The Dept of Energy a trip down memory lane.

[Hydrophobic guy]

Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No?... Didn't think so. Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember. Ready? It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted 8-04-1977
TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT, HUH?

AND NOW IT'S 2008, 31 YEARS LATER, AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS NECESSARY DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR, THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES, AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE!


THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY 'WHAT WAS I THINKING?'


Ah yes, good ole beaurocracy.

And now we turned the Banking system over to them?
God Help us.

[WATERWINGS]

Does anybody out there have any memory of the reason given for the establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY during the Carter Administration? Anybody? Anything? No?... Didn't think so. Bottom line . . we've spent several hundred billion dollars in support of an agency the reason for which not one person who reads this can remember. Ready? It was very simple, and at the time everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted 8-04-1977
[FONT=Arial][SIZE=4][FONT=Arial]TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL. HEY, PRETTY EFFICIENT,


How did that project work out?:rolleyes::icon_bs::leaving:

[Riverman]

I thought they are also responsible for nuclear energy, nuclear waste storage, and all production/procurement of all fissionable materials in the US?

[jphii]

I thought they are also responsible for nuclear energy, nuclear waste storage, and all production/procurement of all fissionable materials in the US?

They are, for fission and fusion/plasma energy.

[Riverman]

Weapons production/maintenance too right? Also care of all the decommissioned weapons production facilities (Hanford, Oak Ridge, etc.), and the operation of all the national laboratories.

[transomstand]

As usual, our massive government has overlapping agencies involved in all that's been mentioned.

NRC, DOE, DOD, EPA, I'm sure there are many more to make the alphabet soup complete, each with enourmous budgets, and arguing over which agency is in charge:rolleyes:

I think the NRC is the primary civilian regulator. DOE seems to be charged mainly with promotion of nuclear energy, and they're doing a bang up job:D