Really appreciate this write-up Charles! Saw a tweet from you early on with your time at DOE and have followed your journey, excited to see where the future is for you and look forward to continued writing!
Well written. I have some hope for a restructure, but I understand how limited the power of an agency head is over the whole system. I am hoping for a simpler regulatory system. I am nearing retirement and becoming very doubtful that we will ever get to a system that is reliable, long term and sensible. There are just too many actors. I think that Chris Wright has all the qualities we need, especially his communication and teaching abilities.
From my perspective of being DoD for 25 years, I could go on at length about certain issues you bring up, such as contracting. There is no one size fits all approach that solves all the problems, i'm afraid. And Congress trying to fix problems from their perch is laughable. I have never seen an action from Congress that didn't make the problem worse. That applies to most EOs also. Most staffers responding to data calls from Congress produce fluff. There are people within programs that do nothing but this. There are firewalls created between the actual doers and those who report to Congress, specifically constructed to arrive at the correct lawmaker responses while preserving the freedom to act on the part of the agency/program. Then you have Beltway bandits, those PhD types commissioned to write reports and act as executioners for programs. I've sat in those offices late at night discussing some program at length. This is where the intellectual window dressing is constructed to zero out specific programs.
I'm pretty positive you could solve a lot of this by simplifying government, but then less people would be employed and that dog would bark. So I expect things to continue like this, regardless of the current political climate.
certified GOAT
Really appreciate this write-up Charles! Saw a tweet from you early on with your time at DOE and have followed your journey, excited to see where the future is for you and look forward to continued writing!
How do you reconcile that Musk was apparently good at running companies with his decisions like firing everyone on probation?
Well written. I have some hope for a restructure, but I understand how limited the power of an agency head is over the whole system. I am hoping for a simpler regulatory system. I am nearing retirement and becoming very doubtful that we will ever get to a system that is reliable, long term and sensible. There are just too many actors. I think that Chris Wright has all the qualities we need, especially his communication and teaching abilities.
From my perspective of being DoD for 25 years, I could go on at length about certain issues you bring up, such as contracting. There is no one size fits all approach that solves all the problems, i'm afraid. And Congress trying to fix problems from their perch is laughable. I have never seen an action from Congress that didn't make the problem worse. That applies to most EOs also. Most staffers responding to data calls from Congress produce fluff. There are people within programs that do nothing but this. There are firewalls created between the actual doers and those who report to Congress, specifically constructed to arrive at the correct lawmaker responses while preserving the freedom to act on the part of the agency/program. Then you have Beltway bandits, those PhD types commissioned to write reports and act as executioners for programs. I've sat in those offices late at night discussing some program at length. This is where the intellectual window dressing is constructed to zero out specific programs.
I'm pretty positive you could solve a lot of this by simplifying government, but then less people would be employed and that dog would bark. So I expect things to continue like this, regardless of the current political climate.