Department of Energy: Observations on the Future of the Department
(Testimony, 09/04/96, GAO/T-RCED-96-224).

GAO discussed the Department of Energy's (DOE) future, focusing on DOE
efforts to restructure its missions and address policy and management
issues. GAO noted that: (1) DOE is having a difficult time responding to
its changing mission and organizational structure; (2) DOE is unable to
evaluate its activities due to weak management and information systems;
(3) DOE has a highly decentralized field structure that is unable to
respond to changing conditions and priorities, fraught with
communication problems, and ill-equipped to handle cross-cutting issues;
(4) many former DOE officials and other experts believe that DOE should
concentrate on several key issues such as energy policy, energy
information, and energy supply research and development; (5) DOE is
reforming its contracting practices to make them more business-like and
results-oriented, opening up its decisionmaking processes to the public,
and organizing high-level task forces on laboratory and research
management; (6) DOE is on target with its planned budget savings under
the Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative and is depending on
its process improvements and reengineering efforts to fulfill its
mission under reduced budgets; (7) a governmentwide approach to
restructuring DOE is desirable, since transferring any DOE mission will
have a broad impact on other federal agencies; and (8) DOE will have to
address contract reform, acquisitions, and environmental cleanup and
waste management issues to effectively restructure its organization.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  T-RCED-96-224
     TITLE:  Department of Energy: Observations on the Future of the 
             Department
      DATE:  09/04/96
   SUBJECT:  Reengineering (management)
             Federal agency reorganization
             Agency missions
             Energy research
             Strategic planning
             Mission budgeting
             Privatization
             Interagency relations
             Environmental monitoring
             Nuclear waste management
IDENTIFIER:  Yucca Mountain (NV)
             DOE Hanford Tank Farm Maintenance Program
             DOE Strategic Plan
             DOE Strategic Alignment and Downsizing Initiative
             DOE Civilian Nuclear Waste Program
             Manhattan Project
             
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Cover
================================================================ COVER


Before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, U.S.  Senate

For Release
on Delivery
Expected at
9:30 a.m.  EDT
Wednesday
Sept.  4, 1996

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY -
OBSERVATIONS ON THE FUTURE OF THE
DEPARTMENT

Statement of
Victor S.  Rezendes, Director,
Energy, Resources, and Science Issues,
Resources, Community, and Economic
Development Division

GAO/T-RCED-96-224

GAO/RCED-96-224T


(170022)


Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV

  DOE -
  DOD -
  GPRA -
  NAPA -
  OPM -

============================================================ Chapter 0

Mr.  Chairman and Members of the Committee: 

We are pleased to provide our views on proposals affecting the future
of the Department of Energy (DOE).  My testimony today will discuss
the need for change at DOE and the efforts it has under way, a
framework for reevaluating the Department, the desirability of a
governmentwide approach to restructuring, and the need to address
policy and management issues that will persist irrespective of the
future of the Department.  The information included in this testimony
is drawn from our management reviews of DOE and our past and ongoing
work on a wide variety of DOE's programs and activities.\1

In summary, now is an ideal time to reevaluate DOE and its missions. 
Its priorities have changed dramatically since its creation in 1977
in response to the nation's energy crisis, shifting to nuclear
weapons production in the 1980s and environmental cleanup now. 
Describing the need to change DOE, many former Department officials
and other experts we surveyed believe that the Department should
focus on just a few of its current missions.  DOE's reforms that are
under way are important and much needed, but we believe that a more
fundamental rethinking is in order.  A framework for evaluating DOE
could begin with basic questions about the validity of missions and
their organizational placement.  Because transferring missions from
DOE to other agencies has broad impacts, we believe that ideally a
governmentwide approach to restructuring is desirable.  Regardless of
the future of DOE, many long-term issues, such as contract reform,
major acquisitions, and environmental cleanup and waste management,
will need addressing. 


--------------------
\1 A list of our reports appears at the end of this testimony. 


   THE NEED TO CHANGE DOE AND
   EFFORTS UNDER WAY
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1

It is time for a fundamental rethinking of DOE's missions.  Created
predominantly to deal with the energy crisis of the 1970s, DOE has
changed its mission and budget priorities dramatically over time.  By
the early 1980s, its nuclear weapons production grew substantially;
and following revelations about environmental mismanagement in the
mid- to late-1980s, DOE's cleanup budget began to expand, and now the
task overshadows other activities.  With the Cold War's end, DOE has
new or expanded missions in industrial competitiveness; science
education; environment, safety, and health; and nuclear arms control
and verification. 

Responding to changing missions and priorities with organizational
structures, processes, and practices that had been established
largely to build nuclear weapons has been a daunting task for DOE. 
For example, DOE's approach to contract management, first created
during the World War II Manhattan Project, allowed private
contractors to manage and operate billion-dollar facilities with
minimal direct federal oversight yet reimbursed them for all of their
costs regardless of their actual achievements; only now is DOE
attempting to impose modern standards for accountability and
performance.  Also, weak management and information systems for
evaluating program's performance has long hindered DOE from
exercising effective oversight.  In addition, DOE's elaborate and
highly decentralized field structure has been slow to respond to
changing conditions and priorities, is fraught with communication
problems, and poorly positioned to tackle difficult issues requiring
a high degree of cross-cutting coordination. 

Experts we consulted in a 1994 survey support the view that, at a
minimum, a serious reevaluation of DOE's basic missions is needed.\2
We surveyed nearly 40 former DOE executives and experts on energy
policy about how the Department's missions relate to current and
future national priorities.  Our respondents included a former
President, four former Energy Secretaries, former Deputy and
Assistant Secretaries, and individuals with distinguished involvement
in issues of national energy policy. 

Overwhelmingly, our respondents emphasized that DOE should focus on
core missions.  Many believed that DOE must concentrate its attention
more on energy-related missions such as energy policy, energy
information, and energy supply research and development.  A majority
favored moving many of the remaining missions from DOE to other
agencies or entities.  For example, many respondents suggested moving

  -- basic research to the National Science Foundation, the Commerce
     or Interior departments, other federal agencies, or a new
     public-private entity;

  -- some multiprogram national laboratories to other federal
     agencies (or sharing their missions with other agencies);

  -- the management and disposal of civilian nuclear waste to a new
     public-private organization, a new government agency, or the
     Environmental Protection Agency;

  -- nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup to the Department
     of Defense (DOD) or a new government agency and waste cleanup to
     the Environmental Protection Agency;

  -- environment, safety, and health activities to the Environmental
     Protection Agency or other federal entities;

  -- arms control and verification to DOD, the State Department, the
     Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, or a new government nuclear
     agency;

  -- activities furthering industrial competitiveness to the Commerce
     Department or a public-private organization; and

  -- science education to the National Science Foundation or another
     federal agency. 

Recognizing the need to change, DOE has several efforts under way to
strengthen its capacity to manage.  For example, DOE's reform of its
contracting practices aims to make them more business-like and
results-oriented; decision-making processes have been opened up to
the public in an attempt to further break down DOE's long-standing
culture of secrecy, which has historically shielded the Department
from outside scrutiny; and high-level task forces convened by DOE
have made recommendations on laboratory and research management and
on the Department's missions. 

DOE is also developing a strategic plan aiming to arrange its
existing missions into key "business lines."\3 While we have yet to
evaluate how well DOE is reorganizing along these business lines, we
did recently complete a review of DOE's Strategic Alignment and
Downsizing Initiative, which arose from the plan.\4 We found that
DOE's planned budget savings are on target and that the Department is
depending on process improvements and reengineering efforts to enable
it to fulfill its missions under the reduced budgets called for by
the Initiative.  However, the cost-savings potential of DOE's efforts
is uncertain because most of them are just beginning and some are not
scheduled to be completed for several years.  For example, of DOE's
45 implementation plans, 22 plans have milestones that delineate
actions to be met after May 1996 and 5 of those plans have milestones
that will not occur until the year 2000.  Because these actions are
in their early stages, it is not yet clear if they will reduce costs
to the extent DOE envisioned. 

Although DOE's reforms are important and much needed, they are based
on the assumption that existing missions are still valid in their
present forms and that DOE is the best place to manage them.  Along
with many of the experts we surveyed, we think a more fundamental
rethinking of missions is in order. 


--------------------
\2 App.  I summarizes the results from our survey. 

\3 DOE's business lines are energy resources, science and technology,
national security, economic productivity, and weapons site cleanup. 

\4 Energy Downsizing:  While DOE Is Achieving Budget Cuts, It Is Too
Soon to Gauge Effects (GAO/RCED-96-154, May 13, 1996). 


   A FRAMEWORK FOR EVALUATING DOE
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2

As we explained in an August 1995 report,\5 two fundamental questions
are a good starting point for developing a framework for evaluating
the future of DOE and its missions: 

  -- Which missions should be eliminated because they are no longer
     valid governmental functions? 

  -- For those missions that are governmental, what is the best
     organizational placement of the responsibilities? 

Once agreement is reached on the appropriate governmental missions, a
practical set of criteria could be used to evaluate the best
organizational structure for each mission.  These
criteria--originally used by an advisory panel for evaluating
alternative approaches to managing DOE's civilian nuclear waste
program\6 --allow for rating each alternative structure on the basis
of its ability to promote cost-effective practices, attract talented
technical specialists, be flexible to changing conditions, and
accountable to stakeholders.  Using these criteria could help
identify more effective ways to implement missions, particularly
those that could be privatized or reconfigured under alternative
governmental forms.  Appendix II summarizes these criteria. 

Our work and others' has revealed the complex balancing of
considerations in reevaluating missions.  In general, deciding the
best place to manage a specific mission involves assessing the
advantages and disadvantages of each alternative institution for its
potential to achieve that mission, produce integrated policy
decisions, and improve efficiency.  Potential efficiency gains (or
losses) that might result from moving parts of DOE to other agencies
need to be balanced against the policy reasons that first led to
placing that mission in the Department. 

For example, transferring the nuclear weapons complex to DOD, as is
proposed by some, would require carefully considering many policy and
management issues.  Because of the declining strategic role of
nuclear weapons, some experts argue that DOD might be better able to
balance resource allocations among nuclear and other types of weapons
if the weapons complex were completely under its control.  Others
argue, however, that the need to maintain civilian control over
nuclear weapons outweighs any other advantages and that little gains
in efficiency would be achieved by employing DOD rather than DOE
supervisors.  Some experts we consulted advocated creating a new
federal agency for weapons production. 

Similarly, moving the responsibility for cleaning up DOE's defense
facilities to another agency or to a new institution, as proposed by
some, requires close scrutiny.  For example, a new agency
concentrating its focus on cleanup exclusively would not have to
allocate its resources among competing programs and could maximize
research and development investments by achieving economies of scale
in applying cleanup technology more broadly.  On the other hand,
separating cleanup responsibility from the agency that created the
waste may limit incentives to reduce waste and to promote other
environmentally sensitive approaches.  In addition, considerable
startup time and costs would accompany a new agency, at a time when
the Congress is interested in downsizing the federal government. 

DOE's task force on the future of the national laboratories (The
Galvin Task Force) has suggested creating private or federal-private
corporations to manage most or all of the laboratories.\7 Under this
arrangement, nonprofit corporations would operate the laboratories
under the direction of a board of trustees that would channel funding
to various labs to meet the needs of both government and
nongovernment entities.  DOE would be a customer, rather than the
direct manager of the labs.  The proposal raises important issues for
the Congress to consider, such as how to (1) monitor and oversee the
expenditure of public funds by privately managed and operated
entities; (2) continue the laboratories' significant responsibilities
for addressing environmental, safety, and health problems at their
facilities, some of which are governed by legal agreements between
DOE, EPA, and the states; and (3) safeguard federal access to
facilities so that national priorities, including national security
missions, are met.  Other alternatives for managing the national labs
exist:  each has advantages and disadvantages, and each needs to be
evaluated in light of the laboratories' capabilities for designing
nuclear weapons and pursuing other missions of national and strategic
importance.  Furthermore, the government may still need facilities
dedicated to national and defense missions, a possibility that would
heavily influence any future organizational decisions. 

Finally, another set of criteria, developed by the National Academy
of Public Administration (NAPA) in another context, could be useful
for determining whether DOE should remain a cabinet-level
department.\8 These criteria, which are summarized in appendix III,
pose such questions as the following:  "Is there a sufficiently broad
national purpose for the Department?  Are cabinet-level planning,
executive attention, and strategic focus necessary to achieve the
Department's mission goals?  Is cabinet-level status needed to
address significant issues that otherwise would not be given proper
attention?"

Although DOE's strategic plan and Strategic Alignment and Downsizing
Initiative address internal activities, they assume the validity of
the existing missions and their placement in the Department.  But DOE
alone cannot make these determinations--they require a cooperative
effort among all stakeholders, with the Congress and the
administration responsible for deciding which missions are needed and
how best to implement them.  The requirements of the Government
Performance and Results Act (GPRA) reinforce this concept by
providing a legislative vehicle for the Congress and agencies to use
to improve the way government works.  The act requires, among other
things, strategic plans based on consultation with the Congress and
other stakeholders.  These discussions are an important opportunity
for the Congress and the executive branch to jointly reassess and
clarify the agencies' missions and desired outcomes.\9


--------------------
\5 Department of Energy:  A Framework for Restructuring DOE and Its
Missions (GAO/RCED-95-197, Aug.  21, 1995). 

\6 Managing Nuclear Waste--A Better Idea, Advisory Panel on
Alternative Means of Financing and Managing Radioactive Waste
Facilities (Dec.  1984). 

\7 The Secretary of Energy asked Robert Galvin, Chairman of Motorola
Corporation, to chair a task force to analyze the national
laboratories.  Its report was titled Alternative Futures for the
Department of Energy National Laboratories, Secretary of Energy
Advisory Board, Task Force on Alternative Futures for the Department
of Energy National Laboratories (Feb.  1995). 

\8 Evaluation of Proposals to Establish a Department of Veterans
Affairs (Mar.  1988). 

\9 Managing for Results:  Key Steps and Challenges in Implementing
GPRA in Science Agencies (GAO/T-GGD/RCED-96-214, July 10, 1996). 


   DESIRABILITY OF A
   GOVERNMENTWIDE APPROACH TO
   RESTRUCTURING
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3

Our work has shown that to be effective, decisions about the
structure and functions of the federal government should be made in a
thorough manner with careful attention to the effects of changes in
one agency on the workings of other agencies.\10

Specifically, reorganization demands a coordinated approach, within
and across agency lines, supported by a solid consensus for change;
it should seek to achieve specific, identifiable goals; attention
must be paid to how the federal government exercises its role; and
sustained oversight by the Congress is needed to ensure effective
implementation.  Given both the current budgetary environment and
other proposals to more extensively reorganize the executive branch,
the Congress could judge the feasibility and desirability of
assigning to some entity the responsibility of guiding
reorganizations and downsizing. 

Even though there has been little experience abolishing federal
agencies, officials with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM)\11
articulated to us some lessons learned from their experiences: 

  -- Agencies are usually willing to accept functions, but they are
     not necessarily willing to accept the employees who performed
     those functions in the abolished agency--doing so may put the
     receiving agency's existing staff at increased risk of a
     reduction-in-force. 

  -- Transferring functions that have an elaborate field structure
     can be very expensive. 

  -- Transferred functions and staff may duplicate existing functions
     in the new agency, so staff may feel threatened, resulting in
     friction. 

  -- Employees performing a function in the abolished agency may be
     at higher or lower grades than those performing the same
     function in the receiving agency. 

  -- Terminating an agency places an enormous burden on that agency's
     personnel office--it will need outside help to handle the
     drastic increase in paperwork due to terminations, grievances,
     and appeals. 


--------------------
\10 Government Reorganization:  Issues and Principles
(GAO/T-GGD/AIMD-95-166, May 17, 1995). 

\11 OPM has had experience with the abolishment of agencies and the
transfer of functions to other federal agencies.  For example, OPM
was intimately involved with the elimination of the Interstate
Commerce Commission and the transfer of its functions to the Surface
Transportation Board of the Department of Transportation and the
Federal Highway Administration. 


   ISSUES THAT NEED ADDRESSING
   REGARDLESS OF WHERE THEY ARE
   MANAGED
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4

Regardless of what the Congress decides on the future of the DOE, a
number of critical policy and management issues will require close
attention regardless of their placement in the federal government or
outside it.  These issues include contract reform, major systems
acquisitions, and environmental cleanup and waste management. 


      CONTRACT REFORM
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.1

DOE has a long history of management problems.  At the core of many
of these problems is its weak oversight of more than 110,000
contractor employees, who perform nearly all of the Department's
work.  Historically, these contractors worked largely without any
financial risk, they got paid even if they performed poorly, and DOE
oversaw them under a policy of "least interference." DOE is now
reforming its contracting practices to make them more business-like
and results-oriented. 

While we believe that these reforms, which we are currently
evaluating, are generally a step in the right direction, at this time
we are unsure whether the Department is truly committed to fully
implementing some of its own recommendations.  For example, in May
1996, the Secretary announced the extension of the University of
California's three laboratory contracts (currently valued at about $3
billion).  DOE's decision to extend, rather than "compete" these
enormous contracts--held by the University continuously for 50
years--violates two basic tenets of the Department's philosophy of
contract reform.  First, contracts will be competed except in unusual
circumstances.  Second, if current contracts are to be extended, the
terms of the extended contracts will be negotiated before DOE makes
its decision to extend them.  DOE justified its decision on the basis
of its long-term relationship with the University.  However, the
Secretary's Contract Reform team concluded that DOE's contracting
suffered from a lack of competition, which was caused, in part, by
several long-term relationships with particular contractors. 


      MAJOR ACQUISITIONS
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.2

DOE has historically been unsuccessful in managing its many large
projects--those that cost $100 million or more and that are important
to the success of its missions.  Called "major acquisitions," these
projects include accelerators for high-energy and nuclear physics,
nuclear reactors, and technologies to process nuclear waste.  Since
1980, DOE has been involved with more than 80 major acquisitions.  We
currently have work underway for the Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee examining DOE's success with these acquisitions.  Our work
indicates that many more projects are terminated prior to completion
than are actually completed.  Many of these projects had large cost
overruns and delays.  This work will also address efforts to improve
the acquisition process and contributing causes of these problems. 
The causes appear to include constantly changing missions, which
makes maintaining support over the long term difficult; annual,
incremental funding of projects that does not ensure that funds are
available when needed to keep the projects on schedule; the flawed
system of incentives that has sometimes rewarded contractors despite
poor performance; and an inability to hire, train, and retain enough
people with the proper skills. 


      ENVIRONMENTAL WASTE AND
      CLEANUP
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.3

Another issue needing long-term attention is cleaning up the legacy
of the nuclear age.  This monumental task currently assigned to DOE
includes both the environmental problems created by decades of
nuclear weapons production and the management and disposition of
highly radioactive waste generated by over 100 commercial nuclear
power plants.  Although the Department has made some progress on both
fronts, major obstacles remain.  One obstacle common to both efforts
is the estimated total cost over the next half century.  According to
DOE, cleaning up its complex of nuclear weapons facilities could cost
as much as $265 billion (in 1996 dollars) and disposing of highly
radioactive waste from commercial nuclear power plants could cost
another $30 billion (in 1994 dollars). 

Even though DOE received over $34 billion between 1990 and 1996 for
environmental activities, it has made limited progress in addressing
the wide range of environmental problems at its sites.  In managing
its wastes, DOE has encountered major delays in its high-level waste
programs and has yet to develop adequate capacity for treating mixed
waste (which includes both radioactive and hazardous components) at
its major sites.\12 Finally, DOE has begun deactivating only a
handful of its thousands of inactive facilities. 

On the basis of our reviews over the last several years of DOE's
efforts to clean up its nuclear weapons complex, we have identified
many ways to potentially reduce the cost.  These methods can be
applied regardless of who has the responsibility for the cleanup. 
For example, DOE has usually assumed that all of its facilities will
be cleaned up for subsequent unrestricted use; however, because many
of these facilities are so contaminated, unrestricted use of them is
unlikely, even after cleanup.  By incorporating more realistic
land-use assumptions into its decision-making, DOE could, by its own
estimates, save from $200 million to $600 million annually.  Also, to
reduce costs, DOE is now preparing to privatize portions of the
cleanup, most notably the vitrification of high-level waste in the
tanks at its Hanford facility.  But key issues need to be considered,
including whether DOE has adequately demonstrated that privatization
will reduce the total cost and whether DOE is adequately prepared to
assume management and safety oversight responsibilities over the
private firms. 

Moreover, DOE cannot permanently dispose of its inventory of highly
radioactive waste from the Hanford tank farms and other facilities
until it has developed a geologic repository for this waste generated
by the commercial nuclear power industry and DOE.  Utilities
operating more than 100 nuclear power plants at about 70 locations
have generated about 32,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste
in the form of spent (used) fuel and are expected to have produced
about 85,000 metric tons of spent fuel by the time the last of these
plants has been retired in around 30 years.  Although an operational
repository was originally anticipated as early as 1998, DOE now does
not expect to determine until 2001 if the site at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada, is suitable and, if it is, to begin operating a repository
there until at least 2010.  Following a call from 39 Members of
Congress for a presidential commission to review the nuclear waste
program, this year legislation that includes reforms is pending in
both the House and the Senate; and some experts, including DOE's own
internal advisory panel, have called for moving the entire program to
the private sector. 


--------------------
\12 Nuclear Waste:  Much Effort Needed to Meet Federal Facility
Compliance Act's Requirements (GAO/RCED-94-179, May 17, 1994). 


-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4.4

Mr.  Chairman, this concludes our prepared statement.  We would be
pleased to respond to any questions that you or other Members of the
Committee may have. 


SUMMARY OF SURVEY RESPONSES ON THE
BEST LOCATION FOR ACCOMPLISHING
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S
MISSIONS
=========================================================== Appendix I



   (See figure in printed
   edition.)

Source:  Data are from a 1994 GAO survey. 


CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING DOE'S
MISSIONS
========================================================== Appendix II

The following criteria, adapted from a former DOE advisory panel that
examined the Department's civilian nuclear waste program, offers a
useful framework for evaluating alternative ways to manage missions. 
These criteria were created to judge the potential value of several
different organizational arrangements which included an independent
federal commission, a mixed government-private corporation, and a
private corporation. 

Mission orientation and focus:  Will the institution be able to focus
on its mission(s), or will it be encumbered by other priorities? 
Which organizational structure will provide the greatest focus on its
mission(s)? 

Credibility:  Will the organizational structure be credible, thus
gaining public support for its action? 

Stability and continuity:  Will the institution be able to plan for
its own future without undue concern for its survival? 

Programmatic authority:  Will the institution be free to exercise
needed authority to accomplish its mission(s) without excessive
oversight and control from external sources? 

Accessibility:  Will stakeholders (both federal and state overseers
as well as the public) have easy access to senior management? 

Responsiveness:  Will the institution be structured to be responsive
to all its stakeholders? 

Internal flexibility:  Will the institution be able to change its
internal systems, organization, and style to adapt to changing
conditions? 

Political accountability:  How accountable will the institution be to
political sources, principally the Congress and the President? 

Immunity from political interference:  Will the institution be
sufficiently free from excessive and destructive political forces? 

Ability to stimulate cost-effectiveness:  How well will the
institution be able to encourage cost-effective solutions? 

Technical excellence:  Will the institution attract highly competent
people? 

Ease of transition:  What will be the costs (both financial and
psychological) of changing to a different institution? 


CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING
CABINET-LEVEL STATUS
========================================================= Appendix III

The following criteria were developed by the National Academy of
Public Administration as an aid to deciding whether a government
organization should be elevated to be a cabinet department.  However,
they raise issues that are relevant in judging cabinet-level status
in general. 

1.  Does the agency or set of programs serve a broad national goal or
purpose not exclusively identified with a single class, occupation,
discipline, region, or sector of society? 

2.  Are there significant issues in the subject area that (1) would
be better assessed or met by elevating the agency to a department and
(2) are not now adequately recognized or addressed by the existing
organization, the President, or the Congress? 

3.  Is there evidence of impending changes in the type and number of
pressures on the institution that would be better addressed if it
were made a department?  Are such changes expected to continue into
the future? 

4.  Would a department increase the visibility and thereby
substantially strengthen the active political and public support for
actions and programs to enhance the existing agency's goals? 

5.  Is there evidence that becoming a department would provide better
analysis, expression, and advocacy of the needs and programs that
constitute the agency's responsibilities? 

6.  Is there evidence that elevation to a cabinet department would
improve the accomplishment of the existing agency's goals? 

7.  Is a department required to better coordinate or consolidate
programs and functions that are now scattered throughout other
agencies in the executive branch of government? 

8.  Is there evidence that a department--with increased centralized
political authority--would result in a more effective balance within
the agency, between integrated central strategic planning and
resource allocation and the direct participation in management
decisions by the line officers who are responsible for directing and
managing the agency's programs? 

9.  Is there evidence of significant structural, management, or
operational weaknesses in the existing organization that could be
better corrected by elevation to a department? 

10.  Is there evidence that there are external barriers and
impediments to timely decision-making and executive action that could
be detrimental to improving the efficiency of the existing agency's
programs?  Would elevation to a department remove or mitigate these
impediments? 

11.  Would elevation to a department help recruit and retain better
qualified leadership within the existing agency? 

12.  Would elevation to a department promote more uniform achievement
of broad, cross-cutting national policy goals? 

13.  Would elevation to a department strengthen the Cabinet and the
Executive Office of the President as policy and management aids for
the President? 

14.  Would elevation to a department have a beneficial or detrimental
effect upon the oversight and accountability of the agency to the
President and the Congress? 




RELATED GAO PRODUCTS
============================================================ Chapter 1

Department of Energy:  A Framework For Restructuring DOE and Its
Missions (GAO/RCED-95-197, Aug.  21, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  Framework Is Needed to Reevaluate Its Role and
Missions (GAO/T-RCED-95-232, June 21, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  Alternatives for Clearer Missions and Better
Management at the National Laboratories (GAO/T-RCED-95-128, Mar.  9,
1995). 

Nuclear Weapons Complex:  Establishing a National Risk-Based Strategy
for Cleanup (GAO/T-RCED-95-120, Mar.  6, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  National Priorities Needed for Meeting
Environmental Agreements (GAO/RCED-95-1, Mar.  3, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  Research and Agency Missions Need Reevaluation
(GAO/T-RCED-95-105, Feb.  13, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  National Laboratories Need Clearer Missions
and Better Management (GAO/RCED-95-10, Jan.  27, 1995). 

Department of Energy:  Need to Reevaluate Its Role and Missions
(GAO/T-RCED-95-85, Jan.  18, 1995). 

Nuclear Waste:  Comprehensive Review of the Disposal Program Is
Needed (GAO/RCED-94-299, Sept.  27, 1994). 

Energy Policy:  Ranking Options to Improve the Readiness of and
Expand the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (GAO/RCED-94-259, Aug.  18,
1994). 

Department of Energy:  Management Changes Needed to Expand Use of
Innovative Cleanup Technologies (GAO/RCED-94-205, Aug.  10, 1994). 

Department of Energy:  Challenges to Implementing Contract Reform
(GAO/RCED-94-150, Mar.  24, 1994). 

DOE's National Laboratories:  Adopting New Missions and Managing
Effectively Pose Significant Challenges (GAO/T-RCED-94-113, Feb.  3,
1994). 

Financial Management:  Energy's Material Financial Management
Weaknesses Require Corrective Action (GAO/AIMD-93-29, Sept.  30,
1993). 

Department of Energy:  Management Problems Require a Long-Term
Commitment to Change (GAO/RCED-93-72, Aug.  31, 1993). 

Energy Policy:  Changes Needed to Make National Energy Planning More
Useful (GAO/RCED-93-29, Apr.  27, 1993). 

Energy Management:  High-Risk Area Requires Fundamental Change
(GAO/T-RCED-93-7, Feb.  17, 1993). 

Nuclear Weapons Complex:  Issues Surrounding Consolidating Los Alamos
and Livermore National Laboratories (GAO/T-RCED-92-98, Sept.  24,
1992). 

Department of Energy:  Better Information Resources Management Needed
to Accomplish Missions (GAO/IMTEC-92-53, Sept.  29, 1992). 

Naval Petroleum Reserve:  Limited Opportunities Exist to Increase
Revenues From Oil Sales in California (GAO/RCED-94-126, May 5, 1994). 

High-Risk Series:  Department of Energy Contract Management
(GAO/HR-93-9, Dec.  1992). 

Comments on Proposed Legislation to Restructure DOE's Uranium
Enrichment Program (GAO/T-RCED-92-14, Oct.  29, 1991). 

Nuclear Waste:  Operation of Monitored Retrievable Storage Facility
Is Unlikely by 1998 (GAO/RCED-91-194, Sept.  24, 1991). 


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