Public value mapping to assess and guide governmental investments in energy and environmental justice: Studying the United States Department of Energy

If the U.S. federal government is going to successfully advance the causes of energy and environmental justice (EEJ) as recent policy has pushed for, how might federal programs and investments be assessed through the lens of these values beyond standard econometric ones? Federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) play a significant role in setting long-term strategies and investments for energy technologies, but they generally use technocentric approaches and metrics, such as reductions in levelized cost of energy, to evaluate success. Understanding strategies and investments across a portfolio through the lens of EEJ requires novel approaches. We deploy a first-of-its-kind public value mapping focused how past programs in the DOE Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) align with EEJ. By analyzing several thousand pages of congressional statutes, documented administration policies and executive orders, agency and office reports and publications, and semistructured interviews of DOE staff and project collaborators, we focus on evaluating research, development, deployment, and commercialization activities promoting legacy (hydropower) and emerging (marine hydrokinetic) renewable energy technologies through the lens of EEJ. Our results provide a baseline according to which future programmatic efforts promoting EEJ in WPTO, DOE as a whole, and beyond can be compared. Our work provides a foundation for tools and processes that can be embedded into day-to-day staff actions that can guide federal investments related to EEJ and push for a more just and sustainable future.