Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will travel to Israel next month to discuss forming a joint “energy-water-food” agreement with the Jewish state.
“We are talking about getting a joint energy-water-food program going there,” the energy chief told House appropriators at a Tuesday hearing on the Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 Energy Department budget.
Moniz said he had met recently with senior Israeli officials and will travel to the country in April. He said the agreement is “just something we are tossing around,” and nothing has been finalized.
Moniz was a key architect of the Obama administration’s deal with Iran on rolling back that country’s nuclear ambitions. It was a deal that Israel vocally opposed. But Moniz did not raise those areas of concern in volunteering his travel plans, which came up during questioning on his agency’s budget for tackling the “energy-water nexus,” the link between water and energy production.
The energy-water-food program with Israel likely would tie in how energy can be produced while conserving water and how that correlates with food production. The program corresponds with President Obama’s ambitions to tackle climate change, which is a major focus of his final year’s spending request.
Although it is still in the discussion phase, Moniz said the partnership could be an interesting opportunity to pursue with Israel, which has experience in the area and “great technologies.”
