Ernest Moniz confirmed as DOE secretary

Christian Science Monitor : On Thursday the US Senate unanimously confirmed nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz as the head of the Department of Energy. Moniz was serving as director of the Energy Initiative at MIT and on President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He had previously served in the Clinton administration as an undersecretary at DOE. His experience in government counters some of the criticism leveled at outgoing secretary Steven Chu. In his confirmation hearing, Moniz indicated his support for Obama’s “all-of-the-above” approach to energy independence and said that R&D is key for developing a clean-energy industry. However, he has received some criticism from environmentalists for his support of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and natural gas.