Reengineer & Audit - ORIGINAL CONTENT

Reengineer: to reorganize the operations of (an organization) so as to improve efficiency

The Trump Administration has begun a comprehensive reengineering effort in the federal Executive Branch agencies. The agencies of concern regarding climate change include US EPA, NASA and the Departments of Energy, Interior and Commerce. The focus of the effort will be on societal and economic value added and will concentrate on current and potential future value.

The early focus at US EPA will be on the 2009 Endangerment Finding and the Powerplant Rule, both of which impose current and future societal and economic costs. EPA’s vehicle emission standards represent a virtual mandate for a transition from fossil fueled vehicles to electric vehicles. Many classes of vehicles are not commercially available as EVs. EVs are also significantly more expensive than their fossil fueled equivalents, even with substantial federal subsidies.

The Powerplant Rule would require coal and natural gas generators to equip both existing and new generators with systems capable of collecting and later storing 90% of the CO2 they emit. EPA has declared that these CCS systems are Best Available Current Technology and are commercially available, though there has been no successful demonstration of CCS at that capture percentage. It has been estimated that CO2 capture at that level would impose a 25-40% parasitic power consumption penalty on powerplant net output, thus dramatically increasing power cost.

The early focus at the Department of Energy will likely be on the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. DOE has advocated for “all-electric everything” for decades and has distorted building energy efficiency by focusing on efficiency at the site of use, rather than on full cycle efficiency. DOE has also conducted numerous renewable generation R&D programs. DOE would also have been the lead agency regarding building sector decarbonization.

The Department of Interior is responsible for federal lands, including land use for oil & gas exploration and production as well as for installation of renewable generation facilities. DOI has acted to exclude large areas of federal land from oil and gas activity, coal mining, uranium mining and other mineral mining activities.

The Department of Commerce is home to NOAA, which has been heavily involved in collection and analysis of near-surface temperature measurements in cooperation with NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

It is likely that many of these activities add little or no societal and economic value while imposing significant societal and economic costs.
The outside audit of government spending and financial control systems is long overdue. Early results from the audit activities of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) suggest that current government spending controls are totally inadequate, particularly in light of the levels of spending involved. It also appears that internal Agency and Departmental audits and audits by the Office of Management and Budget have been inadequate, as has Congressional oversight.

Reports of EPA “throwing gold bars off the Titanic” in the final months of the previous Administration and “parking” $ billions in banks and NGOs do not inspire confidence in the process.