7:06 p.m. | See addendum for sample of Twitter commentary |
President Obama’s choices for his next energy secretary and Environmental Protection Agency administrator are, like so many of his actions, unsurprising and practical.
Click the links on the names to learn as much as you care to about Gina McCarthy, a seasoned environmental regulator, already at the E.P.A., and Ernest J. Moniz, an equally seasoned analyst of energy engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Moniz is already taking heat from some environmental campaigners for his work directing the M.I.T. Energy Initiative, which — like many university energy and climate research hubs — receives ample funding from industries selling or dependent on fossil fuels. Among other things, he is a proponent of gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. I’ve come to know Moniz over years of contact as a reliable, transparent and data-driven researcher and think he’ll do well in this position. (I still think Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, would have done well, too.)
Over all, Obama’s choices reflect his longstanding pattern of charting a pragmatic path reflecting the need for strong regulation, including of greenhouse gases (embodied in McCarthy), and the simultaneous need to advance responsible use of cleaner fossil fuels while also using policies and investments to advance non-polluting energy technologies for the long haul.
If Republicans in Congress allow McCarthy to take her seat [interesting context here], her presence could help insure that the president recognizes that his “all of the above” energy plan only works with a strong dose of policy and regulation — particularly as hydraulic fracturing expands access to both gas and oil.
7:06 p.m. |Update
Here’s a sample of Twitter commentary on the nominees: