Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Not-so-happy birthday

Nevadans have had more experience with the Department of Energy than most -- so it's unlikely anybody in the Silver State is popping champagne corks to celebrate the agency's 25th anniversary.

The DOE was born a quarter of a century ago this month, in response to the so-called energy crisis of the mid 1970s. (A crisis triggered by an inordinate amount of federal meddling in the energy markets, not by any real commodity shortages.)

Since then, in predictable fashion, it's morphed into a bumbling, hidebound bureaucracy that's done absolutely nothing to make the nation less dependent on imported fuels while dabbling in dubious endeavors such as the Yucca Mountain project. All for the bargain price of just $21 billion a year.

"Besides being a make-work program for 20,000 federal workers and 150,000 contractors," notes Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, "DOE's core accomplishment has been to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars, year after year, to corporate welfare and goofy alternative energy schemes. Shouldn't my car run on sunshine and my house have a windmill by now?"

Mr. Schatz and his outfit took the occasion of the DOE's birthday to call for the agency's elimination, moving the nation's nuclear programs under the Department of Defense. It's a sentiment that a great majority of Nevadans will heartily endorse.