Trump Memo Reveals Plans For Massive Shake-Up At Energy Department
By Tyler Durden
According to a memo from Trump’s energy advisors, and obtained by Bloomberg, the new administration will be seeking significant changes to Obama’s Energy Department. Per Bloomberg, the Trump team submitted a list of 65 questions to the agency that requested information on everything from how to keep aging nuclear plants online to a list of employees and contractors that attended the United Nations climate meetings and helped develop Obama’s climate change policies.
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are developing plans to reshape Energy Department programs, help keep aging nuclear plants online and identify staff who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.
The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules. The advisers are also seeking information on agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics, according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday. The document lays out 65 questions from the Trump transition team, sources within the agency said.
The Obama administration’s policies targeted at providing loan guarantees to “clean-energy incubators” are set to receive significant scrutiny according to the list of questions. Many such projects were funded by the “Advanced Research Projects Agency” which has provided $1.3 billion in funding over 7 years for everything from batteries to biofuel production to wind turbines.
Under Obama, the department played a major role advancing clean-energy technology through loan guarantees and incubators, while writing efficiency rules for appliances. The department leans heavily on tens of thousands of contractors, who supplement the work of its roughly 13,000 direct employees.
The transition team questions includes perfunctory requests to identify current advisory committees, pending procurement decisions and positions subject to Senate confirmation — information critical to ensuring the agency’s functions before and after Trump is sworn in.
The document also signals which of the department’s agencies could face the toughest scrutiny under the new administration. Among them: the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a 7-year-old unit that has been a critical instrument for the Obama administration to advance clean-energy technologies.
Since going into operation in 2009, ARPA-E, as it is known, has provided about $1.3 billion in funding to more than 475 projects involving grid-scale batteries, power storage, biofuel production, wind turbines and other technology, according to a May report on the agency. Trump’s energy landing team is seeking “a complete list of ARPA-E’s projects” and wants information about the “Mission Innovation” and “Clean Energy Ministerial” efforts within the department.
The memo also hints at plans to go after funding for technologies that only exist courtesy of taxpayer-funded subsidies.
The group also questions whether any technologies or products that have emerged from Energy Department programs “are currently offered in the market without any subsidy” and asks “what mechanisms exist to help the national laboratories commercialize their scientific and
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