[fieldmarshaldj]

Most of these departments need to be closed down or folded back into the departments they were created from.

[AndyJackson]

Well, the department they were created from was the Office of Scientific Research (during WWII) which turned into the Atomic Energy Commission, which became ERDA. It was pretty fine until this point. Then Jimmy Carter said that shale oil was good (his version of government funded shale oil - which was a disaster) and Amy Carter declared anything nuclear is bad. Voila the Department of Energy and its multiple discontents.

So, if you are recommending devolving DOE into the sub-cabinet level ERDA and disbanding the rest, that is a good thing to do. The problem is that people keep thinking that DOE does energy. It barely does that, and is not even a pimple on the private sector.