As though channeling Luis Tiant of his beloved Boston Red Sox, former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz turned away from Washington only briefly before coming back around full-tilt at the marble-pillared city he called home for more than three years as President Barack Obama’s last DOE chief.
In March, just months after Donald Trump was sworn into office and Moniz resigned his cabinet position, the M.I.T. physicist and Iran nuclear negotiator became chief executive officer of the D.C.-based Nuclear Threat Initiative: a nongovernmental organization dedicated to preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Still characteristically brimming with thoughts about the nonproliferation issues that won him renown during his time at DOE, Moniz spoke this week with NS&D Monitor’s Alissa Tabirian.
(Editor’s Note: the interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
What do you plan to focus on at NTI? Are there any new projects or initiatives you will actively pursue?
Big picture, as was always the plan, I will be splitting my time between nuclear and other threats — weapons of mass destruction, disruption, et cetera . . . and I will be spending some of my time on the clean energy, innovation, climate agenda. Next Monday, we will start a strategic planning process to really get lots of input from everyone here [at NTI]. Also, we’ll talk externally in terms of what new opportunities we might pursue in addition to the current agenda.
On the nuclear threat side there will be many things to look at. The whole issue of what do we do with Russia — and I don’t mean resolving all of the tensions with Russia. I mean even in the presence of those tensions, how do we advance the areas of mutual concern and mutual importance on nonproliferation? In the Iran [nuclear deal] negotiation, 2015 was well into our difficult relationship with Russia following the Ukraine incursion of 2014. And yet it was an extremely constructive — not always easy, but constructive — engagement.
I know Senator [Sam] Nunn, who is going to remain obviously engaged as a co-chair [at NTI] — we both feel that anything we can do to both improve the dialogue on these issues but also to try to stimulate specific practical projects that actually reduce threats is something that we will focus on. And NTI already, with a sister institution in Russia, has produced, for example, an agenda of about 50 projects we think could happen.
A second area, which is not an area that NTI has up to now been deeply engaged in, is the follow-on to the Iran agreement. Obviously, I’m certainly hoping that implementation and compliance continues to be successful, but then there are a lot of questions about “then what?” Looking at that, maybe in the broader context of nuclear fuel cycle questions and nonproliferation, is very important.
I certainly want to build on the initial work done on dirty bombs, especially the risks from cesium sources and blood irradiation. Pressing on that domestically, but also to a certain extent internationally, is something that we will continue. Another area being built up is on biological threats. A kind of a security index analogous to the nuclear security index is being worked on and will be coming out this year and probably a fuller version next year. In addition, I would certainly be interested in looking at whether there’s a major thrust we might make around questions of new technologies in this space and how they might amplify or create new concerns in terms of bio threats, things like CRISPR [a genome editing technology].
Another theme I am extremely interested in is building again on NTI’s background and strengths in the verification realm. A lot of key issues have verification there, or just below the surface, and we need to maybe bring it above the surface. Iran is an obvious case where I’ve always tried to stress to people that the verification measures are actually the most important part of the agreement, even though that’s not part of the customary public discussion. If we ever get to some kind of negotiation with North Korea, the verification issues are going to be absolutely critical and difficult. If we’re ever going to get to zero nuclear weapons sometime down the road, verification issues are going to be absolutely critical, so that’s a big theme that I would like to see amplified.
If you were to advise the current administration on a best first step to reestablish dialogue and initiate projects with Russia, what would you say needs to happen first?
What needs to happen first is you have to talk to each other. It’s difficult to do much without talking. In the Iran negotiation, we were able to do that because [Russian Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov was in the room fairly often. But with a dialogue, I’ll give you two examples that I think are important: one is restoring much stronger military-to-military discussions. I just cannot see how that is not in the best security interest of both countries. The whole idea is to avoid something bad happening, and I would say in the current situation, misunderstandings are even more likely than they were when relationships were stronger. Another very concrete area is, I don’t see why we would not engage actively right now in the very specific question of keeping nuclear materials away from something like ISIS, a declared enemy of both countries.
The Trump administration’s NNSA appointment process seems to be stuck. How does that compare to your experience in filling leadership roles at the agency, and at which point does it become detrimental to NNSA to not have leadership permanently in place?
It’s not just NNSA, I think it’s across the whole department. The [DOE] and other departments, from my observation, are really suffering from lack of a deeper team. Now at DOE, and NNSA specifically, I think they’re hurting. Although I would say they were probably relatively better than some other parts of the department because of the continuity of [NNSA Administrator] General [Frank] Klotz, so that makes a big difference.
Other parts of the [DOE], there’s no under secretary, there’s no deputy under secretary, there’s no head of the Office of Science, the energy programs have nobody in charge. The other thing is, even in positions that are not Senate-confirmed, I have not seen the appointments being made of the high-level senior advisors, a major group that you need around you. I just think it’s extremely hard to be effective and frankly, I think it shows.
What’s your biggest continuity concern in any part of the DOE?
My biggest continuity concern was in fact [over] nuclear weapons. I’m recused from discussions [with the Donald Trump administration] now, but I was not recused while I was still secretary and Governor [Rick] Perry was the nominee. We talked about that, and I certainly urged strong consideration about making sure General Klotz could stay on and that happened very late before the end of the [Barack Obama] administration. Having said that, the [DOE] has enormous energy responsibilities that need more people tending to them.
For example, we created the Energy Policy and Systems Analysis organization, which brought tremendous analytical support to me and to the administration in terms of energy. I double-hatted the director of that office, Melanie Kenderdine, as energy counselor to the secretary, so it was very clear that this was the senior adviser on energy policy issues, connected to the programs, and having an office of 75 to 80 people supporting her recommendations with strong analytical capacity.
That’s not there [now] — that’s my understanding at least. I think for Secretary Perry, it’s got to be difficult to get the consistent kind of high-level advice with analytical grounding that certainly I enjoyed.
Under the latest budget proposal from the White House, the NNSA would see quite a boost for weapons activities. What are your thoughts on that funding level, considering there have been ongoing calls for more money for deferred maintenance work?
I think the weapons program boost, particularly with the focus on maintenance and infrastructure, is certainly important. I make no bones about it that what I believe is the misnamed modernization program for DOE is absolutely essential. These facilities are just way too old. We just can’t keep living on 50-, 60-year-old investments in infrastructure for what is some pretty high-hazard work — [such as at] Y-12, Pantex, and the like.
When I started as secretary, I said the first thing is, we have a new budget principle: you cannot submit a budget that will increase by one dollar deferred maintenance, because what happens is the budget gets tight [and then] you defer maintenance because otherwise program would be hurt. Well program’s going to be hurt really bad if you keep deferring maintenance.
In NNSA, from what I’ve seen, I think the nuclear propulsion program for the Navy looks to be funded adequately to keep moving, especially towards the Columbia class submarine power plants. On nonproliferation, there was a $90 million reduction, but I do want to emphasize that $70 million of that was in the MOX program, so the remainder was pretty much flat-funded, which I think is quite viable for that program. And on the MOX, my position is well-known, and that has to be now resolved by the new administration and the Congress.
On the energy side, the budget to me is a non-starter. We and 21 other countries advocated a doubling of the energy innovation budget over a five-year period, so the factor two was supposed to be in the numerator, not in the denominator, and unfortunately that’s what the budget proposal does. I personally believe the Congress will not in any way go along with that.
We had bipartisan support for the innovation agenda. ARPA-E was a good example, and as you saw in the FY17 omnibus, rather than zero out ARPA-E, Congress gave it a 5-plus percent plus-up. And by the way, Secretary Perry early in March praised ARPA-E and I believe even recently he has basically said he doesn’t support the budget proposal. I think that’s going to play out in Congress and I expect the innovation agenda will be far better supported than the proposal that they are receiving.
So you support NNSA ending up with this proposed funding level?
I think there’s a lot of support for this, but I think the big issue for this is in the end, what is Congress going to do about the top lines of the budget? The FY17 omnibus did deferentially support the [defense] budget. We’ll see what happens here, but frankly I just don’t see how a $54 billion cut on the civilian side is going to survive. It shouldn’t survive as far as I’m concerned, I think it’s a bad idea. And then the question is, what are they going to do about top line?
In the MOX controversy, how can this administration get past the politicized nature of the issue?
First of all, the issue is plutonium disposition, and as far as I’m concerned, dilute and dispose is certainly a technically straight-forward way to go about it. I’ve always felt it is a perfectly good disposal option. I always said consistently, I do not have a principled opposition to MOX. MOX also would be a good disposal option, and some would argue it’s a better disposal option from the point of view of changing the isotopics of the plutonium. I think that’s way overblown in its importance, but fine.
But what I always said is, you cannot keep this project [MOX] going at $350 million [per year], because you’ll never finish it. And we always said, if you want to do MOX, you’ve got to find $800 million to $1 billion per year, and I don’t see how that money is going to be found. Certainly, the last few years have shown the money isn’t there.
I was very clear already two, three years ago, that it’s either $800 million for MOX to get finished, or it is something in that $300 million range for dilute and disposal, because that will get that job done. It’s still going to be a 20-year job, but we know we can do it, there’s essentially no technical risk, whereas MOX still has some technical challenges because it’s a much more difficult issue. I think it’s the same message — you’ve got to decide one way or the other, and it’s either $800 million at minimum for MOX, or you do terminate that and you go to the $300 million range for dilute and dispose.
Would you have any concerns about the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant holding the diluted plutonium MOX was supposed to process?
For WIPP to do the entire 34 tons, something new has to happen. That is, WIPP would not have the authorized capacity to handle that. . . Either it would be another panel gets authorized for WIPP, or it’s another repository which could be the same salt bed formation. It could be in Texas, it could be in New Mexico, et cetera, but the issue is, we know how to do it, it’s already been done. But something new would have to happen on the statutory or regulatory front.
What about the diplomatic aspect here with Russia and the bilateral Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement?
As far as I’m concerned, they’re out of the deal, so I would go ahead and get rid of our 34 metric tons of plutonium in any case. Let’s just do it. And frankly, I think in that situation, Russia would probably go ahead as well, especially because, I remind you, the United States already gave Russia an out. Russia recognized, just as we did, that MOX in thermal reactors was a very expensive proposition. Thermal reactors are not the most efficient producers or burners of plutonium. The difference is, Russia quite independent of that is building a fast reactor program, which is a much more efficient burner of plutonium.
We said ok, you can get out of the original commitment and go there. But we don’t have a fast reactor program, and when we evaluated the economics, we did look at the issue of, suppose we built fast reactors just for this purpose, and then the [overall] cost was the same, because of the cost of doing the fast reactors. It’s a very asymmetric situation, but Russia dropped out. So as far as I’m concerned, we should just go ahead.
