Sarah Herness
GHG Monitor
5/17/13
The Senate this week unanimously confirmed MIT physicist Ernest Moniz to serve as the next Secretary of Energy. The 97-0 vote came after Moniz’s nomination had been held up by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) over the Obama Administration’s plans to slow construction of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in his home state. Graham was among those, though, who ultimately voted to approve Moniz’s nomination, as was Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who sharply questioned Moniz on the facility during his April 12 confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Moniz will now officially replace Steven Chu, who stepped down as Energy Secretary last month. In the interim, DOE has been headed on an acting basis by Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Poneman. “My Senate colleagues recognize that Dr. Moniz is smart, he is savvy about how the Department of Energy operates because he has been there before, and he has a proven track record of collaboration, which is just what you need when you’re leading the Department of Energy,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement. “I look forward to working with him to address the hugely important issues facing the department: how to manage newly accessible reserves of natural gas, how to combat climate change, how to make our economy more efficient and how to clean up Hanford and other nuclear waste sites.” The committee’s ranking member, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said, “It is my hope that after his confirmation, Dr. Moniz will guide our nation’s energy policy as the respected scientist that he is: rigorously, robustly, free of preordained conclusions, and not afraid to speak up or speak his mind.”
