The controversial idea of the “unitary executive” in which all executive power is vested in the President of the United States may be a coherent legal theory. But in reality, things don’t happen within the executive branch simply because the President commands them. In practice, what we have is a “fragmentary executive” the efficacy of which is entirely dependent on the competence and the good faith of thousands of officials who must consciously choose to implement the declared policies of the Administration.
With that in mind, it is noteworthy that the Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, reiterated and endorsed the President’s Freedom of Information Act policy in a memorandum (pdf) to senior Energy Department officials this month.
“All DOE employees have the responsibility to ensure the success of the agency’s FOIA program,” Secretary Chu wrote. “We can no longer use competing agency priorities and insufficient technological support as a basis for not responding to requests expeditiously. DOE employees should no longer view FOIA as an additional duty. It is your responsibility to ensure that FOIA requests are responded to in a timely manner.”
“I want to make it clear that DOE will adhere to the President’s and Attorney General’s guidance,” Secretary Chu concluded. See “Freedom of Information Act,” memorandum for heads of departmental elements from Energy Secretary Steven Chu, June 5, 2009 (thanks to nukewatch.org).
With targeted policy interventions, we can efficiently and effectively support the U.S. innovation economy through the translation of breakthrough scientific research from the lab to the market.
Crowd forecasting methods offer a systematic approach to quantifying the U.S. intelligence community’s uncertainty about the future and predicting the impact of interventions, allowing decision-makers to strategize effectively and allocate resources by outlining risks and tradeoffs in a legible format.
The energy transition underway in the United States continues to present a unique set of opportunities to put Americans back to work through the deployment of new technologies, infrastructure, energy efficiency, and expansion of the electricity system to meet our carbon goals.
The United States has the only proven and scalable tritium production supply chain, but it is largely reserved for nuclear weapons. Excess tritium production capacity should be leveraged to ensure the success of and U.S. leadership in fusion energy.