Ernest Moniz quietly takes key role for Obama

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has quietly become a top player on President Obama’s team — both on energy issues and foreign policy. Moniz was the Obama administration’s nuclear expert during negotiations on the Iran deal, a cornerstone of the president’s second-term foreign policy.

As Energy secretary, Moniz is responsible for the nation’s nuclear labs and weapons. He was the official primarily responsible for making sure the final deal with Iran was scientifically sound and would truly hobble the country’s nuclear weapons program for the long term.

{mosads}Moniz, 71, is a Massachusetts native and has taught physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1973 except for the six years he worked for Bill Clinton’s administration. His most defining feature to many is his silver, angular hairstyle, which has been the subject of late-night talk show jokes and even has its own Facebook page. 

Moniz leads the federal government’s energy policy and is aiding Obama’s drive to move the country toward clean, low-carbon energy sources.

In an interview with The Hill, he talked about why he cares about energy research and development, the impact of the Iran deal and more, including the criticism surrounding Energy Department loan programs and the $536 million loan guarantee given to solar power technology company Solyndra Corp., which went bankrupt in 2011.

The interview has been edited for clarity, style and length.

Why are you so passionate about research and development funding for clean energy, and why is that so central to what the administration is trying to accomplish with its climate agenda?

Without research and development and new technologies … we’re not going to be able to progress to meet our goals, in terms of the economy and the climate.

[The Paris climate agreement] was a big success. But we also recognize that the goals set in Paris by the various countries together will not get us across the finish line.

The hope is that innovation keeps driving costs down. Innovation, combined with more deployment, together, drives costs down. And that, then, provides the foundation for increased ambition. So I think it’s very, very central to the climate issue.

Among the American people, what’s the least understood aspect of what you do?

One of the things that’s really important — and it’s a lot of time, though time well invested — is a lot of relationships, whether it’s in the international sphere or working with Congress, the White House, other agencies. A lot of it is listening and building relationships of trust. Otherwise it would take you more time to get things done in the end, if you haven’t made the investments. And I think that’s the way government should work.

The Energy Department’s loan programs generally, and Solyndra specifically, have taken an outsize role in the public conscience when it comes to this administration’s legacy on clean energy. Is that reasonable?

I think the Solyndra issue is largely in the past. We took the offense more than the defense, in a certain sense, because the program overall has been a tremendous success. It’s still a 2 to 2.5 percent failure rate.

It’s pretty rare now when Solyndra is invoked again. And frankly, appreciation of the program has grown pretty dramatically, given some pretty evident successes. You always take chances, and we still have some failures. That’s the way it goes. But overall, as a portfolio, it’s been awfully good. The defaults have been something like, I won’t get the exact number, but $700 million, $750 million maybe. And, by the way, Solyndra is most of that. The other defaults have been much smaller.

On the Iran deal, will there be some point when you will tell congressional Republicans and other naysayers “I told you so”?

I don’t ever plan to say “I told you so.” But so far, so good, in terms of the implementation.

And secondly, at least according to the press, the [Iranian] election outcome was probably helped by the deal. But again, making it very clear, we did a deal on nuclear weapons. It’s based on verification. If it ends up, over time, improving the relationship with Iran, with its neighbors and with the United States, that will be a great outcome. That’s not what the negotiation was.

In my view, if — and I expected it will — it prevents any nuclear weapon program for quite a long time — a very long time, basically forever, because of the strong verification we have — the deal is a success. And we have to handle our other problems with Iran as they arise. Again, if those problems are mitigated, so much the better.

What’s left on your plate before Obama leaves office?

We want to keep working. Clearly, the innovation agenda is very important. We’ll keep working with Congress on that, as well as our international partners.

We just came off of a trilateral energy meeting, U.S., Canada and  Mexico. Building that trilateral energy relationship is going to be one of important areas this year.

We’re going to keep working on our nuclear security issues. On science, we’re going to continue the systematic program of operating and building new frontier research facilities. We’ve got plenty to do.

Some other members of the Cabinet have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Who did you vote for in the Massachusetts primary?

I’m not going to talk about politics.

What should be on the next president’s energy agenda?

A continuation of this president’s energy agenda.

I think the innovation agenda, number one, has got to continue to be built. Number two, clearly, continue to implement the various rules and regulatory approaches that have been started: the Clean Power Plan, efficiency rules, etc.

Number three, whoever the president is, return to the dialogue with Congress, because we have to move at some point, in my view, to a statutory, economywide approach to climate.

President Obama, in his Climate Action Plan presentation in 2013, was very clear. He said, “Look, we’d like to work with Congress on this. But if Congress doesn’t want to work on this, we can’t wait, so we’ll go forward with our existing authorities and do it kind of sector by sector: Clean Power Plan for power plants, efficiency rules for appliances, [fuel efficiency] standards for light vehicles and heavy trucks, etc.”

It’s a strong program, but in the end you’d like to have, frankly, a nice, simple, elegant, economywide approach. And that will require legislation.