SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Cancel by legislation and adminstative action, all subsidies to USEC. Eliminate the obvious subsidies, and the hidden ones, like sweetheart deals. USEC was supposed to be in the Private sector, not a continual drag on the body politic.

 

Don't make DOE the "bleeding horse" that keeps getting bled to keep USEC in good shape.

Do away with this agency completey and return the responsbility of education to the states and to the parents of children. Maintain a staff to run the Pell Grant program and do away with the rest. Having national standards for education is a complete waste of time. Education should be focused on developing an individual students talents instead of a broad liberal arts education. Having someone focus on a specific... more »

There is a duplicate of effort that costs hundreds of millions of dollars each year.

DOD is spending way to much money on Superfund cleanups. Look at McClellan AFB as an example. DOE also spends too much. Streamline cleanups at DOD/DOE. Create monetary incentives to reduce cleanup costs. Current contract mechanisms seem only to prolong the cleanups and resultant costs.

“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing. “ Thomas Edison


Every agency and department in the federal government are well familiar with forms. We use them for Annual Leave, Sick Leave, CompTime, OverTime,... more »

Eliminate Private Bathrooms for SES Staff. I don't see the need for special/private bathrooms unless the SES manager has a disability that requires him/her to have special facilities.

Each year in October a private company sponsors a "Leadership Conference" at Amelia Island. At the swanky resort. It is for the Environmental Management program at DOE.

It costs the Environmental Management office a ton of money to send representatives to it. It is pretty much a boon-doggle. And the private company makes a good bunch of change from hosting it.

I suggest that the conference be canceled. Or at least... more »

There are sites around the country for which the US Government as financial responsibility for environmental clean-up. Unfortunately, two different agencies have part of the responsibility for the same geographical area. Both agencies complete all of the activities in parallel including NEPA, site characterization, awarding contracts, and contract administration. If the clean-up activities were combined under an overall... more »

As a distributed, GOCO agency, DOE has many database systems, some redundant. Programs have come to expect to fund and build their own IT solutions, even when one solution would fulfill the same need across the Department. The enterprise architect (EA) needs to open up to the agency so that new data collection needs can build on existing systems. Meanwhile the EA should actively seek consolidation opportunities. The... more »

Within DOE/NNSA, travel funds for lab, plant, and support contractors flow pretty easily; however, for government employees travel budgets are greatly restricted, as they require the use of very limited "Program Direction" funds. Many times it is easier to schedule a meeting in DC (where costs are high), with a large number of people traveling from the national labs and/or plants, rather than utilizing a more central... more »

When I click on say Dept of Energy a big list of suggestions appears.

 

There are 6 items on the HOT list right now. 3;45 on 7/28.

 

There are also suggestion that have more likes and better ranks than those on the hot list!

You need a better way to select hot lists.

 

Or get rid of them all together.

 

I

Require all PCS moves to be via the fixed (per diem) rate and for all costs of the move to have a fixed rate component. Include a fixed cost option for housing associated costs such as closing costs based on the part of the county the employee lives in (similar to the cost of living adjustments). This will simplify the payment and auditing process while also simplifying the process for the employee as no receipts would... more »

The Department of Energy has a number of financial assistance programs for developing new technologies such as renewable energy projects. The programs run from initial, bench-scale (ARPA-E) to pilot scale (EERE) to commercial deployment (Loan Programs). However, the programs do not flow into each other. Align the programs to streamline the identification and commercial deployment of promising new technologies through... more »