When national laboratories or outside organizations create an Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)-branded publication, they are required to add a publication acknowledgement statement and a legal disclaimer. They may be allowed to add laboratory or contractor attribution statements, depending on the nature of the publication.

PUBLICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENT STATEMENTS

All EERE-funded reports are required to include an attribution to the sponsoring program at the program or subprogram level, outlined in page 3 of DOE Order 241.1B Chg 1 (Admin Chg), Scientific and Technical Information Management.  

This means that articles or reports funded by EERE through a financial assistance award (such as a grant or cooperative agreement) must include the following language in the "Acknowledgements" section at the beginning of the publication:  

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) under the [enter program and initiative name (if applicable)] award number(s) [Enter the number(s)].

If the work was supported by funding at a national laboratory, the acknowledgement might look like this:

This material is based upon work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), specifically the [insert the sponsoring  technology office,  program or initiative] [optional: under contract number XXXXXX].

PUBLICATION LEGAL DISCLAIMER STATEMENTS

Articles or reports funded by EERE through a financial assistance award or at a national laboratory are also required to include a legal disclaimer as follows:

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government.  Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of its employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.  Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof.  The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. 

Recipients should make every effort to include the full legal disclaimer. However, in the event that recipients are constrained by formatting and/or page limitations set by the publisher, the following abridged legal disclaimer is an acceptable alternative:

The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy or the United States Government. 

LABORATORY OR CONTRACTOR ATTRIBUTIONS

Often, contractors or national laboratories will produce a publication for EERE. If the document references their work, the contractor or lab may be allowed to include an attribution statement. They may not include attributions on EERE publications that do not reference their work. The organization funding the publication will make the decision about attributions in the final document.

There may be exceptions to this, such as when it would be beneficial to add an attribution statement for communications or educational reasons. All exceptions must be approved by Scott Minos.

Below are two examples of an approved laboratory or contractor attribution statement:

Example 1:

Prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and produced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), both national laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Example 2:

Produced for the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Third Party Publication Numbers

When publishing EERE-branded publications at a national laboratory, use the lab publication number. If a DOE employee, contractor, or someone not at a lab is producing an EERE publication, request a publication number from Ken Sobczak in the DOE headquarters print shop.