The Role of the Executive Office of the President

Energy security is a whole-of-government challenge, but the federal government’s ability to promote energy security is fractured and discontinuous. While a successful, large-scale reorganization would no doubt be helpful, some discrete remodeling will suffice – and is a more realistic option. There needs to be an energy transformation in the U.S. and global economies, moving from near-total dependence on fossil fuels toward carbon-free, alternative fuels. Although much of this transformation will be driven by the supply and demand of the private sector and consumers, the federal government has a critical, catalyzing role to play.

Today, the U.S. government it is not well postured to play that role. Even though this is a whole-of-government challenge (and arguably, a whole-of-society challenge), there is no whole-of-government response – certainly not a concerted one. The internal schisms and lack of direction are so strong that government representatives at the CNAS workshop referred to the system as “tribal” and several interviewees commented that “when no one is in charge, everyone is in charge.” Energy security is handled as environmental or economic policy, and in some cases agriculture or transportation policy. Domestic policy instruments tend to be entirely separate from international policy instruments. In particular, climate change is handled separately from energy policy within the Executive Office of the President and throughout the government (the Council on Environmental Quality being one of the few exceptions). Furthermore, across all these distinctions, multiple agencies and committees of Congress have jurisdiction, sometimes over the same constituencies.

Achieving energy security will require a coherent and concerted approach across all these dimensions of the challenge. We believe President-Elect Obama will be able to accomplish his energy security goals with a targeted remodeling and reorganization, led through the Executive Office of the President. By the end of his first term, many lessons gleaned from the initial reorganization should also help inform any large-scale structural changes that may be necessary.

Findings

Congress has been driving recent structural and policy changes on energy security through the energy acts of 2005 and 2007, farm bills, and through authorization and appropriation bills, but there are very complicated jurisdictional lines and even more complicated energy security constituencies (24 U.S. states, for example, produce some amount of coal). Although Congress has an important role to play, it is difficult and perhaps not feasible for Congress to lead a truly transformational, national energy policy.

The most important tool for achieving energy security, therefore, will be the president’s ability to lead the way for the U.S. government, the private sector, and the American people. Indeed, the President-Elect has already demonstrated he will use the power of his office to advance these issues. There will be tremendous pressure to focus on competing priorities, however, so the President will need an effective way to delegate and channel his authority. That authority should reside close to him in the Executive Office of the President (EOP).