Does anyone in the White House really understand what the Department of Energy actually does?

[G_j]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis?mbid=nl_th_5977c39b7c67a060584ba939&CNDID=36849623&spMailingID=11559140&spUserID=MTMzMTgyOTAzNDE4S0&spJobID=1202330385&spReportId=MTIwMjMzMDM4NQS2

WHY THE SCARIEST NUCLEAR THREAT MAY BE COMING FROM INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE


Donald Trump’s secretary of energy, Rick Perry, once campaigned to abolish the $30 billion agency that he now runs, which oversees everything from our nuclear arsenal to the electrical grid. The department’s budget is now on the chopping block. But does anyone in the White House really understand what the Department of Energy actually does? And what a horrible risk it would be to ignore its extraordinary, life-or-death responsibilities?

On the morning after the election, November 9, 2016, the people who ran the U.S. Department of Energy turned up in their offices and waited. They had cleared 30 desks and freed up 30 parking spaces. They didn’t know exactly how many people they’d host that day, but whoever won the election would surely be sending a small army into the Department of Energy, and every other federal agency. The morning after he was elected president, eight years earlier, Obama had sent between 30 and 40 people into the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy staff planned to deliver the same talks from the same five-inch-thick three-ring binders, with the Department of Energy seal on them, to the Trump people as they would have given to the Clinton people. “Nothing had to be changed,” said one former Department of Energy staffer. “They’d be done always with the intention that, either party wins, nothing changes.”

By afternoon the silence was deafening. “Day 1, we’re ready to go,” says a former senior White House official. “Day 2 it was ‘Maybe they’ll call us?’?”

“Teams were going around, ‘Have you heard from them?’?” recalls another staffer who had prepared for the transition. “?‘Have you gotten anything? I haven’t got anything.’?”

..more..

[procon]

1. Trump has no policies, and without a policy he has no plans.

He's the TV image of a bigshot CEO so he delegates, abdicating the awesome powers of the presidency to underlings to hide his ignorance and shirk responsibilities. He's already succeeded the role of Commanded in Chief to the generals (what could be scarier than that?), so no one should be shocked that Trump doesn't care what goes on in his government or who's minding the Department of Energy.

If we heard Bannon correctly, this is part of his plan, "the deconstruction of the administrative state." When things get bad enough, when no one is answering the phones, when the grid fails or a reactor shuts down, the Republicans will push for a total privatization of the key functions of government. Freedom and the holy Free Market will rise to take over the tasks of a government that the GOP disembodied behind closed doors, and the public will pay the price.

[Thew]

2. I'm remembering the first months of W

I recall lots of joking about his bumbling and ineptness. Remember speeches on "vampire" appliances and handling of the Chinese recovery of our spy plane and crew (did they have bibles)? Then the attacks happened and suddenly it was deadly serious how terrible they were.

This is going to be magnitudes worse. There is no way these fools will be able to respond to anything - terrorism, natural disaster, accident, any number of horrible things.

This article really underscores how much happens behind the scenes and how we rely on it running smoothly.

[G_j]

5. Exactly

it's a seriously frightening situation.

[Blue Owl]

3. That guy with the glasses should know...

[syringis]

4. In short...

One of the most important and critical Department in any serious Administration around the world, generally one of the most complex, even in smaller countries and not under a federal system, to rule, is left to the "Grace of God"...

Yep...finely tuned machine. Indeed.