Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said Friday that energy security became a top issue for the Energy Department over the last three years, driven primarily by Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine, even as the Obama administration was increasingly focused on climate change.
Moniz discussed the increasing role of energy security at the agency at an awards ceremony named after the nation’s first energy secretary, James Schlesinger, under former President Jimmy Carter. The award was named the James R. Schlesinger Medal for Energy Security.
“The beginning of 2014, one may remember, was the beginning of … the Russia-Ukraine troubles,” Moniz said in giving opening remarks. “That gave a big spur to a new look at energy security and energy security principles, particularly driven by natural gas issues in Europe.”
There was an increased call for expediting the Energy Department’s approval of U.S. natural gas exports to European allies as a deterrent to dependence on natural gas from Russia in response to its aggressive actions in Ukraine after invading Crimea.
There was, and still is, a fear that Russia would use Europe’s dependence on Russian natural gas as a weapon if Western Europe sought to stop its aggressive military agenda. At the same time, the U.S. has become one of the largest producers of natural gas in the world because of fracking, with the industry moving aggressively to build export terminals to begin shipping the fuel to markets abroad.
It caused the Group of Seven industrialized nations, or G-7, and the European Union “to really take a new look at energy security principles,” Moniz said.
The Energy Department was created in response to the Middle East oil embargoes of the 1970s and supports a 40-year old strategic oil reserve to guard the U.S. against supply shortages. It also set up a synthetic fuels company to turn coal into oil, while directing the nation’s utilities to switch from using oil to produce electricity to using coal.
Moniz sent an “exit memo” last week to President Obama that emphasized the need for continued work on energy security, especially in working with the G-7 on a strategic energy security policy.
“Expanded work with our G-7 partners and the EU to establish a new collective energy security framework, to continue shaping an emerging global natural gas market,” the memo recommended. It also calls for updating “U.S. energy infrastructure across all sectors to allow for clean and reliable energy delivery, resilience of the entire system, and the creation of new energy construction and operating jobs across the country,” according to the memo.
It also calls for the “continued diversification” of the nation’s energy supplies for both fueling the “American economy and for global energy markets,” while “enhancing energy security of our allies and trading partners around the globe and economic returns to the U.S. economy.” Another top priority should be guarding the electricity grid and other energy infrastructure from hacking attacks.
The exit memo combined climate change with energy security, saying emergency-response practices need to be in place to respond to both more extreme weather as well as cyberattacks.
“Whether it is extreme weather from climate change, cybersecurity attacks on our electricity grid, crumbling energy infrastructure in need of modernization, or potential energy shortages originating in unstable regions of the world, threats against America’s energy and economic security are rapidly evolving,” the memo stated in the energy security section. “The answer is to build reliable, resilient energy systems.”
Moniz recommended last week in a major quadrennial energy report that Congress give the Energy Department a new national security role in its capacity to protect the electric grid from attack. “The increased digitization of the electricity sector brings multiple consumer and system benefits, and creates new and more severe vulnerabilities to cyberattacks,” the report said.
