MONIZ OUTLINES PLANS TO STRENGTHEN DOE LAB SYSTEM

Todd Jacobson
GHG Monitor
7/12/13

New Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has outlined plans to strengthen the Department of Energy’s national laboratory system, telling lawmakers on the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee that he was planning to stand up a National Laboratory Policy Council and establish a group to look at increasing efficiency and effectiveness across the lab complex. Moniz outlined his plans in a July 10 letter to subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), delivering the letter on the eve of a subcommittee hearing on DOE lab management. “The National Laboratories have world class experimental facilities and personnel that foster new technologies and can lead to new industries and new jobs,” Moniz said. “The National Laboratories are part of the backbone of the American physical science research enterprise, serving nearly 30,000 scientists from universities, industry, and labs each year, and play a significant role in the education of the next generation of America’s scientists and engineers. It is imperative that these assets be managed in a manner that maximizes the return on taxpayers’ investment.”

A host of recent reports have raised serious concerns about the management of the labs. Most recently, a report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Center for American Progress and the Heritage Foundation suggested that government regulations had prevented the labs from keeping up with the pace of innovation and that the system was “running on autopilot.” Moniz said he disagreed with the notion that the lab system was “running on autopilot,” but he promised to repair the relationship between the labs and government and strengthen technology transfer efforts within the Department by hiring a technology transfer coordinator.

He said he would also chair a National Laboratory Policy Council that would advise him on “strategic directions for the Department’s science and technology programs across the board and on the Labs’ critical role in advancing the Department’s missions and the nation’s innovation ecosystem.” He also said he would establish a Laboratory Operations Board to examine the potential for efficiencies across the complex. He said he had met with the lab directors three times in his first six weeks as Energy Secretary in person and by video conference, including a meeting in Oak Ridge shortly after he was confirmed by the Senate.

Concern About How to ‘Sustain and Advance’ Labs

At this week’s hearing, Lummis said she was concerned with how to “best sustain and advance” the contributions made by the labs to the nation. “Beginning with their roots in providing the scientific foundation upon which America won World War II and the Cold War, the national labs have a rich and often underappreciated history. Today, the labs’ role in sponsoring cutting-edge basic research and managing world-class user facilities is a driving force behind the United States’ global scientific leadership and economic competitiveness,” she said.

For years, however, lab directors have complained that burdensome DOE regulations have decreased productivity, limiting the output of the labs, and in 2010, the National Laboratory Directors Council outlined 20 areas where operations could be improved. Among those recommendations was moving to Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations for some DOE work. None of the recommendations “are transformational, world-changing things, but many of the reasons we feel frustrated is … not because of big things,” Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason said in testimony before the Energy Subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee July 11. “It’s a layering over decades of a lot of small things and we’ve got to work those away.”

Moniz Supports Balanced Approach to Management

Moniz said DOE had taken action on 14 of the NLDC recommendations, actions were pending on two other recommendations, and work on four others had been deferred. But the new Laboratory Operations Board would look for further ways to increase productivity at the labs. The recent report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Center for American Progress and the Heritage Foundation urged DOE to shift to a “more unified” evaluation process for the labs not predicated on direct transactional oversight for all decisions. “While I generally support efforts to move toward performance-based oversight and outcome-based evaluation, we need to strike the appropriate balance between providing operational flexibility to the Labs and the Department’s responsibility and accountability to the President, the Congress and the taxpayer,” Moniz said.

Moniz also said he continues to support the government-owned contractor-operated management arrangement between DOE and the labs, but he said the new Policy Council and the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board would examine “improvements in how this core management concept is implemented today.” In his letter, he also said he favors aligning the Department’s basic research and applied energy research and development activities under a single Under Secretary, which was another key recommendation of the report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, the Center for American Progress and the Heritage Foundation. Currently, the labs are divided among under secretaries for science and energy, but a consolidation would move 13 of DOE’s 17 national labs under one leader.