Publications: Dorothy Robyn

The chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, is using the crisis facing aerospace giant Boeing to press her case that “national champions” invariably behave badly because they are protected from competition. It is disappointing that Khan’s critique of Boeing reflects so little sectoral expertise and understanding of markets.

The number of competitors on individual routes has been going up, not down. Low-cost and ultra-low-cost carriers have grown at rates far exceeding those of the legacy network carriers. And airfares have continued to fall.

A group of House members, including defense appropriators, have questioned Pentagon spending on energy technology seen as “green,” including EVs, solar photovoltaics, and energy storage technology. But DOD is electrifying the battlefield not to be green, but to improve combat performance, which increasingly turns on technology that runs on electricity.

Using federal procurement to advance sustainable energy goals has had only limited success in the past. To break the pattern, the White House needs a plan that aligns with agency missions, is adequately funded, and fixes perverse budget and procurement rules.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) just approved plans to deploy a new delivery fleet consisting almost entirely of gasoline-powered trucks, even as Amazon, UPS and FedEx are going all-in on climate-friendly electric vehicles (EVs).

If in making its once-in-a-generation vehicle choice, USPS opts to forego the once-in-a-century innovation of electric vehicles and instead tie the agency to fossil fuel for the next 30 years, it would be a damaging lapse in a 230-year history of innovation.

As the owner of the country’s largest and most geographically distributed building portfolio, the federal government is uniquely positioned to address barriers to commercialization and deployment by serving as a test bed for and early adopter of next-generation building-energy technologies.

Presidential candidate Joe Biden regularly cited electrification of the federal government’s giant vehicle fleet as a concrete action he would take to move the country toward a clean energy economy. But an Obama-style executive order directing federal agencies to acquire EVs at some future date is not sufficient. The Biden administration needs a much more front-loaded, comprehensive and aggressive strategy.

The time is ripe for a serious reconsideration of the U.S. energy innovation system and the role of the federal government in it. An upcoming workshop series, sponsored by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s Board on Energy and Environmental Systems and open to the public, offers a valuable chance to think through many of the key questions.

In an article for Issues in Science and Technology, Dorothy Robyn and Jeffrey Marqusee explain how the Department of Defense’s research and innovation system is well-suited to advancing clean energy technologies in both the military and civilian sectors.