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Before joining the DOE, Moniz published a study at MIT, funded by the oil and gas industry (and a phony environmental group set up by a gas driller), that pushed fracking and introduced the justification that Obama used for lifting the ban on gas exports https://public-accountability.org/report/industry-partner-or-industry-puppet/ https://twitter.com/jamieclimate/status/1304447934574899200
Moniz's report at the oil-funded MIT Energy Initiative was so nakedly propaganda for the fracking industry that it included as an appendix totally non-sequitur response purporting to rebut @howarth_cornell's work on the climate impacts of booming methane production
The report (which again, provided the argument for permitting LNG exports) was co-authored by former CIA director John Deutch. During the study period, Deutch was a director of Cheniere Energy, the first company to have its LNG export permit approved by the Obama administration.
Another Biden climate advisor – Heather Zichal – was an executive branch energy advisor during the Obama administration. When she left, Zichal took a seat on the board of directors of...Cheniere Energy https://readsludge.com/2019/05/10/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company/
It's hard to under-state the importance of Moniz and Deutch's report. Beyond creating the architecture for the Obama administration's fracked gas export regime, it was deployed in media and in Congress to counter popular opposition to fracking in the United States.
Moniz ended up joining the Obama administration as Secretary of Energy. He was so enamored of the report (which, again, was fraught with conflicts of interest) that he had it included in his official portrait after leaving office https://news.littlesis.org/2017/08/03/frackademia-study-enshrined-in-official-portrait-of-obama-energy-secretary-moniz/
Fracking & LNG exports were important parts of Obama's foreign policy of undermining Russian dominance of European energy markets. Under Sec Clinton, Obama's state department sought to export fracking (and contracts for US energy cos) to European countries https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/hillary-clinton-fracking-shale-state-department-chevron/
When Russia annexed Crimea after the coup in Ukraine, Russia hawks in the US government were all ready to seize on Obama's newly-permitted fracked gas export industry as a way for the US to punish Russia https://news.littlesis.org/2014/03/28/senators-speak-out-for-lng-exports-bring-in-big-bucks-from-oil-and-gas-industry/
