Fukushima Aftermath/US Department of Energy

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material. Its responsibilities include the nation's nuclear weapons program, nuclear reactor production for the United States Navy, energy conservation, energy-related research, radioactive waste disposal, and domestic energy production. DOE also sponsors more basic and applied scientific research than any other US federal agency; most of this is funded through its system of United States Department of Energy National Laboratories.

The agency is administered by the United States Secretary of Energy, and its headquarters are located in southwest Washington, D.C., on Independence Avenue in the Forrestal Building, named for James Forrestal, as well as in Germantown, Maryland.

History
The Department of Energy was formed after the oil crisis on August 8, 1977 by President Jimmy Carter's signing of legislation, The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 (P.L. 95-91, 91 Stat. 565).

In 1942, during World War II, the United States started the Manhattan Project, a project to develop the atomic bomb, under the eye of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After the war, the Atomic Energy Commission was created to control the future of the project.

the AEC was reinstated and gave way to Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which was tasked with regulating the nuclear power industry, and the Energy Research and Development Administration which was tasked to manage the nuclear weapon, naval reactor, and energy development programs. Only a few years after that, the Energy Crisis called attention to unifying these two groups. The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977, which Carter signed on August 4, 1977, created the Department of Energy, which assumed the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and programs of various other agencies.

The department began operations on October 1, 1977.

Organization
The Department is under the control and supervision of a United States Secretary of Energy, a political appointee of the President of the United States. The Energy Secretary is assisted in managing the Department by a United States Deputy Secretary of Energy, also appointed by the President, who assumes the duties of the Secretary in his absence. The Department also has three Under Secretaries of Energy, each appointed by the President, who oversee the major areas of the Department's work. To aid the Under Secretaries in the performance of there duties, President appoints eight Assistant Secretaries of Energy and the Energy Secretary assigns their functions and duties.


 * Secretary of Energy
 * Deputy Secretary
 * Under Secretary of Energy for Energy and Environment
 * Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
 * Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
 * Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
 * Office of Environmental Management
 * Office of Fossil Energy
 * Office of Legacy Management
 * Office of Nuclear Energy, Science & Technology
 * Under Secretary of Energy for Science
 * Office of Science
 * Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Security
 * National Nuclear Security Administration
 * Office of Secure Transportation
 * Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence
 * Energy Information Administration
 * Bonneville Power Administration
 * Southeastern Power Administration
 * Southwestern Power Administration
 * Western Area Power Administration
 * Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Facilities
As the lead energy research and development agency in the United States, the Department of Energy operates a number of science laboratories. They are as follows:
 * Albany Research Center
 * Ames Laboratory
 * Argonne National Laboratory
 * Bannister Federal Complex
 * Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory - focuses on the design and development of nuclear power for the U.S. Navy.
 * Brookhaven National Laboratory
 * Center for Functional Nanomaterials (under design or construction)
 * Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (under design or construction)
 * Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
 * Center for Nanoscale Materials (under design or construction)
 * Environmental Measurements Laboratory (now affiliated with the Department of Homeland Security)
 * Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
 * Idaho National Laboratory
 * Kansas City Plant
 * Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory - operates for Naval Reactors Program Research under the DOE - DOE facility, not a National Laboratory
 * Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
 * Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 * Los Alamos National Laboratory
 * National Energy Technology Laboratory
 * National Petroleum Technology Office
 * Nevada Test Site
 * New Brunswick Laboratory
 * Oak Ridge National Laboratory
 * Office of Fossil Energy
 * Office of River Protection (Hanford Site)
 * Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
 * Pantex
 * Radiological and Environmental Sciences Laboratory
 * Sandia National Laboratories
 * Savannah River National Laboratory
 * SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
 * Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
 * Y-12 National Security Complex
 * Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository

Responsibility for nuclear weapons
In the United States, all nuclear weapons deployed by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) are actually on loan to DoD from the DOE/NNSA, which has federal responsibility for the design, testing and production of all nuclear weapons. NNSA in turn uses contractors to carry out its responsibilities at the following government owned sites:
 * Design of the nuclear components of the weapon: Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
 * Engineering of the weapon systems: Sandia National Laboratories
 * Manufacturing of key components: Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Kansas City Plant, and Y-12 National Security Complex
 * Testing: Nevada Test Site
 * Final weapon/warhead assembling/dismantling: Pantex

Controversy
During the Wen Ho Lee scandal, involving stolen nuclear secrets from Los Alamos National Laboratory, hearings were called in Congress regarding the Department of Energy's handling of the matter. Republican senators thought that an independent agency should be in charge of nuclear weapons and security issues, not the Department of Energy. Federal officials, including then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, had publicly named Lee as a suspect in the theft of classified nuclear documents before he was charged with a crime; he was later cleared of the spying charges and won a settlement with the federal government.

Related legislation

 * 1920 - Federal Power Act
 * 1946 - Atomic Energy Act PL 79-585 (created the Atomic Energy Commission)
 * 1954 - Atomic Energy Act Amendments PL 83-703
 * 1956 - Colorado River Storage Project PL 84-485
 * 1957 - Atomic Energy Commission Acquisition of Property PL 85-162
 * 1957 - Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act PL 85-256
 * 1968 - Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act PL 90-481
 * 1973 - Mineral Leasing Act Amendments (Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline Authorization) PL 93-153
 * 1974 - Energy Reorganization Act PL 93-438 (Split the AEC into the Energy Research and Development Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
 * 1975 - Energy Policy and Conservation Act PL 94-163
 * 1977 - Department of Energy Organization Act PL 95-91 (Dismantled ERDA and replaced it with the Department of Energy)
 * 1978 - National Energy Act PL 95-617, 618, 619, 620, 621
 * 1980 - Energy Security Act PL 96-294
 * 1989 - Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act PL 101-60
 * 1992 - Energy Policy Act of 1992 PL 102-486
 * 2005 - Energy Policy Act of 2005 PL 109-58
 * 2007 - Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 PL 110-140
 * 2008 - Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 PL 110-234

Budget
President Barack Obama unveiled on May 7 a $26.4 billion budget request for DOE for fiscal year (FY) 2010, including $2.3 billion for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The budget aims to substantially expand the use of renewable energy sources while improving energy transmission infrastructure. It also makes significant investments in hybrid electric vehicle|hybrids and plug-in hybrids, in smart grid technologies, and in scientific research and innovation.

As part of the $789 billion economic stimulus package in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress provided Energy with an additional $38.3 billion for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, adding about 75 percent to Energy's annual budgets. Most of the stimulus spending was in the form of grants and contracts. Yet, according to Robert Alvarez, "Even with additional stimulus money, spending for bombs and cleanup will still exceed those for actual energy-related functions. Spending for the weapons complex is currently comparable to that during the height of the nuclear arms race in the 1950s. The big difference now — half of that money is spent dealing with the Cold War's environmental legacy. "

For fiscal year 2011, each of the operating units of the Department of Energy operate with the following budgets:

Energy Savings Performance Contract
Energy Savings Performance Contracts (ESPCs) are contracts under which a contractor designs, constructs, and obtains the necessary financing for an energy savings project, and the federal agency makes payments over time to the contractor from the savings in the agency's utility bills. The contractor guarantees the energy improvements will generate savings, and after the contract ends, all continuing cost savings accrue to the federal agency.

Loan Guarantee Program
Title XVII of Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes the U.S. Department of Energy to issue loan guarantees to eligible projects that "avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants or anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases" and "employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to technologies in service in the United States at the time the guarantee is issued".

In loan guarantees, a conditional commitment requires to meet an equity commitment, as well as other conditions, before the loan guarantee is closed.

Energy Innovation Hubs
Energy Innovation Hubs are multi-disciplinary meant to advance highly promising areas of energy science and technology from their early stages of research to the point that the risk level will be low enough for industry to commercialize the technologies.

The DOE budget includes $280 million to fund eight Energy Innovation Hubs, each of which is focused on a particular energy challenge. Two of the eight hubs are included in the EERE budget and will focus on integrating smart materials, designs, and systems into buildings to better conserve energy and on designing and discovering new concepts and materials needed to convert solar energy into electricity. Another two hubs, included in the DOE Office of Science budget, will tackle the challenges of devising advanced methods of energy storage and creating fuels directly from sunlight without the use of plants or microbes. Yet another hub will develop "smart" materials that will allow the electrical grid to adapt and respond to changing conditions.