History
of the U.S. Department Of Energy
The energy crisis of the 1970s demonstrated the need for unified
energy planning within the federal government. On August 4, 1977,
President Jimmy Carter signed the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
Organization Act (Public Law 95-91), centralizing the
responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy
Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power
Commission and other energy-related government programs into a
single presidential cabinet-level department. The
DOE, activated on Oct. 1, 1977, provided the framework
for a comprehensive national energy plan by coordinating federal
energy functions. The new Department was responsible for long-term,
high-risk research and development of energy technology, federal
power marketing, energy conservation, energy regulatory programs, a
central energy data collection and analysis program, and nuclear
weapons research, development and production.
When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the primary missions of
many former nuclear weapons production sites changed to environmental
remediation. In 1989, Energy Secretary James Watkins created the new
Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (later
renamed the
DOE Office of
Environmental Management) to mitigate risks and hazards
posed by legacy nuclear weapons production.
In 1994, DOE formed the
DOE Ohio Field Office,
the first multi-site field office in 30 years, to oversee five
project offices responsible for environmental remediation, waste
management, technology development and nuclear material/facility
stabilization. Four of the five DOE offices are located in Ohio: the
Fernald Closure Project, the Ashtabula Closure Project, the Columbus
Closure Project and the Mound Closure Project. The West Valley
Demonstration Project Office is located in New York.
The DOE-Fernald Closure Project Office is responsible for the
cleanup and final restoration of the 1,050-acre Fernald site and is
structured to support the major
cleanup projects. For
more information about the DOE-Fernald Closure Project, contact Sue Walpole, 513-648-4026, email:
Sue.Walpole@lm.doe.gov.
|
