Not a Patient Man. (May 2, 2009)

Matt Rogers, an energy expert with McKinsey & Company whom Steven Chu brought in in February to help speed the pace of Energy Department spending, told The New York Times at the time that it would be a mistake to dismiss Dr. Chu as just a science geek: “He is a kind man; he is a nice man, but he is not a patient man."

Now the next installment reported by Jeffrey Mervis in ScienceInsider:

Speaking today [May 1] before a friendly audience of science policy wonks, Energy Secretary Steven Chu railed against the conservative culture of the agency he runs and described his struggles to meet its mission of helping the country move to a less carbon-intensive economy.

[W]ith examples of how his reforms have encountered stiff opposition. He described a "cottage industry" that had sprung up around a DOE loan program in which consultants were charging $225,000 to help prepare an application because applicants weren't getting any help from DOE. After he suggested that "we help people by responding to their questions," Chu says, he was told that such assistance would be improper because it might put other applicants at a disadvantage. His reply was that "there are two ways to be fair. You can help no one, or you can help everyone. And then I said, consider the alternative." Told that the applications were running up to 1000 pages, he added dryly, "I think a 50-page limit is reasonable."

Chu also appealed for help from the audience. He said that DOE will need 300 to 400 reviewers in the next 6 months to handle the expected flood of grant applications triggered by DOE's share of the $787 billion stimulus package and the hike in its annual budget for 2009. "In my first week on the job, I asked for a list of reviewers in [programs that fund] photovoltaics and batteries, which are fields that I know something about. I hadn't heard of any of them. And that was a little bit frightening to me." He asked scientists to volunteer their time so that he could meet his goal of having "the very best reviewers in the country."