A Lead Office within the EOP

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).

Recommendations

Given the necessity of presidential leadership, we recommend that the new administration focus on improving and consolidating the Executive Office of the President’s (EOP) role in drafting and overseeing the implementation of a national energy security strategy. There are two basic options: reinvigorate and empower an existing EOP office or create a new council, akin to the National Economic Council or National Security Council.

Press reports and publications by key members of the transition team suggest that the incoming administration is in fact considering the creation of a new National Energy Council (we refer to this Council as the National Energy Security Council, or NESC, to distinguish it from the White House National Economic Council). Whether this independent council is newly created or existing offices such as the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) or National Security Council (NSC) are expanded, we believe it is essential to improve the Executive Office of the President’s ability to unify the disparate elements of national energy policy, author the national strategy, and coordinate the implementation of that strategy. In the areas where direct presidential participation may be warranted, such as international negotiations, the office should also have a lead role in supporting the president.

We judge that in order to establish authority over and effectively collaborate with a vast and fractious government infrastructure, this new or reinvigorated office will need three key elements:

• A compelling and persuasive vision articulated and kept current by the President, combined with a sense of urgency;
• A national budget that aligns actions and resources with vision and new priorities;
• Participation in the development of strategy by those who need to change their efforts and behavior – agencies are much more likely to implement the strategy if they were at the table when it was drafted. Moreover, they have the resources and capacity to support a transformative vision and the connections to all the vast networks of constituencies that also need to change their efforts and behavior in order for a new strategy to succeed.

An existing EOP office effectively can be empowered to carry out the job of constructing and then coordinating and carrying out the implementation of a national energy security strategy. A Deputy National Security Advisor for Energy Security may be the best fit, although that would require bringing domestic policy issues into the NSC, where they have not traditionally resided. Overlapping authorities with the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Economic Council’s Deputy for Energy would have to be worked out.

We recommend that the other offices play an advisory role on energy and climate issues, working from their particular perspectives and with their constituencies, with the DNSA clearly in the lead.