The Department of Energy (DOE) has informed its employees that documents utilized by its Office of General Counsel (DOGE) in evaluating the agency’s grants and contracts should be marked with “legal privilege.” This designation aims to shield these documents from being disclosed through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The DOGE has provided the agency with spreadsheets that must be filled out by agency officials to identify grants and contracts that may be marked for termination or renegotiation. In a memo sent on March 17, the department’s acting general counsel, David R. Taggart, detailed the DOE’s procedures related to DOGE. This memo was obtained by Axios.
The memorandum instructs political appointees to assess whether grants and contracts are “efficient” or “consistent with DOE policies and priorities.”
Taggart advised agency officials to be concise and uniform when completing the spreadsheets, emphasizing the importance of consistency due to the “heavy litigation environment” linked to DOGE-related department cuts.
The memo indicates that very few areas within the DOE are likely to be exempt. This includes the department’s national laboratory system, as each laboratory is managed by private companies under contract.
Standard contracts within the DOE include provisions that permit the department to terminate an award if it “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
Additionally, the memo offers some insight into how DOGE cuts might be implemented, suggesting there may be limited scrutiny once the spreadsheets are finalized within DOE offices.
Officials are encouraged to provide detailed evaluations because grouping awards into broader categories could potentially miss differences between the contracts and grants, leading to the termination of effective agreements or the retention of inefficient ones.
