United States Senate

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Dear Senators,

Nominee Ernest Moniz’s stated positions on energy are in direct conflict with the mission of the Energy Department, which is to “ensure America’s security and prosperity.” He is an ideological appointee by President Obama and not aligned with current science or the needs of the nation.  He is not an appropriate nominee.

Last year President Obama’s nominee for Secretary of DOE, Ernest Moniz, told the Switch Energy Project that he supports a carbon price that would substantially increase (double or triple) energy costs due to the added cost for sequestration of carbon dioxide. However, scientific evidence for the need for sequestration of carbon dioxide is very weak and weakens more every day.  That evidence is based primarily on computer models which are failing to confirm that carbon dioxide is a trigger for significant warming.  On the contrary, real world evidence is confirming that carbon dioxide is not a controlling trigger for catastrophic warming.

“If we start really squeezing down on carbon dioxide over the next few decades, well, that could double; it could eventually triple…. I think inevitably if we squeeze down on carbon, we squeeze up on the cost, it brings along with it a push toward efficiency; it brings along with it a push towards clean technologies in a conventional pollution sense; it brings along with it a push towards security. Because after all, the security issues revolve around carbon-bearing fuels.” ~ Energy Secretary nominee Ernest Moniz, MIT professor.  (Video here: http://www.switchenergyproject.com/experts/Ernie-Moniz#/moniz-energy-expert-on-carbon-price )

Carbon dioxide concentration is continuing its long term increasing trend, but the global temperature trend has not increased as the alarmists predicted.  Mr. Moniz’s view is technically in conflict with MIT’s atmospheric physicist and Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology Professor Richard Lindzen, who has testified before multiple Congressional committees over many years that clouds and water vapor are the dominant greenhouse gas, not carbon dioxide.

Moniz is not an appropriate nominee to head DOE. Do not confirm this nominee.  The nation needs a Secretary who will direct resources to achieve lower cost energy and energy independence, as forecast by the National Intelligence Council (link below).  Carbon sequestration is a very expensive and unnecessary solution in search of a carbon dioxide problem that has not been shown to actually exist, though the federal government has spent billions of dollars on grants and programs attempting to show that carbon dioxide is a problem.  Moniz’s views align with those of outgoing Secretary Chu and President Obama’s, as well as the President’s nominee to head EPA, which have led to waste of billions of taxpayer dollars on bankrupt green energy technologies and companies.  Mr. Moniz’s views would support plunder of the public and treasury in support of regulations, taxes and schemes for trading carbon credits and derivatives which would enrich traders.      

The forecast “Global Trends 2030” by the US National Intelligence Council, predicts energy independence and surplus for the U.S.

“US Energy Independence:  With shale gas, the US will have sufficient natural gas to meet domestic needs and generate potential global exports for decades to come. Increased oil production from difficult-to-access oil deposits would result in a substantial reduction in the US net trade balance and faster economic expansion. Global spare capacity may exceed over 8 million barrels, at which point OPEC would lose price control and crude oil prices would collapse, causing a major negative impact on oil-export economies.” http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/GlobalTrends_2030.pdf

Instead of policies to enable the low energy costs we need to recover from our ongoing economic weakness, and energy independence we need for national security, Mr. Moniz’s policies would continue to suppress the hydrocarbon energy sector of our economy based on an unproven theory which requires new, expensive and unreliable green technologies which have not been able to show that they reduce global warming.  His policies would increase energy costs for Americans despite abundant U.S. hydrocarbon energy supplies and technologies which can be expected to reduce energy costs.     

Sincerely,

Clare Livingston Bromley, III