Authorization bill targets DoD energy usage - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Authorization bill targets DoD energy usage

Stronger leadership, better accounting, and more money are the main drivers in the House’s latest attempt to help the Pentagon improve how it manages and conserves energy.

Provisions in the House version of the 2009 defense authorization bill, which cleared the House Armed Services Committee on May 15, would:

• Create a Senate-confirmed presidential appointee position to oversee energy plans and programs within the Pentagon.

• Require the Pentagon within three years to consider the full cost of fuel requirements — what it takes to acquire, deliver and protect fuel supplies — when planning military operations and designing and buying combat systems.

• Provide $80 million for energy conservation programs at installations and facilities in fiscal 2009, up from $70 million this year.

“The provisions are all intended to help the department meet its energy goals,” said a committee staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon needs the help, according to recent reports by the Defense Science Board and the Government Accountability Office, which agreed that the Pentagon lacks leadership in curbing usage.

The military is the largest single energy user in the country, accounting for about 1 percent of total U.S. energy consumption and 78 percent of the federal government’s energy use.

The Defense Science Board in February said decisions that affect energy demand are scattered throughout the Defense Department, with little oversight or accountability.

The following month, the Government Accountability Office recommended that the Pentagon designate someone to oversee mobility energy issues and develop a plan for reducing consumption in the department’s fleet, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of the military’s total energy consumption.

In response, the House bill would create a director of operational energy plans and programs to oversee all aspects of the department’s energy requirements. Currently, the lowest official who has oversight of all of the department’s various operational energy requirements is the deputy secretary of defense.

In addition, senior energy officials would be established within each service to lead their respective agencies.

The second proposal in the House bill would require the Pentagon to use the full cost of fuel when making planning, operational and procurement decisions. This was one of the key recommendations from the Defense Science Board’s report.

The Pentagon does not view fuel costs in such a comprehensive way, which suggests there is a huge hidden cost to military operations and weapons programs.

For example, the full cost of transporting, storing and delivering fuel to battle begins at about $15 per gallon, not including the cost of protecting convoys that supply the fuel. Delivering fuel to an aircraft in flight costs about $42 per gallon, when accounting for the costs to maintain fleets of aerial tankers, according to the board’s report.

Yet in its typical calculations, the department considers only actual fuel cost — say, $2.50 a gallon. Failing to consider the full costs of fuel makes it appear that investing in technologies that could reduce fuel demand are not cost-effective, the board said.

“We do not design our equipment for how much it’s going to cost us, and we can do a better job of that,” James Schlesinger, co-chairman of the DSB task force that wrote the report, said in March.

The Pentagon already is taking steps in this direction. In April, it issued a policy requiring such an analysis when making acquisition decisions for all tactical systems.

The House bill also provides the Pentagon with its full funding request of $80 million for renewable energy and energy conservation projects at defense installations and facilities.

The money would fund projects such as solar and wind farms that are designed to help cut the military’s energy consumption.