The Senate has unanimously confirmed a former member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to head the Department of Energy.
Ernest Moniz will take the position vacated by Steven Chu and lead the agency charged with overseeing a broad range of energy and nuclear cleanup initiatives.
The U.S. nuclear industry's main trade group congratulated Moniz on his appointment Thursday, encouraging him to continue support for small modular reactor research and the MOX fabrication plant at the Savannah River Site. Nuclear Energy Institute CEO Marvin Fertel also urged him to resume licensing for the Yucca Mountain repository for spent nuclear fuel.
"Having served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, Dr. Moniz has a clear sense of the course our nation should take to safely, securely and successfully manage commercial used nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste from U.S. defense programs over the medium and long terms. This includes development of a repository for long-term disposal," Fertel said.
Moniz is a professor of physics and engineering systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to his Blue Ribbon Commission biography, he has been on the MIT faculty since 1973 and served as a DOE undersecretary from 1997 until early 2001.