According to Utility Dive, a damning October report from three former Department of Energy staffers reveals the Biden administration’s implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was severely hampered by bureaucratic dysfunction. The authors—Ramsey Fahs, Louise White, and Alan Propp, who all left DOE in January—interviewed more than 80 political appointees and career staff who described “way, way too many cooks in the kitchen” at the White House. Programs tried to satisfy multiple conflicting aims simultaneously like decarbonization, onshoring, labor requirements, and equity, which blurred mandates and slowed action to a crawl. The slow rollout meant the administration’s political theory that clean energy economic benefits would create a durable bipartisan coalition was never truly tested, allowing the Trump administration to claw back much of the funding. Interviewees specifically cited impractical “Made in America” requirements for every component and union labor mandates for transmission projects where union labor didn’t even exist as major bottlenecks.
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The Bureaucratic Perfect Storm
Here’s the thing about massive government initiatives: they often collapse under their own weight. This report paints a picture of an administration that tried to do everything at once—decarbonize, reshore manufacturing, promote labor, advance equity—and ended up doing nothing particularly well. When you’ve got that many competing priorities, nobody can make a clear decision. And that’s exactly what happened.
The “too many cooks” problem isn’t just a metaphor—it’s a structural failure. Without clear hierarchy for decision-making, every minor choice becomes a committee meeting. Every component requirement becomes a philosophical debate. The report quotes one interviewee who nailed it: “People overestimated the risk of action and greatly underestimated the risk of inaction.” Basically, they were so afraid of making another Solyndra-style mistake that they made the bigger mistake of not moving fast enough.
The Ghost of Solyndra Still Haunts DOE
Remember Solyndra? That 2011 solar company failure that cost taxpayers $535 million? Apparently, that scar tissue never fully healed. The report says the “specter of Solyndra” created a culture where there were “50 different ways to kill a project and not many ways to see it through.” That’s thirteen years of bureaucratic trauma still shaping decisions today.
But here’s the fascinating part: the Loan Programs Office—the very office that made the original Solyndra loan—actually had a more sophisticated approach to risk than other DOE offices. They’d learned their lesson and built better systems. Meanwhile, other departments were still paralyzed by fear of being the next headline. It’s a classic case of institutional memory working both ways—some learn and adapt, while others just become permanently cautious.
So What Actually Needs to Change?
The report isn’t just criticism—it offers solutions for any future administration serious about clean energy deployment. They recommend focusing on near-term direction and accountability, creating a culture of “speed and decisiveness,” and establishing more efficient award processes. In other words: stop trying to solve every social problem with every energy project, make clear decisions faster, and accept that some risk is necessary.
Look, the full report makes it clear this isn’t about partisan politics—it’s about execution. The IRA represented arguably the most significant climate legislation in U.S. history, but legislation alone doesn’t build anything. Implementation does. And when implementation gets bogged down in competing mandates and risk aversion, the political window for action can close before the benefits materialize. Which is exactly what we’re seeing now with funding being clawed back.
The real tragedy? We may never know if the administration’s core theory was right—that clean energy economic benefits could create lasting bipartisan support. The programs moved too slowly to build that coalition before the political winds shifted. Sometimes the biggest risk isn’t moving too fast—it’s moving too slow.
