Opportunities To Fully Integrate Environmental Research and Development into Developing Energy Technologies

Gao ID: EMD-78-43 April 6, 1978

To ensure that unresolved environmental concerns do not delay or preclude acceptance of new energy technologies in the marketplace, environmental research and development activities must be closely integrated and carried out in concert with the development of such technologies. Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the former Energy Research and Development Administration established separate offices to oversee and carry out efforts to meet this objective.

A separate, semi-autonomous office within DOE having responsibility for planning, overseeing, coordinating, and evaluating all environmental research and development activities should help provide assurance that potential environmental concerns are not overlooked in developing new energy technologies. However, the office must be given sufficient management support to effectively carry out its overview and coordination responsibilities.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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