The Department of Energy has told employees that documents used by DOGE to assess the agency’s grants and contracts should be marked with “legal privilege” to prevent them from being disclosed under Freedom of Information Act requests.
DOGE has supplied the agency with spreadsheets, which are to be completed by agency officials, to identify grants and contracts that could be flagged for termination or renegotiation. The department’s acting general counsel, David R. Taggart, outlined the DOE’s DOGE-related procedures in a memo sent on March 17, which was obtained by Axios.
The memo directs political appointees to determine whether grants and contracts are “efficient” or “consistent with DOE policies and priorities.”
Taggart told agency officials that they needed to be brief and consistent when filling out the spreadsheets due to the “heavy litigation environment” surrounding DOGE-related department cuts.
Few corners of the DOE are expected to be immune, according to the memo. Even the DOE’s national laboratory system could be included since each is managed by private companies under contract.
The DOE’s standard contracts contain language that allows the department to terminate an award if it “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
The memo also appears to give some insight into the way DOGE cuts might be enacted, hinting that there may not be much scrutiny once the spreadsheets leave DOE offices.
Officials are urged to be as granular as possible because lumping awards into groups awards “might overlook nuances between the covered contracts and grants that might result in terminating efficient agreements or keeping inefficient agreements.”
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
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