Department of Energy

The Energy Department (DOE) is at a critical juncture. Its original core missions--to develop and test nuclear weapons, conduct basic energy research, and set national energy policy--are being superseded by new challenges in environmental cleanup and the commercial applications of science. As a result of its legacy of nuclear weapons production during the Cold War, however, DOE faces a highly uncertain future as Congress reevaluates the Department--both it missions and its capacity to manage them. GAO has issued a series of reports analyzing the causes underlying DOE's management problems and identified ways to improve organizational structures, management systems, and strategies for DOE's changing priorities. Building on those earlier reports, this report presents GAO's overall observations on DOE and its missions.

GAO found that: (1) in response to changing national priorities, DOE is restructuring its organization and processes to meet its new responsibilities ranging from environmental cleanup to industrial competitiveness, but these reforms do not resolve fundamental issues of its core missions; (2) DOE has assumed that its existing missions are still valid and are best managed by DOE, but many critics and policymakers are considering alternatives to DOE management of certain missions; (3) each mission should be assessed to see if it fulfills an inherently governmental role and what federal or private sector alternatives exist that could accomplish the mission more effectively; (4) reevaluation of DOE should be considered as part of an overall governmentwide restructuring effort, since DOE restructuring will affect other federal agencies; (5) a practical set of evaluation criteria can be used to evaluate the best organizational structure for each DOE mission according to such factors as cost-effectiveness, flexibility, responsiveness, and accountability; and (6) most of the experts consulted believed that DOE should be streamlined around fewer missions, while other experts believed it should be eliminated as a Cabinet department and its responsibilities transferred to other federal agencies and the private sector.