservation, the nuclear weapons and non-proliferation programs, naval reactors, some energy regulatory programs, and central energy data collection and analysis. The Department also acted on its new energy emergency response authorities to create the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Most notably, the establishment of the Department brought Cabinet-level support to a unique and growing system of National Laboratories that today serves as the backbone of the Nation’s scientific research enterprise and the most comprehensive research network of its kind in the world. Like the Nation’s energy infrastructure itself, a resource on the scale of the National Laboratories would be virtually impossible to build from scratch today, making support and maintenance of this system all the more critical.

While there have been several amendments to the DOE Organization Act that have changed the makeup of DOE, including one to establish the Office of Environmental Management (EM), the most significant amendment took place in 1999. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000 amended the DOE Organization Act by establishing the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as a semi-autonomous organization within the Department. The amendment (known as the NNSA Act), which took effect on March 1, 2000, provides the guidance and authority necessary for the NNSA Administrator to carry out NNSA’s various missions under the direction of the Secretary and Deputy Secretary.

In the first decades of the 2000’s, Congress has continued to reshape the Department’s profile. This has included legislation such as the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which authorized what is now the Office of Technology Transitions and the “Title XVII” Loan Guarantee program, and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which established the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program.

The America COMPETES Act of 2007 authorized the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E), and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided DOE with an unprecedented level of funding for energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) programs. DOE was also given additional authorities and responsibilities for energy emergency response in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 and the 2015 FAST Act.

More recently, the DOE Research and Innovation Act of 2018 was passed to strengthen DOE efforts to support technology transfer for early stage and pre- commercial technology demonstration activities and to promote strategic opportunities for collaborative RDD&D of innovative science and technologies. The Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA) and the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA) were passed in 2018 and 2019, respectively, in an effort to facilitate reactor licensing and expedite the creation of the Versatile Test Reactor.

While remaining focused on its primary missions, DOE has continued to evolve to meet the pressing challenges and emerging threats facing our Nation, as well as promote opportunities for growth and prosperity. Most importantly, DOE has proactively launched initiatives and taken actions to ensure our national security and promote American energy independence. For example:

To achieve energy independence, DOE has championed energy policies and programs that lower costs and maximize the use of energy resources while maintaining responsible stewardship of the environment.
To defend against potential threats to our Nation’s energy infrastructure, in February 2018, DOE established the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response (CESER), which is dedicated to protecting against disruptions to our energy infrastructure caused by cyber threats, physical attacks, and natural disasters.
To showcase the vast research and development portfolio of DOE’s National Laboratories and catalyze private-public partnerships, DOE launched a series of Innovation XLab summits that facilitate the exchange of information and ideas among industry, universities, and investors with innovators and experts from the National Laboratories.
To propel the United States to the forefront of the global quantum race, DOE unveiled a strategy for the development of a national quantum internet which will usher in a new era of communications as part of the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act.
To keep our Nation safe and protect our national interests, DOE and NNSA have collaborated with the Department of Defense to maintain and modernize our Nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile.
To address the global COVID-19 crisis, DOE labs have established an unprecedented high performance computing consortium with universities and the private sector to discover promising treatments to ensure the health and safety of our citizens.

Today, as in the past, the Department of Energy is called upon to tackle some of the most significant and daunting energy, nuclear security, economic, and environmental challenges facing the United States. The Department will continue to leverage its long history and its unique scientific resources to meet these challenges to help ensure our Nation’s peace and prosperity for generations to come.