AT FIRST SECRETARY ADVISORY BOARD MEETING, MONIZ LAYS OUT PRIORITIES

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz kicked off his first Secretary of Energy Advisory Board meeting Friday, naming nuclear security, stockpile stewardship and environmental cleanup among the topics he would welcome Board input on. Stockpile stewardship will present a challenge, Moniz said. “The stockpile must remain safe and reliable even as it is drawn down, if in fact it is to be drawn down in the realities of the discussion,” he said, adding, “We have a rather detailed plan worked out with the Department of Defense embodying the Nuclear Posture Review. That is again an area where we know that we have some real challenges and could be an interesting area for SEAB to look at.” Moniz also emphasized the Department’s work securing vulnerable material around the world as part of presidential priorities. With regards to the national laboratories, Moniz said that the nuclear security laboratories raise some specific issues, “including process issues, in terms of how the laboratories can contract and work with the broader security community.”

While Moniz said the SEAB likely will not look at specific projects in the Office of Environmental Management, he said that it may look holistically at the decades-long cleanup effort. “That begs the questions of what might be an effective science and technology agenda, not only for advancing those projects specifically, but things like defining long-term risk profiles and understanding how one completes that,” he said. SEAB is comprised of 19 representatives from a mix of industry, academia and think tanks, and was formed to provide advice and recommendations to the DOE secretary. SEAB will meet quarterly for the rest of Moniz’s tenure. “We’ll alternate those between D.C. and one of our national laboratories,” Moniz said.