Trump transition team for Energy Department seeks names of employees involved in climate meetings

[William Seger]

75. Looks like he's going after the Energy Information Administration, too

The EIA is an independent agency that collects and analysis data about energy production. The questions to the Department of Energy include 15 questions about the EIA, some oddly specific down to report details. Reading between the lines, the questions seem to indicate that DJT & Co think the EIA is biased against the fossil fuel industry, so I think we can expect purges there, too:

6. EIA is an independent agency in DOE. How has EIA ensured its independence in your data and analysis over the past 8 years? In what instances do you think EIA's independence was most challenged?

7. Part of EIA's charter is to do analyses based on Congressional and Departmental requests. Has EIA denied or not responded to any of these requests over the last ten years?

8. EIA customarily has or had set dates for completions of studies and reports. In general, have those dates been adhered to?

9. In the Annual Energy Outlook 2016, EIA assumed that the Clean Power Plan should be in the reference case despite the fact that the reference case is based on existing laws and regulations. Why did EIA make that assumption, which seems to be atypical of past forecasts?

10. EIA's assessments of levelized costs for renewable technologies do not contain back-up costs for the fossil fuel technologies that are brought on-line to replace the generation when those technologies are down. Is this is a correct representation of the true levelized costs?

11. Has EIA done analysis that shows that additional back-up generation is not needed? How does EIA's analysis compare with other analyses on this issue?

12. Renewable and solar technologies are expected to need additional transmission costs above what fossil technologies need. How has EIA represented this in the AEO forecasts? What is the magnitude of those transmission costs?

13. There are studies that show that your high resource and technology case for oil and gas represents the shale gas and oil renaissance far better than your reference case. Why has EIA not put those assumptions in your reference case?

14. Can you describe the number of personnel hired into management positions at EIA from outside EIA and compare it to the number of personnel hired into management positions at EIA who were currently serving at EIA?

15. How does EIA ensure quality in its data and analyses?

16. Where does EIA think most improvement is needed in its data and analyses?

17. We note that EIA added distributed solar estimations to your electricity data reports. Those numbers are not part of your supply/demand balance on a Btu basis. Why has that not been updated accordingly?

18. How many vacancies does EIA have in management and staff positions? What plans, if any, does EIA have to fill those positions before January 20?

19. Is the EIA budget sufficient to ensure quality in data and analyses? If not, where does it fall short?

20. Does EIA have cost comparisons of sources of electricity generation at the national level?