The Department of Energy (DOE) today (May 15) announced new actions to increase accountability and promote responsible stewardship of American taxpayer dollars. In a Secretarial Memorandum entitled, "Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance," U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright outlined DOE's policy for evaluating financial assistance on a case-by-case basis to identity waste of taxpayer dollars, protect America's national security and advance President Trump's commitment to unleash affordable, reliable and secure energy for the American people. 

"Over the past 110 days, the Energy Department has been hard at work reviewing the billions of dollars that were rushed out the door, particularly in the final days of the Biden administration, and what we have found is concerning," said Secretary Wright. "With this process, the Department will ensure we are doing our due diligence, utilizing taxpayer dollars to generate the largest possible benefit to the American people and safeguarding our national security. Any reputable business would have a process in place for evaluating spending and investments before money goes out the door, and the American people deserve no less from their federal government."

To comply with the Secretary's memorandum, the DOE has begun requesting additional information needed to evaluate 179 awards. These awards total over $15 billion in financial assistance. DOE is prioritizing large-scale commercial projects that require more detailed information from the awardees for the initial phase of this review, but this process may extend to other DOE program offices as the reviews progress.

Full Policy Memorandum is below:

Secretarial Policy on Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance

It is the policy of the Department of Energy (DOE) to ensure that financial assistance award recipients and the individual projects are, among other things, financially sound and economically viable, aligned with national and economic security interests, and consistent with Federal law and this Administration's policies and priorities and program goals and priorities (Standards).  This policy is consistent with the general Federal Stewardship and Substantial Involvement of DOE in the financial assistance awards and essential to identifying and avoiding fraud, waste and abuse.

DOE intends to conduct focused reviews of awards and other forms of financial assistance on a case-by-case basis, especially for the large complex awards, or on groups of homogenous awards if DOE determines that such a review will adequately address the goals as set forth above.  To conduct this review, DOE may utilize information previously submitted by the award recipient, DOE's own investigation or analyses or submit  information requests to recipients for information relevant to the project to help inform DOE's decisional process including, but not limited to,  information regarding a project's financial health, a project's technological and engineering viability, market conditions, compliance with award terms and conditions and compliance with legal requirements, including those related to national security.

To accomplish DOE's objectives, it is the policy of DOE to require that its financial assistance recipients provide written responses and supporting documentation to its information requests within communicated timeframes, and to cooperate with program personnel on any follow up requests, including verbal requests, in a timely manner, to facilitate this review.  While many financial assistance awards may incorporate the audit rights under 2 C.F.R. part 200, other forms of awards have different information gathering rights available to DOE.  However, in connection with the administration and management of its awards, DOE is entitled to obtain current, accurate and complete information about the project and the recipient.

It is also the policy of DOE to treat the responses to these information requests as confidential and solely for use in managing the awards and as part of its oversight, including audit, functions.  Responses, as well as responsive information the recipient has previously provided to DOE, will be shared within DOE only to the extent required for proper management and oversight of the awards. Consistent with the National Security Presidential Memorandum on U.S. Government-Supported Research and Development National Security Policy-33, DOE may share information regarding risk identified as part of this due diligence process with other governmental entities.

If it is determined that a project meets Standards, then those projects will proceed.  If it is determined that projects do not meet Standards, DOE may modify the project or, DOE in its discretion, may terminate the project based on the outcome of DOE's evaluation, as allowed by law.  Further, if a recipient of financial assistance fails to respond to information requests within the provided timeframe, does not respond to follow-up questions in a timely manner, or offers incomplete responses that do not reasonably facilitate DOE's review, DOE may treat as the recipient's refusal to cooperate as grounds for termination of the award or the withholding of funding.