In a recent report titled Energy Efficiency: Long-Standing Problems with DOE's Program for Setting Efficiency Standards Continue to Result in Forgone Energy Savings, the GAO reports that DOE's failure to set required standards is costing us a lot in terms of wasted energy.
As a bit of background, the Department of Energy was tasked by the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) with setting energy efficiency targets on a regular basis in key energy-use areas, some industrial, most residential. However, at the moment, DOE is woefully behind in setting new energy efficiency rules, only successfully setting requirements in four major residential applications. DOE has, in fact, missed 34 deadlines in 20 product areas that came up for revision. Of these missed deadlines, only 11 were late -- the other 23 have not yet been issued, with some of these up to 15 years overdue.
On the plus side, the standards that have been set by DOE should account for $125 billion in energy savings by 2030. On the minus side, the standards that are overdue will account for another $28 billion in lost energy savings over the same period if they are not put into place. Also, as the report points out, delays in enacting Federal standards may lead to standards being set at the state level. This uncertainty and potential irregularity in standards nationwide creates a problematic environment for businesses working in the regulated areas.
DOE management has submitted a plan for rectifying these problems and bringing standards up to date by 2011. However, the GAO report indicates that this plan is suspect, as it is based largely on anecdotal reporting on why earlier delays occurred, and assigns a six-fold increase in workload without a matching increase in assigned resources. Here's what the report had to say about management practices at DOE:
The plan lacks critical project management elements. According to leading project management practices, effective project plans have two key components that are lacking in DOE’s plan. First, plans should hold officials and staff accountable for meeting interim and final deadlines. If the officials do not meet these deadlines, they should provide legitimate reasons for the delays. Second, the plan should include provisions for adequate resources. Instead, DOE’s plan increases the workload sixfold over that in recent years without increasing proportionately the resources it will devote to the program. DOE officials told us they plan to rely on increased productivity, with only a marginal increase in resources, to bring the standards up to date. Furthermore, DOE’s plan does not include a means of ensuring that staff and reviewers are accountable for meeting deadlines.
However, lest this all seem like an issue of pure bad management at DOE, consider the role of Congress and those regulated businesses:
According to the report, Congress’s rulemaking schedule was “rigorous.” As a result, the program staff were unable to meet the deadlines from the beginning. These delays were exacerbated when Congress increased the number of products that required rulemakings. In 1994, DOE attempted to address the backlog by proposing standards for eight products in one rulemaking. However, according to DOE, this rulemaking effort met with strong opposition from industry, drawing over 5,000 responses during the comment period, and DOE withdrew the proposal. Following this experience, Congress imposed a 1-year moratorium on new or amended standards. The moratorium further exacerbated the backlog, according to DOE.
So, to clarify that progression, Congress originally called for rapid assessment of new standards. Then they added additional standards. DOE complied with both requests, and businesses complained vociferously. As a consequence, Congress blocked DOE from setting any new standards for a year.
Representatives from DOE could very reasonably point out that it's hard to comply with Congressional requests when Congress expressly keeps you from doing so.
Other business-friendly practices from DOE were also problematic when it came to meeting deadlines:
Adhere to the deadline for closing public comments. DOE reported that it will only consider comments received before their deadlines in its current analysis. In the past, DOE continued to consider comments after the closing date stated in the Federal Register and responded to those comments with additional analysis, which delayed the issuance of the final rulemaking.
From the overall assessment, it appears likely that DOE will continue to miss these deadlines, both because of a wildly optimistic view of their own ability to set new standards and because of continuing interfering from would-be regulatees and their associated Congressional support.
On the plus side, GAO reports that DOE is largely up to date in its job of evaluating revisions to residential building codes.