[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 36 (Friday, March 15, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2186-S2188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          AN ENERGY DEPARTMENT IN SEARCH OF AN ENERGY MISSION

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, a great many businesses, nonprofit 
organizations, and even Government agencies have created their own 
mission statements.
  Far from simply being slogans, mission statements can serve as a 
guiding force, setting out specific goals, principles, and objectives.
  When I was elected to the Senate, I drafted a mission statement for 
my office which outlines the priorities of the Minnesotans I was sent 
here to represent, and offers a yardstick we can use to measure how 
well we are meeting their needs.
  It works--a mission statement brings the mission into focus.
  But what happens when a massive Federal agency, entrusted with 
billions of taxpayer dollars, is forced to operate without a definable 
mission? How can it remain accountable to the taxpayers when its 
mission is constantly shifting and evolving?
  Without a well-defined mission to contain it, a bureaucracy can grow 
in one of two ways. It can spread as quickly as fire on a lake of 
gasoline, rapidly consuming every inch of available space. Or it might 
expand slowly, like water dripping into a bucket, gradually growing in 
volume until it finally spills over its borders.
  Either way, the results can be disastrous.
  Metaphors aside, if you need a concrete example that illustrates the 
kind of bureaucracy I'm describing, you need look no further than the 
Department of Energy.

[[Page S2187]]

  Mr. President, let me take you back to 1977. Jimmy Carter was 
President, and the Nation was still grappling with the energy crisis 
which had paralyzed it earlier in the decade. With the OPEC oil embargo 
and the gas lines it created still vivid memories, 1977 was the year in 
which Congress took what it thought was a preemptive strike against 
future energy emergencies by establishing a Cabinet-level Department of 
Energy.
  When he submitted legislation to Congress proposing a national energy 
agency, President Carter said:

       Nowhere is the need for reorganization and consolidation 
     greater than in energy policy. All but two of the Executive 
     Branch's Cabinet departments now have some responsibilities 
     for energy policy--but no agency, anywhere in the Federal 
     Government, has the broad authority needed to deal with our 
     energy problems in a comprehensive way.

  At the same time, however, some were questioning the need for yet 
another layer of Federal bureaucracy. In May of that year, Nobel Prize-
winning economist Milton Friedman likened a national energy agency to a 
Trojan horse. ``[I]t enthrones a bureaucracy that would have a self-
interest in expanding in size and power,'' he wrote, ``and would have 
the means to do so--both directly, through exercising price control and 
other powers, and indirectly, through propagandizing the public and the 
Congress for still broader powers.''
  Fast forward to 1996. Decades of fiscal mismanagement in Washington 
have sapped America's Treasury and left a $5 trillion debt on the 
Nation's credit card.
  Middle-class taxpayers have been called on repeatedly to bail out the 
Government through ever-higher taxes. Now they are frustrated, and they 
are demanding relief, and they are demanding that the Nation begin 
prioritizing its precious resources by balancing the Federal budget. In 
1996, the Department of Energy is marking its nineteenth anniversary, 
but at an annual cost to the taxpayers of more than $15 billion, there 
is little to celebrate.
  DOE has become a black hole for taxpayer dollars, a bureaucracy 
without equal, an energy agency without a clear or focused energy 
mission. Milton Friedman was right--the Trojan horse has arrived.
  The question is, what went wrong? For one thing, the problems DOE was 
created to protect us against never materialized. Oil supplies 
eventually rose, while oil prices dropped. The need for a national 
energy agency became less apparent. Still, DOE has continued to grow, 
as bureaucrats seek to justify its existence by branching out into 
areas only marginally related to national energy policy. Our national 
energy agency has cost the taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in 
its ongoing quest for an energy mission.
  The General Accounting Office published a troubling report last 
August entitled ``Department of Energy: A Framework for Restructuring 
DOE and Its Missions,'' which noted that DOE has been in transition 
almost from the time of its creation. In discussing DOE's changing 
missions and priorities, the GAO reported:

       For its first 3 years, DOE's programs emphasized research 
     and initiatives to cope with a global energy crisis that 
     disrupted U.S. and world markets and economies. By the mid-
     1980's, accelerating nuclear weapons production and expanding 
     space-based defense research dominated DOE's budget 
     resources.

       Since the late 1980's, DOE's budget has reflected a growing 
     emphasis on solving a half-century's environmental and safety 
     problems caused by the nuclear weapons and research 
     activities of DOE and its predecessors.

  To appreciate how far DOE has strayed from its original energy 
mandate, one must first understand that 85 percent of its budget today 
is spent on activities that have no direct relation to energy 
resources.
  Let me say that again. Eighty-five percent of the budget of DOE today 
is spent on activities that have no direct relationship to energy 
resources.
  An examination of where those nonenergy dollars are being directed is 
perhaps the best way to illustrate the enormous gap between the stated 
missions of DOE, and the results those missions have generated.
  The bulk of DOE's nonenergy funds goes toward the cleanup of 
radioactive waste from nuclear weapons facilities and for overseeing 
storage of the Nation's nuclear waste. Unfortunately, the waste 
problem--which wasn't one of DOE's missions in 1977 but has since 
become one of its primary responsibilities--has also become its primary 
failure.
  There are 26 nuclear power plants nationwide, including the Prairie 
Island facility in my home State of Minnesota, which will run out of 
storage space for their spent nuclear fuel beginning as early as 1998. 
That's the very year in which DOE is required by law to start accepting 
nuclear waste at an interim storage facility. DOE has known about the 
1998 deadline for 14 years, since passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy 
Act. The Senate Energy Committee this week reaffirmed its intention to 
hold DOE to its legal obligation. And yet years of backpedaling, false 
starts, and feet-dragging by DOE have thrown that deadline in doubt.

  Despite repeated warnings from Congress that the deadline is fast 
approaching, no temporary site has been selected and a permanent 
storage facility is no more than a pipe dream at this point.
  Those 26 nuclear plants are left with the distasteful choice of 
either building more temporary storage or closing down and depriving 
millions of electric customers of cost-effective fuel.
  Electric utility customers are paying the price for DOE's delay. 
Through a surcharge on their monthly energy bills, they have already 
contributed $11 billion of their hard-earned dollars to a nuclear waste 
trust fund established to finance creation of a permanent storage 
facility. DOE has raided the trust fund of $5 billion, with little to 
show for it.
  I would suggest, Mr. President, that the failure of DOE to move 
forward with this most basic mission--over 14 years, at a cost to the 
taxpayers of $11 billion--should itself raise serious questions about 
DOE's ability to carry out any of its missions.
  DOE is also responsible for national energy research, which includes 
the development of alternative sources of energy such as solar, wind, 
synthetic fuels, and clean coal.
  DOE research has cost the American taxpayers more than $70 billion 
since 1977, but we have little to show for this tremendous investment. 
That $70 billion has bought plenty of pork, but few meaningful 
scientific breakthroughs.
  In testimony last year before the House Subcommittee on Energy and 
Water Development, Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute said,

       Energy R&D spending has cost the American taxpayer plenty 
     without any real reform. . . . Virtually all economists who 
     have looked at those programs agree that Federal energy R&D 
     investments have proven to be a spectacular failure.

  Another of DOE's missions has been to promote energy conservation in 
the aftermath of the OPEC oil embargo.
  But unlike the days of the oil crisis, when the Federal Government 
predicted that supplies of fossil fuels would be depleted by the year 
2000, U.S. oil reserves are 50 percent higher today than they were in 
the early 1970's. Coal and natural gas reserves have increased 
substantially. Energy prices are actually lower.
  For most Americans, the energy crunch is just a vague memory--keeping 
a multimillion-dollar agency around just in case, at a time when we 
face a $5 trillion public debt, is hardly prudent Government 
management.
  And what of DOE's mission to ensure affordable power, and access to 
it by consumers? Unfortunately, DOE has been ineffective in carrying 
out both of those functions.
  The Department's ultimate goal of guiding the Nation toward 
independence from foreign energy sources has obviously never been 
achieved. Let me explain why.
  DOE itself projects that crude oil production in the United States--
which is already in decline--will continue to drop over the next 
decade. By the year 2005, the United States will be 68 percent 
dependent on imported oil, and natural gas imports are expected to 
increase as well.
  Mr. President, 68 percent of our energy needs will come from outside 
of the United States. Back during the oil embargo it was only about 33 
percent. You can see what problems we ran into when there was a squeeze 
on the oil from abroad at that time. By the year 2005, more than double 
that, 68 percent, will come from outside our borders. We

[[Page S2188]]

will become hostage to the world's energy. That is hardly energy 
independence. DOE has clearly strayed from its original missions.
  At a time when Federal spending priorities are being re-examined, and 
agencies which are overgrown, obsolete, duplicative, or irrelevant--
four counts on which DOE must plead guilty--are being dragged into the 
light, the Department of Energy demands scrutiny by Congress.
  Mr. President, I believe there are three basic reasons DOE has been 
unable to achieve even its most basic missions:
  First, DOE is too big. It takes 20,000 Federal bureaucrats to manage 
it and another 150,000 contract workers to carry out its far-reaching 
agenda.
  Second, DOE is too expensive. It has an annual budget of $15.4 
billion. Even in the absence of another energy crisis like that which 
led to its creation, DOE's budget has grown 235 percent since 1977.
  And third, DOE has no real mission. By virtue of its massive size and 
annual cost, it has become inefficient and nearly impossible to manage. 
Due in part to its constant attempts at justifying its own existence, 
DOE has fallen victim to its own sprawling, tangled agenda.
  DOE's long-documented management problems were highlighted in last 
summer's report by the GAO. As part of an ongoing management review of 
DOE, the GAO surveyed 37 experts on DOE, including former DOE 
Secretaries, President Carter, and representatives of the private, 
academic, and public sectors. GAO wanted to know whether DOE was 
meeting its mission goals, and whether those missions were still 
appropriate functions of the Federal Government in the post-cold war, 
budget-conscious 1990's.
  Victor Rezendes of the GAO summed up their findings during a 
congressional hearing last year:

       DOE suffers from significant management problems, ranging 
     from poor environmental management . . . to major internal 
     inefficiencies. . .. Thus, this agency is ripe for change.

  Although the GAO offered no recommendations as to DOE's future, not 
one of the experts surveyed thought that DOE should remain as it is 
today. And they raised many questions:
  Why is the Nation's energy agency maintaining nuclear weapons 
stockpiles and managing the cleanup of weapons production facilities?
  Why is the Nation's energy agency involved in nonenergy related 
research?
  Why is DOE undertaking such activities as science education and 
industrial competitiveness?
  As the GAO concluded in its report:

       It is not clear if the Department and its missions are 
     still needed in their present form or could be implemented 
     more effectively elsewhere in the public or private sectors.

  Unlike the muddled missions offered up by the Department of Energy, 
the mission of my Senate office is concise and focused, and is 
precisely summed up in our mission statement. This is how it begins:

       As the Senator and staff of the State of Minnesota, we 
     pledge to lead the fight to reaffirm Congress' oversight 
     responsibilities. By doing so, we will evaluate programs to 
     ensure the wisest use of taxpayer dollars and focus on future 
     streamlining and downsizing of Federal Government.

  Mr. President, that is the mission I was sent here to carry out by 
the taxpayers of Minnesota--taxpayers who are no longer willing to foot 
the bill for a bloated and cumbersome agency which is unable to meet 
its obligations and has outlived its usefulness.
  The Department of Energy needs the immediate attention of Congress. 
It's time we put this Trojan horse out to pasture.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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