Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is Headliners speaker, June 21

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz plans to propose ways to maintain America’s innovation leadership in energy at a National Press Club Headliners Newsmaker press event at 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 21, in the Lisagor Room.

This Newsmaker event is open to credentialed media and Club members free of charge but advance registration is required.

Moniz will announce the formation of a new nonprofit organization, Energy Futures Initiative, that aims to push for clean energy, According to the creators, EFI will be a think tank and advisory firm working across all energy sources to provide evidence-based analysis on reducing the use of carbon-based sources of energy, creating high-paying energy jobs, and finding ways to make energy infrastructure and supplies more secure.

He will speak following President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement and his proposed cuts to clean energy initiatives in his proposed 2017-18 budget. Trump has called climate change a Chinese hoax.

Moniz served as energy secretary under President Barack Obama from 2013-17. He is a Ph.D. physicist with a long affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is currently a part-time professor of physics and special advisor to the president. He has a significant experience forging international agreements, including the G-7 energy security principals, the 22-nation Mission Innovation clean-energy investment program, and played a key role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.