Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
4/19/13
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee easily approved Ernest Moniz’s nomination for Secretary of Energy April 18, nine days after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor’s confirmation hearing. As expected, Moniz’s nomination sailed through the committee 21-1. Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) was the only member to vote against the nomination. Last week Scott tried to corner Moniz about proposed cuts to the Department of Energy’s budget for the MOX nuclear fuel facility in South Carolina. Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he is aiming to bring Moniz’s nomination to the full Senate floor before the next recess, scheduled to begin April 29. “I’m very hopeful that he’ll be confirmed quickly, and I’ll do everything I can to get him in place,” Wyden told reporters following the hearing.
Wyden said the “resounding” level of support for Moniz—among senators who have been wildly divided on many of the Obama Administration’s other high-level nominees—is notable. “Dr. Moniz could become the first Secretary of Energy who instead of having to confront energy shortages and scarcity, would oversee an era of abundant, carbon-reducing natural gas and dramatic growth of renewable energy technologies,” Wyden said ahead of the vote. “Dr. Moniz is going to face new environmental and other chances from the shale revolution, but in most respects this is a good problem for our country to have, both from an economic and environmental standpoint.”
Largely Uncontroversial Nominee
The outcome of the Committee vote did not come as a surprise given that Moniz received few pointed questions from its members during his April 9 confirmation hearing. There, Moniz spoke repeatedly about his support of carbon capture and storage, vowing to focus on reducing the cost of capture through additional R&D work and winning public support of CO2 sequestration by proving its safety via long-term storage and monitoring projects if confirmed. “We see coal as being a continuing, major part of the energy supply in the United States, and certainly in the world. We do think that as we go to a low-carbon economy, we really have to push hard on completing the investments that have been made—nearly $6 billion—on establishing CCS as a viable and cost-competitive approach,” Moniz said April 9. He also spoke in favor on natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to a low carbon economy and underscored his desire to create an Administration-wide Quadrennial Energy Review during his confirmation hearing.
President Obama tapped Moniz, a nuclear physicist who currently serves as director of MIT’s Energy Initiative, last month to replace the outgoing Steven Chu, who announced earlier this spring that he plans to return to Stanford University once a successor is confirmed. Moniz quickly won backing from respected voices on energy like former Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft—both of whom testified in support of the nominee during his confirmation hearing last week—due to his combination of both scientific credentials and political experience. Moniz served as Under Secretary of Energy during the latter years of the Clinton Administration and also worked as Associate Director for Science in President Clinton’s Office of Science and Technology. More recently, Moniz has served as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, as well as the government’s Blue Ribbon Commission to study nuclear waste storage.
