Moniz clears first hurdle in Senate
Senate energy committee gives Ernest Moniz thumbs-up
By: Andrew Restuccia, POLITICO
April 19, 2013 05:19 AM EDT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Ernest Moniz has emerged as the anti-Chuck Hagel, easily passing his first Senate test and even winning support from conservative Republicans.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 21-1 Thursday morning to approve Moniz’s nomination for energy secretary.
Only one Republican, Sen. Tim Scott, voted against him. And his vote reflected broader frustration with President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget request, not Moniz’s record.
Obama’s decision to choose Moniz reflects a broader effort to find a political middle ground on energy policy after Republicans spent years battering outgoing Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
While Moniz has an academic background similar to Chu’s, his résumé differs in several important ways. Moniz is a seasoned veteran of Washington, having served as an undersecretary at the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, and he has testified before Congress more than nine times in the past decade.
Wyden has said Moniz could get a vote on the Senate floor this month, but his confirmation isn’t a slam-dunk yet.
Scott has threatened to place a hold on Moniz’s nomination over cuts proposed in Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget to a mixed oxide nuclear fuel facility in the Republican senator’s state of South Carolina.
The MOX project is part of a U.S.-Russia nuclear nonproliferation agreement to dispose of 34 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium by mixing it into uranium fuel pellets for commercial reactors. The project has been plagued by cost overruns.
Scott said after the vote Thursday that he has “no idea” whether he’ll put a hold on Moniz’s nomination in the full Senate.
Comments
Not so with the ultra-liberal politicians now controlling the New Mexico delegation and some of those from California. No wonder LLNL and LANL are in such deep budgetary trouble.
The loss of "St. Pete" as a powerfully, conservative Senator from NM has been particularly hard on Los Alamos. The best idea that Democrats in NM can come up with when money is short is to turn LANL into an 'environmental research park' and, perhaps, a 'renewable energy research Center of Excellence'. Quit pathetic, really. No wonder the NM economy has been in a deep recession for over a year! It now has the worst economy of ANY of the 50 states.
I'm surprised that the voters of NM aren't more up in arms about the loss of good jobs and good pay under the stewardship of this clueless crew in Washington DC.