The Department of Energy spends $29 billion per year on various schemes with a disastrous track record, often with bipartisan support. From regulations that destabilize markets, decrease domestic output and harm consumers, to subsidies that pick and choose winners and losers, this department is a perfect example of a white elephant – an expensive project of little to no useful purpose.
Solyndra is the best example of such waste. The solar panel company received a $535 million loan before filing for bankruptcy in 2011. The federal government will likely recover just $27 million from that loan.
The department can be abolished by relegating security and clean‐up‐related tasks to the EPA or the Department of Defense and by returning research functions to the private sector. In all, abolishing the Department of Energy would save taxpayers about $7 billion a year. To that end we’ve created a short video which makes these and other points, which you can watch below.