This series of interviews spotlights scientists working across the country to implement the U.S. Department of Energy’s massive efforts to transition the country to clean energy, and improve equity and address climate injustice along the way. The Federation’s clean energy workforce report discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with ramping up this dynamic, in-demand workforce. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE.

Dr. Adria Brooks’ journey to the Department of Energy has been a winding road. From the forests of Western Massachusetts, to the desert mountains of Arizona, to the frosty fields of Wisconsin, she has made a career out of teaching others why they should care about clean energy.

From Felling Trees to Harnessing Sunshine

Dr. Brooks’ pathway to clean energy began as an undergraduate when she took time off from her Bachelors degree to work on a forest trail crew. She spent nine months on a trail crew in Western Massachusetts. “I was trained to be a lumberjack, basically, but for conservation purposes – so felling trees to build bridges or trails and things. I loved that job; it was really fun and helped me connect with the environment.” Interacting with the environment in such a physical, tangible way encouraged her to change her course of study from space sciences to climate change and energy issues. 

Soon after switching her academic focus, she found work at a solar test facility managed by her alma mater, the University of Arizona. Very quickly she got hands-on experience in every facet of solar energy, from installation of modules and inverters to running experiments, collecting data, doing analysis, and writing reports. In addition, she honed her science communication skills by giving tours to visiting audiences – ranging from Girl Scouts to the late Senator John McCain.

Understanding how solar and its supporting power systems worked on the ground illuminated a new lesson for Dr. Brooks: “Solar [was] not the problem – the power grid is the reason we can’t get more clean energy.” With this new understanding, Dr. Brooks pursued both a Master’s and a PhD in electrical engineering, with a certificate in energy analysis and policy.

“I loved the policy piece of it, because it brought together economists and engineers and policy folks,” she says. This cohort of people came from different disciplines into  the energy analysis and policy program at University of Wisconsin. “It was a really cool program; I loved it.”

State Government Service

While pursuing her dissertation Dr. Brooks started working at the Wisconsin Public Service Commission as a transmission engineer. This demanding state government role proved to be a valuable training ground, building on the communication skills she honed in Arizona. As an engineer she worked across two different administrations, explaining electrical transmission systems, their challenges, and how different policies might impact reliability and clean energy goals. The key to effectively engaging her audience? Understanding their specific goals and meeting them where they were.

“The information [on power systems] I was providing was essentially the same. The question became: What lens am I using? Am I focusing on reliability and consumer cost? Am I focusing on decarbonisation? From my view, it didn’t really matter. The solutions wind up being pretty similar, but it was eye-opening for me to learn how to communicate the science to folks that don’t have that background, but who have the ability to make big decisions affecting the power grid. I thoroughly loved that job. And that’s what set me off wanting to do more policy work at the federal level.” 

Joining DOE and the GDO

Setting her sights on the federal government, Dr. Brooks joined the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)in 2020 as a AAAS Science Technology Policy Fellow in the Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office. The position was meant to be research heavy and focused on maximizing taxpayer investments in different investigative projects. But when a new administration came in with a long list of renewable energy goals and a serious focus on transmission, Dr. Brooks found herself reassigned to the Office of Electricity, and later hired into the newly created Grid Deployment Office (GDO).

GDO, which is tasked with investing in critical generation facilities, increasing grid resilience, and improving and expanding transmission and distribution systems to provide reliable, affordable electricity, needed internal folks who understood the science of renewable energy and grid deployment, and who could translate it to cross-cutting program teams and leadership who weren’t mired in the details day-to-day. Dr. Brooks found her groove  by bringing in skills from her days at the solar test facility and the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. “My job became a lot more policy focused, trying to explain the science to stand up new programs related to the transmission and the power grid,” she said.  Dr. Brooks’ communications skills combined with her technical background are hugely important because the science of electrical transmission – and how that impacts what clean energy development can occur and how quickly – is often an incomprehensible thing for people, including policymakers.

Communication remains a crucial part of Dr. Brooks’s role and contribution at DOE.

A big win for Dr. Brooks and GDO was the October 2023 release of the National Transmission Needs Study. This study is a useful planning reference to efficiently and effectively deploy resources to update and expand the nation’s transmission grid infrastructure. Conducted every three years, this most recent study is more expansive in scope than previous versions. “Future policy decisions that the Department makes are going to be based on the findings of this report. It also provides a lot of valuable insight for utilities, developers, and other decision makers across the country, so that’s very big,” Dr. Brooks said. Although modest, she played a major role in planning, analyzing the data for, and rolling out the report.

The journey that brought Dr. Brooks to DOE seems almost preordained, as she is bringing her specific knowledge to bear on the urgent problem of climate change.

“Now I feel more impactful being so close to the policymaking, getting to have one foot in the engineering analysis and one foot in policy development. That is really exciting. I do think a lot of that is a very specific opportunity that matched the specific skill set that I had. I have felt very lucky in that regard, to be seen as an expert around the Department. Lots of different offices will reach out, or policymakers will reach out to try to get clarity on the transmission system, and that is exciting. But I also know that it’s luck that I stepped in at the exact time to make that opportunity for myself.”

Looking Ahead

While the transmission issues she works on can often feel insurmountable, Dr. Brooks feels optimistic about the future.

“I am hopeful about how much transmission we’re going to be able to build over the next 10 to 15 years. The word ‘transmission’ is now a common term; people understand it. A couple of years ago,  I would talk to folks about my job and they would say, ‘I don’t understand what the power grid is.’ Now, more people at least understand what the grid is, and that it is a bottleneck to getting clean energy online. That’s huge.  I think we’re going to make a lot more progress than I had any hope of us making even a couple of years ago.”

More than just the policy implications of her work, Dr. Brooks is impressed by how many young professionals want to join government service to play an active role in fighting climate change. Starting in Tucson, continuing in Wisconsin, and now from her home in Boston, she’s volunteered in a variety of roles unrelated to energy systems and grid work that facilitate climate discussions. “I’ve always found kids to be super eager and curious to learn”, she said, providing even more hope that the work will continue with the support of future generations.

This series of interviews spotlights scientists working across the country to implement the U.S. Department of Energy’s massive efforts to transition the country to clean energy, and improve equity and address climate injustice along the way. The Federation’s clean energy workforce report discusses the challenges and opportunities associated with ramping up this dynamic, in-demand workforce. These interviews have been edited for length and do not necessarily reflect the views of the DOE.

From the rugged snowbanks of Alaska to the tropical seaside of Hawai’i, Dr. Olivia Lee Mei Ling has sought to improve the access to, and delivery of, energy. To understand her journey to the Department of Energy and her work today, our story begins in Alaska.

Women in Polar Science

After obtaining her PhD in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from Texas A&M University,  Dr. Lee headed north to accept a teaching position at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She spent ten years there, first in the Geophysical Department and later in the International Arctic Research Center. While there she developed future energy scenarios for Alaskans, working with federal, state, tribal and local governments, expert stakeholders and non-governmental organizations. Those conversations were sometimes difficult – bringing together a wide range of perspectives and personalities and asking them to align on a plan – but were vital to the state’s future.

“Building those relationships [between energy stakeholders], and helping those conversations continue to happen was a fantastic opportunity to delve into how policy and science can co-occur.”

While at the university she did a short stint with the National Science Foundation as an IPA [Intergovernmental Personnel Act, a temporary position in the federal government] supporting researchers doing work in the Arctic. There she was involved in interagency programs, with a lot of emphasis on developing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across agencies. 

During this time Dr. Lee supported growing outreach for a group of scientists, Women in Polar Science. She identified a need for this group after submitting an article to a geophysical journal about the group’s work – which was rejected because it ‘wasn’t of interest to a wide enough audience.’

Dr. Lee said it was “appalling to think that the science community is not interested or doesn’t believe there is enough value in sharing what we’ve learned about the women who face adversity doing research in polar environments. And so I co-founded the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee’s (IARPC) community of interest on diversity, equity, and inclusion issues.” The group has grown and since taken off, bringing more scientists together to work on DEI within arctic research.

Dr. Lee’s work in Polar Science led to more social ties within Alaska’s Tribal communities, and a deeper understanding of their unique needs. These experiences showed the value of skills beyond traditional scientific training. Empathy quickly became her guiding principle; as an oil-rich state, it became clear that any energy plan in Alaska needed to address community needs first.  “In some areas, like in Alaska, diesel will have to continue to be a part of the energy mix until they’re able to support something more reliable year-round than renewables can offer right now. We need to push clean energy, but not at the cost of livelihoods and safety of communities.” says Dr. Lee. To non-scientists, this statement might be surprising – isn’t the goal to eliminate all fossil fuels? No, the goal is to support a just transition in every region.

Moving States, Territories and Tribes to Clean Energy As Quickly As Possible at DOE

When the Department of Energy began ramping up hiring through the Clean Energy Corps, Dr. Lee was immediately interested. When she interviewed with the Grid Deployment Office, the office recognized her knowledge and skills were unique and vital to their work, and in particular, her combination of scientific expertise and knowledge of the needs associated with Tribal communities.

“We work with a lot of tribes, and it’s a skill set that not everyone has – to take the time to self-educate on the history of colonization, to respectfully interact with tribes, understand that they are self-governing entities and continue to face a lot of challenges in developing their economies.

At GDO, Dr. Lee supports grid resilience projects. Her team thinks critically about what specific infrastructure investments could help communities be more resilient to impacts from climate change – and what resources or guidance communities need to implement those ideas. “We’re not just reacting to disasters as they happen, but thinking about 10 years, 20 years down the road, where do we need to be? How do we sustain energy access and what partnerships we can help build now to make sure that this is an ongoing process?

She continues: “It’s really exciting to know that you are a part of modernizing the grid in a way that will have tangible benefits in the near term – and in the long term as well, if we’re able to help states and tribes plan how [IRA funds] can shape their sustainability moving forward.”

There are lots of unknowns: what kind of infrastructure exists today, and what kind of  investment is required to hasten transition? What resources specific to that location are available now, and how can productive programs be amplified? The work involves measuring and modeling to ensure waste and harm are minimized, while maximizing positive environmental and economic opportunities across the lifecycle of any energy plan.

“In my particular program, we’re supporting projects that develop good resilience. And there’s a very strong emphasis on going beyond theoretical into implementation. Like: what specific infrastructure investments and projects are going to be done to make the electrical grid more resilient to impacts from climate change?”

Unsurprisingly, this work is more than spreadsheets of numbers. To deploy an energy upgrade so much more must be considered: a region’s history, its present day health, and how the region may evolve based on the impacts of climate change prediction models. How can the department meet communities where they are and at the same time prepare them for a changing environment?

Unexpected Opportunities to Build Grid Resilience

Dr. Lee shares one example of how her team did just that. One of the Alaskan tribes they work with requested funding for a project that seemed outside the bounds of grid resilience. They didn’t ask for wiring, poles or grounding, but for snow removal equipment for their wind facility. 

During a recent snowstorm, the community couldn’t access their wind facilities because they lacked updated snow removal equipment. Without ready access to those facilities, if anything had gone wrong, the grid would have had problems as well. “It’s so important to have energy in Alaska winters – it’s life or death. You can’t just say ‘I’ll put on an extra blanket.’ Responding to a request for something as simple as snow removal equipment is an actual, valid, small step that we can take to support grid resilience.” 

Dr. Lee’s ability to think creatively and understand the needs of remote communities are the skills that make her an exceptional team member. Without that level of understanding, that tribe may not have gotten support for equipment that at first glance, isn’t immediately related to grid resilience.

Advice for Those Seeking Roles in Government Clean Energy Work

Dr. Lee’s achievements underscore the importance of a strong federal workforce. She offered advice for those entering government for the first time: “Find mentors who can help you navigate how the government works, and be open to new opportunities and trying new things.” She adds that being open to learning and finding mentors in different offices and different career stages brings the most opportunities compared to a so-called “straight career path.”

She says another benefit is that the people working clean energy technology in the government are some of the most optimistic people. Her work at GDO – helping modernize and fortify the grid – is vital to the resilience and livelihood of communities across the country.

Summary

The Department of Energy (DOE) should leverage its congressionally granted other transaction authority to its full statutory extent to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of innovations critical to the clean energy transition. To do so, the Secretary of Energy should encourage DOE staff to consider using other transactions to advance the agency’s core missions. DOE’s Office of Acquisition Management should provide resources to educate program and contracting staff on the opportunity that other transactions present. Doing so would unlock a less used but important tool in demonstrating and accelerating critical technology developments at scale with industry.

Challenge and Opportunity

OTs are an underleveraged tool for accelerating energy technology.

Our global and national clean energy transition requires advancing novel technology innovations across transportation, electricity generation, industrial production, carbon capture and storage, and more. If we hope to hit our net-zero emissions benchmarks by 2030 and 2050, we must do a far better job commercializing innovations, mitigating the risk of market failures, and using public dollars to crowd in private investment behind projects. 

The Biden Administration and the Department of Energy, empowered by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), have taken significant steps to meet these challenges. The Loan Programs Office, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Office of Technology Transitions, and many more dedicated public servants are working hard towards the mission set forward by Congress and the administration. They are deploying a range of grants, procurement contracts, and tax credits to achieve their goals, and there are more tools at their disposal to accelerate a just, clean energy transition. The large sums of money appropriated under BIL and IRA require new ways of thinking about contracting and agreements.

Congress gives several federal agencies the authority to use flexible agreements known as other transactions (OTs). Importantly, OTs are defined by what they are not. They are not a government contract or grant, and thus not governed by the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR). Historically, NASA and the DoD have been the most frequent users of other transaction authorities, including for projects like the Commercial Orbital Transportation System at NASA which developed the Falcon 9 space vehicle, and the Global Hawk program at DARPA.

In contrast, the Department of Energy has infrequently used OTs, and even when it has, the programs have achieved no notable outcomes in support of their agency mission. When the DOE has used OTs, the agency has interpreted their authority as constraining them to cost-sharing research agreements. This restricts the creativity of agency staff in executing OTs. All the law says is that an OT is not a grant or contract. By limiting itself to cost sharing research agreements, DOE is preemptively foreclosing all other kinds of novel partnerships. This is critical because some nascent climate-solution technologies may face a significant market failure or a set of misaligned incentives that a traditional research and development transaction (R&D) may not fix.

This interpretation has hampered DOE’s use of OTs, limited its ability to engage small businesses and nontraditional contractors, and prevented DOE from fully pursuing its agency mission and the administration’s climate goals.

Exploring further use of OTs would open up a range of possibilities for the agency to help address critical market failures, help U.S. firms bridge the well-documented valleys of death in technology development, and fulfill the benchmarks laid out in the DOE’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff.
According to a GAO report from 2016, the DOE has only used OTs a handful of times since they had the authority updated in 2005, nearly two decades ago. Compare the DOE’s use of OTs to other agencies in the four-year period in the table below (the most recent for which there is open data).

TABLE 1

From GAO-16-209

Almost every other agency uses OTs at a significantly higher rate, including agencies that have smaller overall budgets. While quantity of agreements is not the only metric to rely on, the magnitude of the discrepancy is significant. 

Other agencies have made significant changes since 2014, most notably the Department of Defense. A 2020 CSIS report found that DoD use of OTs for R&D increased by 712% since FY2015, including a 75% increase in FY2019. This represents billions of dollars in awards, much of which went to consortia, including for both prototyping and production transactions. While the DOE does not have the same budget or mission as DoD, the sea change in culture among DoD officials willing to use OTs over the past few years is instructive. While DoD did receive expanded authority in the FY2015 and 2016 NDAA, this alone did not account for the massive increase. A cultural shift drove program staff to look at OTs as ways to quickly prototype and deploy solutions that could advance their missions, and support from leadership enabled staff to successfully learn how and when to use OTs.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) only uses OTs for two agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHIMSA). Like DOE, the FAA is not restricted in what it can and can’t use OTs for. It is authorized to “carry out the functions of the Administrator and the Administration…on such terms and conditions as the Administrator may consider appropriate.” Unlike DOE, the FAA and DOT have used their authority for several dozen transactions a year, totaling $1.45 billion in awards between 2010 and 2014.

FIGURE 1

Source

From the GAO chart (Table 1), it’s clear that ARPA-E also follows the DOE in deploying very few OTs in support of its mission. Despite being originally envisioned as a high-potential, high-impact funder for technology that is too early in the R&D process for private investors to support, the most recent data shows that ARPA-E does not use OTs flexibly to support high-potential, high-impact tech.

The same GAO report cited above stated that:

“DOE’s regulations—because they are based on DOD’s regulations—include requirements that limit DOE’s use of other transaction agreements…. Officials told us they plan to seek approval from the Office of Management and Budget to modify the agency’s other transaction regulations to better reflect DOE’s mission, consistent with its statutory authority. According to DOE officials, if the changes are approved, DOE may increase its use of other transaction agreements.” 

That report was published in 2016, but it is unclear that any changes were sought or approved, though they likely do not need to change any regulations at all to actually make use of their authority.¹ The realm of the possible is quite large, and DOE has yet to fully explore the potential benefits to its mission that OTs provide. 

DOE can use OTs without any further authority to drive progress in critical technologies.

The good news is that DOE has the ability to use OTs without further guidance from Congress or formally changing any guidelines. Recognizing their full statutory authority would open up use cases for OTs that would help the DOE make meaningful progress towards its agency mission and the administration’s climate goals. 

For example, the DOE could use OTs in the following ways:

• Using demand-side support mechanisms to reduce the “green premium” for promising technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture, sustainable aviation fuel, enhanced geothermal, and low-embodied construction materials like steel and concrete

• Coordinating the demonstration of promising technologies through consortia with private industry in support of their commercial liftoff goals

• Organizing joint demonstration projects with the DOT or other agencies with overlapping solution sets

• Rapidly and sustainably meeting critical energy infrastructure needs across rural areas

Given the exigencies of climate change and the need to rapidly decarbonize our society and economy, there are very real instances in which traditional research contracts or grants are not enough to move the needle or unlock a significant market opportunity for a technology. Forward contract acquisitions, pay for delivery contracts, or other forms of transactions that are nonstandard but critical to supporting development of technology are covered under this authority.

One promising area where it seems the DOE is currently using this approach is in supporting the hydrogen hubs initiative. Recently the DOE announced a $1 billion initiative for demand-side support mechanisms to mitigate the risk of market failures and accelerate the commercialization of clean hydrogen technologies. The Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the H2Hubs program notes that “other FOA launches or use of Other Transaction Authorities may also be used to solicit new technologies, capabilities, end-uses, or partners.” The DOE could use OTs more frequently as a tool to advance other critical commercial liftoff strategies or to maximize the impact of dollars appropriated to implementation of the BIL and IRA. Some areas that are ripe for creative uses of other transactions include:

• Critical Minerals Consortium: A critical minerals consortium of vendors, nonprofits, academics, and others all managed by a single entity could do more than just mineral processing improvement and R&D. It could take long-term offtake agreements and do forward purchasing of mineral supplies like graphite that are essential to the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries and other products. This could function similarly to the successful forward contract acquisition for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve executed in June 2023 by DOE.

This demand-pull would complement other recent actions taken to bolster critical minerals like the clean vehicle tax credit and the Loan Program Office’s loans to mineral processing facilities. Such a consortium could come from the existing critical materials institute or be formed by separate entities.

• Geothermal Consortium: Enhanced geothermal systems technology has received neither the attention nor the investment that it should proportional to its potential benefits as a path towards decarbonizing the electric grid. At the same time, legacy oil and natural gas industries have workforces, equipment, and experiences that can easily translate to growing the geothermal energy industry. Recently, the DOE funded the first cross-industry consortium with the $165 million GEODE competition grant awarded to Project Innerspace, Geothermal Rising, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. 

DOE could use other transactions to further support this nascent consortium and increase the demonstration and deployment of geothermal projects. The agency could also use other transactions to organize the sharing of critical subsurface data and resources through a single entity.

• Direct Air Capture (DAC): The carbon removal market faces extremely uncertain long-term demand, and unproven technological innovations may or may not present economically viable means of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. In order to accelerate the pace of carbon removal innovation, aggregated demand structures like Frontier’s advanced market commitment have stepped up to organize pre-purchasing and offtake agreements between buyers and suppliers. The scale of the problem is such that government intervention will be necessary to capture carbon at a rate that experts believe is necessary to mitigate the worst warming pathways. 

A carbon removal purchasing agreement for the DOE’s Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs could function much the same as the proposed hydrogen hubs initiative. It also could take the shape of a consortium of DAC vendors, nonprofits, scientists, and others managed by a single entity that can set standards for purchase agreements. This would cut the negotiation time among potential parties by a significant amount, allowing for cost saving and faster decarbonization.

• Rural Energy Improvements Consortium: The IRA appropriated $1 billion for energy improvements in rural and remote areas. Because of inherent resource limitations, the DOE will not be able to fund every potential compelling project that applies to this grant program. In order to keep the program from making single one-off grants for narrowly tailored projects, it could focus on funding projects with demonstrated catalytic impact. Through OTs, the DOE could encourage promising project developers to form a Rural Energy Improvement/Developers consortium that would not only help create efficiencies in renewable energy development and novel resilient local structures but attract private investment at a scale that each individual developer would not independently attract. 

• Hydrogen Fuel Cell Lifespan Consortia: As hydrogen fuel cells start gaining traction across transportation, shipping, and industrial applications, a consortia for fuel cell R&D could help provide new insights into the degradation of fuel cells, organize uniform standards for recycling of fuel cells, and also provide unique financial incentives to hedge against early uncertainty of fuel cell lifespans. As firms invest in new fleets of fuel cell vehicles, it may help them to have an idea of what expected value they can receive for assets as they reach the end of their lifespans. A backstopped guarantee of a minimum price for assets with certain criteria could reduce uncertainty. Such a consortium could be led by the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) and complement existing initiatives to accelerate domestic manufacturing.

• Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES): The DOE commercial liftoff pathway highlights the need to intervene to address stakeholder and investor uncertainty by providing long-term market signals for LDES. The tools they highlight to do so are carbon pricing, greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, and transmission expansion. While these provide generalizable long-term signals, DOE could leverage OTs to provide more concrete signals for the value of LDES.

DOE could organize an advance market commitment for long-duration energy storage capabilities on federal properties that meet certain storage hour and grid integration requirements. Such a commitment could include the DoD and the General Services Administration (GSA), which own and operate the large portfolio of federal properties, including bases and facilities in hard-to-reach locations that could benefit from more predictable and secure energy infrastructure. Early procurement of capability-meeting but expensive systems could help diversify the market and drive technology down the cost curve to reach the target of $650 per kW and 75% RTE for intra-day storage and $1,100 per kW 55 and 60% RTE for multiday storage.

To use OTs more frequently, the DOE needs to focus on culture and education.

As noted, the DOE does not need additional authorization or congressional legislation to use OTs more frequently. The agency received authority in its original charter in 1977, codified in 42 U.S. Code § 7256, which state:

“The Secretary is authorized to enter into and perform such contracts, leases, cooperative agreements, or other similar transactions with public agencies and private organizations and persons, and to make such payments (in lump sum or installments, and by way of advance or reimbursement) as he may deem to be necessary or appropriate to carry out functions now or hereafter vested in the Secretary.” [emphasis added]

This and other legislation gives DOE the authority to use OTs as the Secretary deems necessary. 

Later guidelines in implementation state that other officials at DOE who have been presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate are able to execute these transactions. The DOE’s Office of Acquisition Management, Office of General Counsel, and any other legal bodies involved should update any unnecessarily restrictive guidelines, or note that they will follow the original authority granted in the agency’s 1977 charter. 

While that would resolve any implementation questions about the ability to use OT at DOE, the agency ultimately needs strong leadership and buy-in from the Secretary in order to take full advantage. As many observers note regarding DoD’s expanding use of OTs, culture is what matters the most. The DOE should take the following actions to make sure the changing of these guidelines empowers DOE public servants to their full potential:

1. The Secretary should make clear to DOE leadership and staff that increased use of OTs is not only permissible but actively encouraged.

2. The Secretary should provide internal written guidance to DOE leadership and program-level staff on what criteria need to be met for her to sign off on an OT, if needed. These criteria should be driven by DOE mission needs, technology readiness, and other resources like the commercial liftoff reports.

3. The Office of Acquisition Management should collaboratively educate relevant program staff, not just contracting staff, on the use of OTs, including by providing cross-agency learning opportunities from peers at DARPA, NASA, DoD, DHS, and DOT.

4. DOE should provide an internal process for designing and drawing up an OT agreement for staff to get constructive feedback from multiple levels of experienced professionals.

5. DOE should issue a yearly report on how many OTs they agree to and basic details of the agreements. After four years, GAO should evaluate DOE’s use of OTs and communicate any areas for improvement. Since OTs don’t meet normal contracting disclosure requirements, some form of public disclosure would be critical for accountability.

Mitigating risk

Finally, there are many ways to address potential risks involved with executing new OTs for clean energy solutions. While there are no legal contracting risks (as OTs are not guided by the FAR), DOE staff should consider ways to most judiciously and appropriately enter into agreements. For one resource, they can leverage the eight recent reports put together by four different offices of inspector generals on agencies’ usage of other transactions to understand best practices. Other important risk limiting activities include:

1. DoD commonly uses consortiums to gather critical industry partners together around challenges in areas such as advanced manufacturing, mobility, enterprise healthcare innovations, and more.

2. Education of relevant parties and modeling of agreements after successful DARPA and NASA OTs. These resources are in many cases publicly available online and provide ready-made templates (for example, the NIH also offers a 500-page training guide with example agreements).

Conclusion

The DOE should use the full authority granted to it by Congress in executing other transactions to advance the clean energy transition and develop secure energy infrastructure in line with their agency mission. DOE does not need additional authorization or legislation from Congress in order to do so. GAO reports have highlighted the limitations of DOE’s OT use and the discrepancy in usage between agencies. Making this change would bring the DOE in line with peer agencies and push the country towards more meaningful progress on net-zero goals.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some examples of OTs?

The following examples are pulled from a GAO report but should not be regarded as the only model for potential agreements.

Examples of Past OTs at DOE
“In 2010, ARPA-E entered into an other transaction agreement with a commercial oil and energy company to research and develop new drilling technology to access geothermal energy. Specifically, according to agency documentation, the technology being tested was designed to drill into hard rock more quickly and efficiently using a hardware system to transmit high-powered lasers over long distances via fiber optic cables and integrating the laser power with a mechanical drill bit. According to ARPA-E documents, this technology could provide access to an estimated 100,000 or more megawatts of geothermal electrical power in the United States by 2050, which would help ARPA-E meet its mission to enhance the economic and energy security of the United States through the development of energy technologies.

According to ARPA-E officials, an other transaction agreement was used due to the company’s concerns about protecting its intellectual property rights, in case the company was purchased by a different company in the future. Specifically, one type of intellectual property protection known as “march-in rights” allows federal agencies to take control of a patent when certain conditions have not been met, such as when the entity has not made efforts to commercialize the invention within an agreed upon time frame.33 Under the terms of ARPA-E’s other transaction agreement, march-in rights were modified so that if the company itself was sold, it could choose to pay the government and retain the rights to the technology developed under the agreement. Additionally, according to DOE officials, ARPA-E included a United States competitive clause in the agreement that required any invention developed under the agreement to be substantially manufactured in the United States, provided products were also sold in the United States, unless the company showed that it was not commercially feasible to do so. This agreement lasted until fiscal year 2013, and ARPA-E obligated about $9 million to it.”

Examples at DoD
“In 2011, DOD entered into a 2-year other transaction agreement with a nontraditional contractor for the development of a new military sensor system. According to the agreement documentation, this military sensor system was intended to demonstrate DOD’s ability to quickly react to emerging critical needs through rapid prototyping and deployment of sensing capabilities. By using an other transaction agreement, DOD planned to use commercial technology, development techniques, and approaches to accelerate the sensor system development process. The agreement noted that commercial products change quickly, with major technology changes occurring in less than 2 years. In contrast, according to the agreement, under the typical DOD process, military sensor systems take 3 to 8 years to complete, and may not match evolving mission needs by the time the system is complete. According to an official, DOD obligated $8 million to this agreement.”

read more

Are there any restrictions on the use of OTs?

Other interpretations of the statute have prevented DOE from leveraging OTs, and there seems to be confusion on what is allowed. For example, a commonly cited OTA explainer implies that DOE is statutorily limited to “RD&D projects. Cost sharing agreement required.”

But nowhere in the original statute does Congress require DOE to exclusively use cost sharing agreements, nor is this the case at other agencies where OTs are common practice.

However, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 did require the DOE to issue guidelines for the use of OTs 90 days after the passing of the law, and this is where it gets complicated. They did so, and according to a 2008 GAO report, DOE enacted guidelines which used a specific model called a technology investment agreement (TIA). These guidelines were modeled on the DoD’s then-current guidelines for OTs and TIAs, mandating cost sharing agreements “to the maximum extent practicable” between the federal government and nonfederal parties to an agreement.² An Acquisition/Financial Assistance Letter issued by senior DOE procurement officials in 2021 defines this explicitly: “Other Transaction Agreement, as used in this AL/FAL, means Technology Investment Agreement as codified at 10 C.F.R., Part 603, pursuant to DOE’s Other Transaction Authority of 42 U.S.C. § 7256.” However, the DOE’s authority as codified in 42 U.S.C. § 7256 (a) and (g) does not define OTs as TIAs, the definition is just a guideline from DOE, and could be changed.

read more

What are Technology Investment Agreements?

Technology Investment Agreements are used to reduce the barrier to commercial and nontraditional firms’ involvement with mission-critical research needs at DOE. They are particularly useful in that they do not require traditional government accounting systems, which can be burdensome for small or new firms to implement. But that does not mean they are the only instrument that should be used. The law says that TIAs for research projects should involve cost sharing to the “maximum extent practicable.” This does not mean that cost sharing must always occur. There could be many forms of transactions other than grants and contracts in which cost sharing is neither practicable nor feasible.

Furthermore, the DOE is empowered to use OTs for research, applied research, development, and demonstration projects. Development and demonstration projects would not fit neatly in the category of research projects covered by TIAs. So subjecting them to the same guidelines is an unduly restrictive guideline.

read more

What are consortiums?

Consortia are basically single entities that manage a group of members (to include private firms, academics, nonprofits, and more) aligned around a specific challenge or topic. Government can execute other transactions with the consortium manager, who then organizes the members around an agreed scope. MITRE provides a longer explainer and list of consortia.

read more

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration has made revitalization of U.S. manufacturing a key pillar of its economic and climate strategies. On the campaign trail, President Biden pledged to do away with “invent it here, make it there,” alluding to the long-standing trend of outsourcing manufacturing capacity for critical technologies — ranging from semiconductors to solar panels —that emerged from U.S. government labs and funding. As China and other countries make major bets on the clean energy industries of the future, it has become clear that climate action and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness are deeply intertwined and require a coordinated strategy.

Additional legislative action, such as proposals in the Build Back Better Act that passed the House in 2021, will be necessary to fully execute a comprehensive manufacturing agenda that includes clean energy and industrial products, like low-carbon cement and steel. However, the Department of Energy (DOE) can leverage existing authorities and assets to make substantial progress today to strengthen the clean energy manufacturing base. 

This memo recommends two sets of DOE actions to secure domestic manufacturing of clean technologies:

1. Foundational steps to successfully implement the new Determination of Exceptional Circumstances (DEC) issued in 2021 under the Bayh-Dole Act to promote domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies.
2. Complementary U.S.-based manufacturing investments to maximize the DEC’s impact and to maximize the overall domestic benefits of DOE’s clean energy innovation programs.

Challenge and Opportunity

Recent years have been marked by growing societal inequality, a pandemic, and climate change-driven extreme weather. These factors have exposed the weaknesses of essential supply chains and our nation’s legacy energy system. 

Meanwhile, once a reliable source of supply chain security and economic mobility, U.S. manufacturing is at a crossroads. Since the early 2000s, U.S. manufacturing productivity has stagnated and five million jobs have been lost. While countries like Germany and South Korea have been doubling down on industrial innovation — in ways that have yielded a strong manufacturing job recovery since the Great Recession — the United States has only recently begun to recognize domestic manufacturing as a crucial part of a holistic innovation ecosystem. Our nation’s longstanding, myopic focus on basic technological research and development (R&D) has contributed to the American share of global manufacturing declining by 10 percentage points, and left U.S. manufacturers unprepared to scale up new innovations and compete in critical sectors long-term.

The Biden-Harris administration has sought to reverse these trends with a new industrial strategy for the 21^st century, one that includes a focus on the industries that will enable us to tackle our most pressing global challenge and opportunity: climate change. This strategy recognizes that the United States has yet to foster a robust manufacturing base for many of the key products —ranging from solar modules to lithium-ion batteries to low-carbon steel — that will dominate a clean energy economy, despite having funded a large share of the early and applied research into underlying technologies. The strategy also recognizes that as clean energy technologies become increasingly foreign-produced, risks increase for U.S. climate action, national security, and our ability to capture the economic benefits of the clean energy transition. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a central role to play in executing the administration’s strategy. The Obama administration dramatically ramped up funding for DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and launched the Manufacturing USA network, which now includes seven DOE-sponsored institutes that focus on cross-cutting research priorities in collaboration with manufacturers. In 2021, DOE issued a Determination of Exceptional Circumstances (DEC) under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980¹ to ensure that federally funded technologies reach the market and deliver benefits to American taxpayers through substantial domestic manufacturing. The DEC cites global competition and supply chain security issues around clean energy manufacturing as justification for raising manufacturing requirements from typical Bayh-Dole “U.S. Preference” rules to stronger “U.S. Competitiveness” rules across DOE’s entire science and energy portfolio (i.e., programs overseen by the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation (S4)). This change requires DOE-funded subject inventions to be substantially manufactured in the United States for all global use and sales (not just U.S. sales) and expands applicability of the manufacturing requirement to the patent recipient as well as to all assignees and licensees. Notably, the DEC does allow recipients or licensees to apply for waivers or modifications if they can demonstrate that it is too challenging to develop a U.S. supply chain for a particular product or technology.

The DEC is designed to maximize return on investment for taxpayer-funded innovation: the same goal that drives all technology transfer and commercialization efforts. However, to successfully strengthen U.S. manufacturing, create quality jobs, and promote global competitiveness and national security, DOE will need to pilot new evaluation processes and data reporting frameworks to better assess downstream impacts of the 2021 DEC and similar policies, and to ensure they are implemented in a manner that strengthens manufacturing without slowing technology transfer. It is essential that DOE develop an evidence base to assess a common critique of the DEC: that it reduces appetite for companies and investors to engage in funding agreements. Continuous evaluation can enable DOE to understand how well-founded these concerns are.

Yet, the new DEC rules and requirements alone cannot overcome the structural barriers to domestic commercialization that clean energy companies face today. DOE will also need to systematically build domestic manufacturing efforts into basic and applied R&D, demonstration projects, and cross-cutting initiatives. DOE should also pursue complementary investments to ensure that licensees of federally funded clean energy technologies are able and eager to manufacture in the United States. Under existing authorities, such efforts can include: 

• Elevating and empowering AMO and Manufacturing USA to build a competitive U.S. workforce and regional infrastructure for clean energy technologies.
• Directly investing in domestic manufacturing capacity through DOE’s Loan Programs Office and through new authorities granted under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
• Market creation through targeted clean energy procurement.
• Coordination with place-based and justice strategies. 

These complementary efforts will enable DOE to generate more productive outcomes from its 2021 DEC, reduce the need for waivers, and strengthen the U.S. clean manufacturing base. In other words, rather than just slow the flow of innovation overseas without presenting an alternative, they provide a domestic outlet for that flow. Figure 1 provides an illustration of the federal ecosystem of programs, DOE and otherwise, that complement the mission of the DEC.

Figure 1

Programs are arranged in rough accordance to their role in the innovation cycle. TRL and MRL refer to technology and manufacturing readiness level, respectively. Proposed programs, highlighted with a dotted yellow border, are either found in the Build Back Better Act passed by the House in 2021 or the Bipartisan Innovation Bill (USICA/America COMPETES)

Figure 1Programs are arranged in rough accordance to their role in the innovation cycle. TRL and MRL refer to technology and manufacturing readiness level, respectively. Proposed programs, highlighted with a dotted yellow border, are either found in the Build Back Better Act passed by the House in 2021 or the Bipartisan Innovation Bill (USICA/America COMPETES).

Plan of Action

While further Congressional action will be necessary to fully execute a long-term national clean manufacturing strategy and ramp up domestic capacity in critical sectors, DOE can meaningfully advance such a strategy now through both long-standing authorities and recently authorized programs. The following plan of action consists of (1) foundational steps to successfully implement the DEC, and (2) complementary efforts to ensure that licensees of federally funded clean energy technologies are able and eager to manufacture in the United States. In tandem, these recommendations can maximize impact and benefits of the DEC for American companies, workers, and citizens.

Part 1: DEC Implementation

The following action items, many of which are already underway, are focused on basic DEC implementation.

• Develop and socialize a draft reporting and data collection framework. The Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation should work closely with DOE’s General Counsel and individual program offices to develop a reporting and data collection framework for the DEC. Key metrics for the framework should be informed by the Science and Innovation (S4) mission, and capture broader societal benefits (e.g., job creation). DOE should target completion of a draft framework by the end of 2022, with plans to socialize, pilot, and finalize the framework in consultation with the S4 programs and key external stakeholders.
• Identify pilots for the new data reporting framework in up to five Science and Innovation programs. Since the DEC issuance, Science and Innovation (S4) funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) have been required to include a section on “U.S. Manufacturing Commitments” that states the requirements of the U.S. Competitiveness Provision. FOAs also include a section on “Subject Invention Utilization Reporting,” though the reporting listed is subject to program discretion. By early 2023, DOE should identify up to five program offices in which to pilot the data reporting framework referenced above. The Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation (S4) should also consider coordinating with the Office of the Under Secretary for Infrastructure (S3) to pilot the framework in the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. Pilot programs should build in opportunities for external feedback and continuous evaluation to ensure that the reporting framework is adequately capturing the effects of the DEC.
• Set up a DEC implementation task force. The DEC requires quarterly reporting from program offices to the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation. The Under Secretary’s office should convene a task force — comprising representatives from the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), the General Counsel’s office (GC), the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, and each of DOE’s major R&D programs — to track these reports. The task force should meet at least quarterly, and its findings should be transmitted to the DOE GC to monitor DEC implementation, troubleshoot compliance issues, and identify challenges for funding recipients and other stakeholders. From an administrative standpoint, these activities could be conducted under the Technology Transfer Policy Board.
• Incorporate domestic manufacturing objectives into all technology-specific roadmaps and initiatives, including the Earthshots. DOE and the National Labs regularly track the development and future potential of key clean energy technologies through analysis (e.g., the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)’s Future Studies). DOE also has developed high-profile cross-cutting initiatives, such as the Grid Modernization Initiative and the “Earthshots” initiative series, aimed at achieving bold technology targets. OTT, in concert with the Office of Policy and individual program offices, should incorporate domestic manufacturing into all technology-specific roadmaps and cross-cutting initiatives. Specifically, technology-specific roadmaps and initiatives should (i) assess the current state of U.S. manufacturing for that technology, and (ii) identify key steps needed to promote robust U.S. manufacturing capabilities for that technology. ARPA-E (which has traditionally included manufacturing in its technology targets and been subject to a DEC since 2013)and the supply chain recommendations in the Energy Storage Grand Challenge Roadmap may provide helpful models.
• Support the White House and NIST on the iEdison rebuild. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is currently revamping the iEdison tool for reporting federally funded inventions. The coincident timing of this effort with the DOE’s DEC creates an opportunity to align data and waiver processes across government. DOE should work closely with NIST to understand new features being developed in the iEdison rebuild, offer input on manufacturing data collection, and align DOE reporting requirements where appropriate. Data reported through iEdison will help DOE evaluate the success of the DEC and identify areas in need of support. For instance, if iEdison data shows that a certain component for batteries becomes an increasing source of DEC waivers, DOE and the Department of Commerce may respond with targeted actions to remedy this gap in the domestic battery supply chain. Under the pending Bipartisan Innovation Bill, the Department of Commerce could receive funding for a new supply-chain monitoring program to support these efforts, as well as $45 billion in grants and loans to finance supply chain resilience. iEdison data could also be used to justify Congressional approval of new DOE authorities to strengthen domestic manufacturing.

Part 2: Complementary Investments

Investments to support the domestic manufacturing sector and regional innovation infrastructure must be pursued in tandem with the DEC to translate into enhanced clean manufacturing competitiveness. The following actions are intended to reduce the need for waivers, shore up supply chains, and expand opportunities for domestic manufacturing:

• Elevate and empower DOE’s AMO to serve as the hub of U.S. clean manufacturing strategy. Under the Obama administration, recognition that the U.S. was underinvesting in manufacturing innovation led to a dramatic expansion of the Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and the launch of the Manufacturing USA institutes, modeled on Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes. DOE has begun to add a seventh institute focused on industrial decarbonization to the six institutes it already manages, and requested funding to launch an eighth and ninth institute in FY22. While both AMO and Manufacturing USA have proven successful through an array of industry-university-government partnerships, technical assistance, and cooperative R&D, neither are fully empowered to serve as hubs for U.S. clean manufacturing strategy. AMO currently faces bifurcated demands to implement advanced manufacturing practices (cross-sector) and promote competitiveness in emerging clean industries (sector-specific). The Manufacturing USA institutes have also been limited by their narrow, often siloed mandates and the expectation of financial independence after five years; under the Trump Administration, DOE sought to wind down the institutes rather than pursue additional funding. DOE should reinvest in establishing AMO and the institutes as the “tip of the spear” for a domestic clean manufacturing strategy and seek to empower them in four ways: 
• Institutional structure. AMO should be elevated to the Deputy Under Secretary or Assistant Secretary level, as has been recommended by recent DOE Chief of Staff Tarak Shah in a 2019 report, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, the National Academies, and many others. This combination of enhanced funding and authority would empower DOE to pursue a more holistic clean manufacturing strategy, commensurate with the scale of the climate and industrial challenges we face.
• Mission focus. It is critical that AMO continue to work on both advanced manufacturing practices (cross-sector) and competitiveness in emerging clean energy industries (sector-specific), but this bifurcated mission does present challenges. As alluded to in a January 2022 RFI, AMO is attempting to pursue both goals in tandem. With the structural elevation proposed above, there is an opportunity for AMO’s clean energy manufacturing mission to be clarified, with a subset of staff and programs specifically dedicated to competitiveness in these emerging sectors. 
• Regional infrastructure and workforce development. AMO’s authority already extends beyond applied R&D, providing technical assistance, workforce development, and more. The Manufacturing USA institutes provide regional support for early prototyping efforts, officially operating up to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7. However, these programs should be granted greater authority and budget to foster regional demonstration and workforce development centers for low-carbon and critical clean energy manufacturing technologies. These activities create the infrastructure for constant learning that is necessary to entice manufacturers to remain in the U.S. and reduce the need for waivers, even when foreign manufacturers present cost advantages. To start, DOE should establish a regional demonstration and workforce development facility operated by the new clean manufacturing institute for industrial decarbonization (similar in nature to Oak Ridge’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF)) to accelerate domestic technology transfer of clean manufacturing practices, and consider additional demonstration and workforce development facilities at future institutes.
• Scale. Despite accounting for roughly one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and 11% of GDP, manufacturing receives less than 10% of DOE energy innovation funding. Additionally, the Manufacturing USA institutes have roughly one-fourth of the budget, one-fifth of the institutes, and one-hundredth of the employees of the Fraunhofer institutes in Germany, a much smaller country that has nevertheless managed to outpace the United States in manufacturing output. To align with climate targets and the administration’s goal to quadruple innovation budgets, DOE manufacturing RD&D would need to grow to roughly $2 billion by 2025.
• Deploy at least $20 billion in grants, loans, and loan guarantees to support solar, wind, battery, and electric vehicle manufacturing and recycling by 2027. Not only is financial support to expand domestic clean manufacturing capacity critical for energy security, innovation clusters, and economic development, but it can also alleviate the barriers for innovators to manufacture in the U.S. and reduce the need for DEC waivers. Existing DOE authorities include the $7 billion for battery manufacturing provided in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and $17 billion in existing direct loan authority at the Loan Programs Office’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing unit. DOE’s technology roadmaps can help these programs to be coordinated with earlier stage RD&D efforts by anticipating emerging manufacturing needs, so that S4 funding recipients who are subject to U.S. manufacturing requirements have more confidence in their ability to find ample domestic manufacturing capacity. The same entities that receive R&D funds also should be eligible for follow-on manufacturing incentives. The pending Bipartisan Innovation Bill and Build Back Better Act may also provide $3 billion for solar manufacturing, renewal of the 48C advanced manufacturing investment tax credit, and a new advanced manufacturing production tax credit. While these funding mechanisms have already been identified in response to the battery supply chain review, they should be applied beyond the battery sector. 
• Leverage DOE procurement authority and state block grant programs to drive demand for American-made clean energy. Procurement is a key demand-pull lever in any coordinated industrial strategy, and can reinforce the DEC by assuring potential applicants that American-made clean energy products will be rewarded in government purchasing. This administration’s Executive Order (EO) on federal sustainability calls for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030 and “net-zero emissions from overall federal operations by 2050, including a 65 percent emissions reduction by 2030.” The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), noted in the EO and the federal government’s accompanying sustainability plan as one of the hubs of clean-energy procurement expertise, will play a key role in providing technical support and progress measurement for all government agencies as they pursue these goals, including by helping agencies to identify U.S. suppliers. For instance, in response to the battery supply chain review, FEMP was tasked with conducting a diagnostic on stationary battery storage at federal sites. DOE also delivers substantial funding and technical assistance to help states and localities deploy clean energy through the Weatherization Assistance Program and State Energy Program. These programs are now consolidated under a new Under Secretary for Infrastructure. DOE should build on these efforts by leveraging DOE’s multi-billion dollar state block grant and competitive financial assistance programs, including the recently-authorized State Manufacturing Leadership grants, to support states and communities in planning to strengthen local and regional manufacturing capacity to make progress on sustainability targets (see Updating the State Energy Program to Promote Regional Manufacturing and Economic Revitalization).
• Align the above activities with DOE’s place-based strategies for advancing environmental justice and supporting fossil fuel-centered communities in their clean energy transition. Throughout U.S. history, manufacturing has fostered rich local cultures and strong regional economies. Domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies and clean industrial materials represents a major opportunity for economic revitalization, job growth, and pollution reduction. DOE also has a major role in executing President Biden’s environmental justice agenda, including as chair of the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Coal and Power Plant Communities. As noted in the IWG’s initial report, investments in manufacturing have the potential to provide pollution relief to frontline communities and also retain the U.S. industrial workforce from high-carbon industries. Indeed, this is one reason why NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnerships played a significant role in the POWER Initiative under the Obama administration. The domestic clean energy manufacturing investments detailed above — including expansion of AMO, new grant programs, and procurement —should all be executed in close coordination with DOE’s place-based strategies to deliver benefits for environmental justice and legacy energy communities and to foster regional cultures of innovation. Finally, DOE should coordinate with other regional development efforts across government, such as the EDA’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge and USDA’s Rural Development programs.

The formerly classified fact that one metric ton of plutonium metal was to be moved from the Savannah River Site in 2019 for use in nuclear weapon pit production at Los Alamos was declassified in 2018. This recently disclosed declassification decision was one of a handful of such actions that are taken each year by the Department of Energy.

DOE is required to perform “continuous review” of information that is classified under the Atomic Energy Act (sec. 2162) and to periodically determine which information can be removed from the category of Restricted Data and declassified. And so it does, every now and then.

Some of the resulting declassification decisions pertain to specific events, like the transfer of nuclear material from one site to another. Others are narrowly technical, like the declassification of “the static and dynamic equations of state for 71 < Z < 90 for pressures > 10 Mbar.” (Z is the atomic number, where 71 is Lutetium and 90 is Thorium.)

In one anomalous case, the scope of the declassification action itself was redacted and remains undisclosed. This is somewhat hard to understand but DOE apparently holds that, having been declassified, the entire subject of this action now falls within the category of “unclassified controlled nuclear information” which is exempt from disclosure.

Declassification decisions under the Atomic Energy Act through last year were released under the Freedom of Information Act.

*    *    *

The Federation of American Scientists last week renewed its petition to the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense to declassify the current number of weapons in the U.S. nuclear stockpile and the number that have been dismantled.

“US nuclear weapons policy should be conducted on the basis of accurate public information to the extent possible,” the FAS petition said. “Declassification of stockpile data supports a factual deliberative process in Congress and elsewhere.”

“We will begin the process of evaluating your proposal and conducting the necessary coordination,” replied Nick Prospero, the acting director of the Office of Classification at the Department of Energy.

The size of the US nuclear stockpile was previously declassified and disclosed by the government for each year through FY 2017, when the Trump Administration ended the practice.

Update: On October 5, the Department of State and the National Nuclear Security Administration released annual stockpile and dismantlement figures through FY 2020.

*    *    *

Another FAS petition, filed in 2018, to declassify the size of the current US inventory of highly enriched uranium has lately received a favorable response from the Department of Energy.

“The program office has indicated they are ready to support the declassification request,” said Andrew Weston-Dawkes, then-director of the DOE Office of Classification, on September 8. “I suspect there is a good amount of work to collect and process the HEU data so hopefully we can provide an update on status in a couple of months.”

Last year, the Department of Energy decided to declassify the fact it intended to make 25 metric tons of Highly Enriched Uranium available from “the national security inventory” for downblending into Low Enriched Uranium for use in the production of tritium.

However, the decision to declassify that information was classified Secret.

This year, the Department of Energy decided to declassify the declassification decision, and it was disclosed last week under the Freedom of Information Act.

While the contortions in classification policy are hard to understand, the underlying move to downblend more HEU for tritium production probably makes sense. Among other things, it “delays the urgency — but doesn’t eliminate the eventual need — to build a new domestic enrichment capacity,” said Alan J. Kuperman of the University of Texas at Austin.

There were 160 MT of US HEU downblended by the end of FY 2018, according to the FY 2019 DOE budget request (volume 1, at page 474), and a total of 162 MT was anticipated by the end of FY 2019, as noted recently by the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

“The overall amount of HEU available for down-blending and the rate at which it will be down-blended is dependent upon decisions regarding the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, the pace of warhead dismantlement and receipt of HEU from research reactors, as well as other considerations, such as decisions on processing of additional HEU through H-Canyon, disposition paths for weapons containing HEU, etc,” according to the DOE budget request.

A dozen classified programs that involved research on human subjects were underway last year at the Department of Energy.

Human subjects research refers broadly to the collection of scientific data from human subjects. This could involve physical procedures that are performed on the subjects, or simply interviews and other forms of interaction with them.

Little information is publicly available about the latest DOE programs, most of which have opaque, non-descriptive names such as Tristan, Idaho Bailiff and Moose Drool. But a list of the classified programs was released this week under the Freedom of Information Act.

Human subjects research erupted into national controversy 25 years ago with reporting by Eileen Welsome of the Albuquerque Tribune on human radiation experiments that had been conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, many of which were performed without the consent of the subjects. A presidential advisory committee was convened to document the record and to recommend appropriate policy responses.

In 2016, the Department of Energy issued updated guidelines on human subjects research, which included a requirement to produce a listing of all classified projects involving human subjects. It is that listing that has now been released.

“Research using human subjects provides important medical and scientific benefits to individuals and to society. The need for this research does not, however, outweigh the need to protect individual rights and interests,” according to the 2016 DOE guidance on protection of human subjects in classified research.

An extravagantly horrific example of fictional human subject research was imagined by Lindsay Anderson in his 1973 film O Lucky Man! which captured the zeitgeist for a moment.

The Trump Administration requested $220 million next year “to continue the orderly and safe closure of the Mixed Oxide (MOX) Fuel Fabrication Facility.”

The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility was intended to eliminate excess weapons-grade plutonium by blending it with uranium oxide to produce a “mixed oxide” that is not suitable for nuclear weapons. The Administration proposes instead to pursue a “dilute and dispose” approach.

Termination of the MOX Facility in South Carolina had previously been proposed — but not approved — in budget requests for the last two years, due to mounting costs.

“Construction remains significantly over budget and behind schedule,” the Department of Energy said in a November 2017 report to Congress. “The MOX production objective was not met in 2015 or 2016 and will not be met in 2017.”

“Due to the increasing costs of constructing and operating the MOX facility, both the Department’s analysis and independent analyses of U.S. plutonium disposition strategies have consistently and repeatedly concluded that the MOX fuel strategy is more costly and requires more annual funding than the dilute and dispose approach,” the DOE report said. The report was released by DOE under the Freedom of Information Act.

Though disfavored by the Administration, the MOX program has a champion in South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham. “I will fight like crazy” to preserve it unless he is convinced that a superior alternative exists, he said at a February 8 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Detailed background on the MOX program can be found in Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Plant and Plutonium Disposition: Management and Policy Issues, Congressional Research Service, December 14, 2017.

The latest proposal to terminate the MOX program was reported in “Aiken County legislators unsurprised by Trump’s anti-MOX budget” by Colin Demarest, Aiken Standard, February 19.

Over the past decade the Department of Energy/NNSA has recovered thousands of sealed radioactive isotope sources from around the world that were abandoned, unwanted or no longer needed.

Sealed nuclear sources are utilized for a variety of industrial, medical or military purposes. But at the end of their useful life they can still pose a safety or security hazard.

So the mission of the DOE/NNSA Off-Site Source Recovery Program is to take possession of “orphan” sources in the interest of public safety and security.

The Program says it has taken control of nearly 40,000 disused and unwanted nuclear sources — about 1.25 million Curies of radioactive material — from 1,400 sites in the US and 25 other countries.

The achievements of the Program were summarized last week in Strengthening Cradle-to-Grave Control of Radioactive Sources by Bill Stewart, Los Alamos National Laboratory, December 11, 2017.

The systematic recovery and control of nuclear materials became an explicit priority during the Obama Administration.

“We are leading a global effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials from terrorists,” the Administration’s 2010 National Security Strategy stated. “We are dramatically accelerating and intensifying efforts to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials. . . . We will seek to complete a focused international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world through enhanced protection and accounting practices, expanded cooperation with and through international institutions, and new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials.”

The 2015 Obama National Security Strategy likewise affirmed that “Keeping nuclear materials from terrorists . . . remains a high priority.”

The 2017 National Security Strategy that was published by the White House this week also addressed control of nuclear materials, though in a comparatively terse and generic manner:

“Building on decades of initiatives, we will augment measures to secure, eliminate, and prevent the spread of WMD and related materials, their delivery systems, technologies, and knowledge to reduce the chance that they might fall into the hands of hostile actors. We will hold state and non-state actors accountable for the use of WMD.”

The new National Security Strategy included one reference to national security classification, citing it as a potential obstacle to information sharing:

“The U.S. Government will work with our critical infrastructure partners to assess their informational needs and to reduce the barriers to information sharing, such as speed and classification levels.”

The fact that a particular nuclear weapon has (or does not have) a “dial-a-yield capability” enabling the selection of a desired explosive yield was declassified earlier this year, in a joint decision of the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

Last year, the Department of Energy also declassified the thickness of the “getter nickel plating” used in tritium production. (A “getter” here means the reactive material that sustains a vacuum by capturing gas atoms.)

These and several other recent DOE declassification decisions were recorded in memoranda that were released last week under the Freedom of Information Act. Copies are available, along with the records of prior DOE declassification actions, here.

The size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile as of September 30, 2015 — 4,571 weapons — and the number of U.S. nuclear weapons that were dismantled in FY 2015 — 109 of them — were declassified and disclosed last week.

The latest figures came as a disappointment to arms control and disarmament advocates who favor sharp reductions in global nuclear inventories.

The new numbers “show that the Obama administration has reduced the U.S. stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration, and that the number of warheads dismantled in 2015 was lowest since President Obama took office,” wrote Hans M. Kristensen in the FAS Strategic Security blog.

But precisely because the new disclosure casts an unflattering light on the Obama Administration, it also represents a triumph of transparency. Since it is at odds with the Administration’s own declared agenda, the release enables the press and the public to exact a measure of accountability.

“The new figures […] underscored the striking gap between Mr. Obama’s soaring vision of a world without nuclear arms, which he laid out during the first months of his presidency, and the tough geopolitical and bureaucratic realities of actually getting rid of those weapons,” wrote William J. Broad in the New York Times on May 26.

“Obama calls for end to nuclear weapons, but U.S. disarmament is slowest since 1980,” as a Washington Post headline put it on May 27.

News stories credited the Department of Defense for the “annual public release” of the stockpile information. But it is a bit more complicated than that.

The nuclear stockpile size was classified as “Formerly Restricted Data” (FRD) under the Atomic Energy Act. As such, it had to be cooperatively declassified by both the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy. And the declassification of FRD does not occur regularly or spontaneously.

“It is not the policy of the DoD/DOE to release such numbers automatically,” said Andrew Weston-Dawkes, the director of the DOE Office of Classification. Instead, consideration is given to declassification of specific information as it is requested. In this case, release of the 2015 stockpile figures was requested by the Federation of American Scientists in an October 2015 petition.

“The declassification of stockpile numbers was a direct result of your request for the information,” Dr. Weston-Dawkes wrote in an email. “Your request was reviewed by the DoD-FRD working group and in turn approved by the DoD and the DOE.”

Until the Obama Administration declassified it for the first time in 2010, the current size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal had never been officially made public. (Historical stockpile numbers up to 1961 were released in the 1990s.)

Columnists and commentators are in the habit of mocking President Obama’s promise that his would be the most transparent Administration in history. But when it comes to nuclear stockpile information, that promise has been fulfilled.

The Department of Energy budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) would again increase spending on nuclear weapons in Fiscal Year 2017.

“The budget request for FY2017 seeks $9,243.1 million for Weapons Activities within a total budget of $12,884 million for NNSA,” according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service. “This represents an increase of approximately 4.4% in the Weapons Activities Account over FY2016.”

“The Obama Administration has requested increased funding for the nuclear weapons complex in each of its annual budgets,” CRS noted. But the latest request still exceeds expectations.

In particular, “the FY2017 budget request and projections for subsequent years now exceed the amount predicted in [a] 2010 report [to Congress],” CRS said.

The details are presented in Energy and Water Development: FY2017 Appropriations for Nuclear Weapons Activities, April 1, 2016.

Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following.

Supreme Court Vacancies: Frequently Asked Questions, March 31, 2016

Supreme Court Appointment Process: President’s Selection of a Nominee, updated April 1, 2016

Medicare Primer, updated March 31, 2016

Iran, Gulf Security, and U.S. Policy, updated March 30, 2016

Mexico: Background and U.S. Relations, updated March 30, 2016

China Naval Modernization: Implications for U.S. Navy Capabilities — Background and Issues for Congress, updated March 31, 2016

Cybersecurity: Legislation, Hearings, and Executive Branch Documents, updated March 30, 2016