Watch: Q&A with Louise White, Former DOE Official, Co-Author of Federal Clean Energy Implementation Report

Louise White, former DOE official and co-author of Implementation of Federal Clean Energy Programs: Lessons Learned from DOE and Partner Agencies, examines why turning historic clean energy investments into real-world projects proved so challenging—and what future administrations must do differently.

Catch up on the highlights below and watch the full interview here.

 On how future administrations can overcome fixation on risk minimization:

“There was this concern for a kind of Solyndra type issue. And so what that looked like tactically meant that there was a lot of diligence of each and every project, a lot of briefings and analysis and digging into to each program and award before anything was able to be moved forward. And so it really slowed down the award processes… in the name of risk aversion.”

“From my experience at LPO, [we looked at] tackling the idea of what is an appropriate level of risk for government to be taking head-on. So there was a big intentional focus from leadership on normalizing the idea that not every loan is going to play out exactly as we think it is…This kind of intentional focus on normalizing risk in a way that I think actually had a big impact on the office.”

On the difficulty of choosing who to interview for the report and how the process worked:

“I would say most folks were very happy to connect. We were particularly focused on talking to folks on all kind of seniority levels, but in particular, folks who are on the day-to-day staffing levels who were seeing these programs day in and day out.”

“A lot of folks had reflections and ideas both in what they wish they might have done differently or what they would have wanted to see next time or things that worked really well that they didn’t want to to lose.”

On the balance between due diligence and speed, and what she found the right balance to be:

“The appropriate level of diligence is found by tailoring it to the specific project so you are actually addressing the real issues and concerns. This contrasts with the exhaustive view, assuming you need to look at the full scope every single time for everything, which really slowed a lot of things down.”

“Models such as pay for outcomes or prize models are relevant because they can be easier to administer and implement, and they are more aligned with the outcomes you are actually trying to achieve. In these cases, you don’t need to do as much diligence because the final outcome provides clarity: if the outcome has been achieved, the money goes out the door; if not, then it doesn’t.”

On how future administrations should focus their priorities while balancing diverse interests:

“One idea is to figure out how a specific project or program can have one or two non-negotiables. [Pinpointing] what success means, what the program is supposed to be doing, and then making sure that across your entire portfolio of any administration’s agenda, you are advancing all of those priorities.”

On the importance of pre-planning efforts for a future administration focused on clean energy:

“The element that we call for a lot in the report is this idea of planning for implementation before day one. It’s not just about the big policy ideas, but it’s thinking very thoughtfully [on] how are the agencies going to be run? How are these programs and policy ideas actually going to be implemented? I think any future Democratic administration can and should be thinking about [these questions] today.”

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