About the Energy Information Administration - EIA's Strategic Plan
Energy Information Administration logo... Strategic Plan

This strategic plan replaces the one EIA created in September 1997. It reflects the changing environment in which EIA operates and sets a clear direction for EIA as an Internet-focused energy information provider.  Our complete Strategic Plan is located at ftp://ftp.eia.doe.gov/pub/pdf/other.docs/s_pln00.pdf . It has a description of the changing political, economic, social, and technological environment in which we set our goals as well as specific objectives to be achieved by 2005 and the measures we are using to know how well we are progressing to meet our objectives. Please provide any comments to EIA at stratplan@eia.doe.gov.

EIA Mission:

"EIA is a leader in providing high quality, policy-independent energy information to meet the requirements of Government, industry, and the public in a manner that promotes sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding."

EIA Strategic Goals:

EIA's sole purpose is to provide reliable and unbiased energy information. In recent years, we have been challenged to maintain the accuracy and consistency of our data as parts of the energy sector have undergone profound changes. At the same time, customer demand has grown dramatically because of our presence on the Internet and increased media use of our data. To meet these continuing challenges while maintaining our basic services, our strategic goals through 2005 are:

  1. All EIA data series will be accurate and consistent with industry structures.
  2. EIA information will be easy to access, understand and use.
  3. EIA will remain the public source of a broad spectrum of high-quality energy information.

We expect EIA resources to remain constrained for the foreseeable future and we will allocate them according to the strategic priorities in Table ES 1. To free resources for meeting our strategic goals, over the next five years we will phase-down the number of publications and the number of custom information products for private sector customers, and we will not start new types of data collection or analysis programs, except for further development of our international models or redesign of existing surveys.

Table ES 1. EIA Strategic Priorities (2000-2005)

High Priority Activities

Low Priority Activities
  • Keeping all EIA data accurate and consistent with changing industry structures
  • Producing comprehensive, integrated data series across fuels and end-uses
  • Providing consistent, easily-accessible information to the general public via Internet
  • Providing custom information to Federal policymakers
  • Providing cogent, impartial analyses of important topics of broad interest
  • Maintaining short & mid-term models for analysis
  • Preserving traditional publication formats and associated hard copy products
  • Creating new, custom information (e.g., special model runs, analyses, data products) for private sector customers
  • Starting new data series or analysis programs (e.g., sub-State data) - except for international modeling and redesign of existing surveys to reflect industry changes

 

Strategies:

We will follow three basic strategies to achieve our mission and strategic goals:

1. We will set improving the accuracy and consistency of EIA data series as our highest priority:

We will continue to address data anomalies in all our surveys. In the near term, we will redesign electricity and natural gas surveys to reflect industry changes and redesign the household and commercial buildings consumption surveys based on the 2000 Census. We will use new survey methods and technology to ease respondent reporting, work with respondents to facilitate reporting and enforce non-reporting sanctions to assure high response rates for all surveys, implement a centralized database to keep frames current and monitor data sharing activities for surveys with confidentiality protection.

2. We will become more "information-centered":

To help customers find, understand and use our information, we will utilize expanding Internet capabilities and other innovative media. Our aim is to present a seamless view of EIA to customers so they won't need to be familiar with EIA publications, structures or people to find the information they want (called "information-centered.") Over the next few years, we will transition to fewer publications (e.g., Monthly Energy Review, Annual Energy Review, Annual Energy Outlook), increase our use of customer feedback information (including usage statistics), improve information access with an EIA-wide information storage and retrieval system and use new techniques to combine and present information.

3. We will continue to produce comprehensive, high-quality energy information:

While we are improving data accuracy and customer access, we will still provide comprehensive information (data, analyses and forecasts) for all energy types (petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, nuclear, renewables), stages (production, conversion, distribution, supply, consumption, price) and impacts (technical, economic and environmental). We will develop an international modeling capability to assess the impacts of global policies on energy and the environment in the United States. We will continue to serve Federal policymaker customers with proactive briefings, testimony and custom information on topical issues that we will release to all customers via Internet.

Performance Measures:

We will gauge our strategic performance using the measures in Table ES 2. The quantitative mission outcome measures shown are actually output measures that serve as useful proxies for outcomes. We will continue to track anecdotal evidence of EIA mission outcomes (through customer comments and other information) and will perform a regular qualitative assessment of the effect an EIA product had on sound Federal policymaking, efficient markets and public understanding.

Table ES 2  EIA Strategic Performance Measures
Mission Outcomes Performance Measures

1999 Value

Future Targets
2001 2003 2005
Sound Policymaking Number of information products for Federal policymakers per year (includes briefings, testimony, reports) 65 65 65 65
Efficient Markets

For both outcomes:

 Total Web site visits per year 2M 3M 4M 5M
Public Understanding Media citations per year (total/major) 3200/73 3500/80 3800/90 4000/10
Strategic Goals
1. All EIA data series will be accurate and consistent with industry structures Percent of EIA surveys meeting their response rate targets * TBD Ramp Up Ramp Up 100%
Percent of EIA surveys meeting their coverage targets * TBD Ramp Up Ramp Up 100%
Percent of customers satisfied or very satisfied with EIA data series' accuracy and consistency with industry structures 91% 94% 97% 99%
2. EIA information will be easy to access, understand and use. Percent of customers satisfied or very satisfied with ease of getting and using EIA information from the Website 91% 94% 97% 99%
3. EIA will remain the public source of a broad spectrum of high-quality energy information Percent of customers satisfied or very satisfied with overall quality of EIA information 88% 92% 96% 99%
Percent of customers satisfied or very satisfied with comprehensiveness of EIA information 92% 94% 97%  
Percent of customers satisfied or very satisfied with EIA customer service 99% 99% 99% 99%
* Standards to be developed

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