Creation of the D[ept] o[f] e[energy]
President Jimmy Carter requested the creation of the DOE as his first attempt at reorganizing the Federal agencies. Congress created the new agency with one major change from Carter's request. Carter wanted the authority to set wholesale interstate electricity rates and crude oil prices to rest with the DOE secretary. Congress vested this authority in an independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
The enabling legislation reflected the energy and environmental concerns of the late 1970s. The DOE was to "
promote maximum possible energy conservation measures" and to give the commercial
use of solar, geothermal, recycling, and other renewable energy resources "the highest priority in the national energy program."
The Carter era. President Carter's National Energy Plan had two broad objectives: first, to
reduce dependence on foreign oil; and, second, to develop
renewable and inexhaustible sources of energy. The DOE proposed energy efficiency standards for new buildings, created the Solar Training Institute, and worked with General Motors to develop prototype electric cars and trucks.
The new agency inherited ongoing investigations into
allegations that several oil companies had conspired to overcharge consumers during the 1973 oil embargo crisis. These investigations were ongoing when another oil crisis in the spring of 1979 brought
new allegations of price gouging against fifteen oil companies and further DOE investigations. By the end of Carter's term in office, the DOE had collected $1.7 billion in settlements with oil companies.
During the Carter era, the DOE's weapons laboratories developed nuclear warheads for air-and land-launched cruise missiles. The agency invested heavily in nuclear weapons safety research and cleanup procedures. Underground tests of nuclear weapons continued at the Nevada Test Site.
The newly formed agency generated a substantial amount of controversy across the full range of its activities. Some lawmakers immediately attacked the renewable-energy programs because of their high costs and slow production. In the summer of 1979 the
DOE revealed that it had miscalculated key oil supply figures, resulting in $9 billion overcharge in favor of the oil companies, at the expense of the consumers. A DOE official admitted that petroleum industry lobbyists had obtained access to DOE documents in advance of public release.
In the first two years of the agency's existence the DOE was subjected to over two hundred investigations.
The DOE also had to deal with
mismanagement problems resulting from its predecessor agencies. The DOE announced that in 1975 secret documents pertaining to the hydrogen bomb had been erroneously declassified. A DOE official also testified before Congress on the exposure of at least nine hundred people to significant doses of radiation during atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in Nevada and the South Pacific between 1951 and 1962. The DOE identified fifty sites in more than twenty states that were once used for nuclear research and still posed contamination problems for area residents.
http://www.answers.com/topic/department-of-energy
Nearly 40 years and counting. It's as frustrating as Army procurement.
IIRC Pres. Carter spent $40B to create synthetic fuels.
The DOE was tasked to reduce our dependency on foreign oil
A pox on DOE and the oil companies
(as Richard says) and so it goes
v/r
phil