Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and other federal laws passed in the past four years highlight the need to revamp the Department of Energy’s policies and organizational structure, according to a report Thursday from conservative energy group ClearPath.
The group said DOE’s “energy innovation” mission to demonstrate new technologies has been greatly expanded by the laws even as the department’s program structure has changed incrementally.
“Today, the United States faces different conditions characterized in the energy crisis of the 1970s that spurred the Department’s creation, yet the legacy structure of the Department largely persists,” the report says.
To change that, the group calls for DOE to make various changes, including providing additional funding to technologies showing early promise, streamlining funding competitions to ensure more applicants, using “every tool at its disposal” to expedite permitting for demonstration projects and developing more protections for U.S. intellectual property.
