The Nuclear Threat Initiative has named former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz its new chief executive officer and co-chairman of its Board of Directors. Moniz, a Ph.D. physicist, served under the Barack Obama administration as head of the Department of Energy from 2013 to 2017.
He left his position upon the inauguration of President Donald Trump; former Texas Governor Rick Perry now leads the department.
Moniz is scheduled to take over on June 1 at NTI, a Washington, D.C.-based nongovernmental organization dedicated to preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
“Among many other accomplishments, he played a pivotal role in the successful conclusion of the Iran [nuclear] agreement. Ernie is an outstanding leader and a brilliant thinker, who is respected around the globe,” NTI co-chairman and outgoing CEO Sam Nunn, the former Georgia senator who helped launch the Cooperative Threat Reduction program that helped secure Russian nuclear weapons and materials after the fall of the Soviet Union, said in a statement.
Moniz also served during the Clinton administration as undersecretary of energy, where he “led a comprehensive review of nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship, and served as the Secretary of Energy’s special negotiator for the disposition of Russian nuclear materials,” NTI said in a press release.
As energy secretary, Moniz oversaw DOE’s $30 billion annual budget, close to half of which went to the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which is tasked with ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Moniz highlighted the Energy Department’s achievements in an exit memo at the beginning of the year. “Over the past eight years we have continued to maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent without nuclear explosive testing because of our innovative science-based stockpile stewardship program,” he said. “Together with international partners, we have completed removals or disposition of more than 4,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium from 16 countries plus Taiwan – more than enough material for 160 nuclear weapons.”
Moniz said at the time that the new administration should focus on continued investments into nuclear stockpile stewardship and weapons life-extension programs.
Since leaving DOE, Moniz has also become a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Nunn and Ted Turner will remain as NTI co-chairmen alongside Moniz.
