President Joe Biden on Friday said he will nominate former Federation of American Scientists and Al Franken Senate staffer Ali Nouri as the Department of Energy’s assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs.
Nouri has been with the agency since January as the deputy assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs, a post which did not require Senate confirmation. Nouri joined the administration after about two years with the Federation of American scientists, which funds nuclear-weapons and climate-change-related watchdog programs. He came to the federation from the Senate, where he was Al Franken’s legislative director and national security advisor before Franken resigned his Senate seat in 2018 amid allegations of sexual misconduct in the years before his election.
As a Senate staffer, Nouri spent six years on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, among other posts. He has a PhD in molecular biology from Princeton University.
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm praised Biden’s choice in a Friday statement that made no mention of DOE’s nuclear programs.
“Not only is Ali a tested consensus-builder, he’s a scientist who understands our climate challenges backwards and forwards,” Granholm wrote in the statement. “He embodies the dynamic expertise and passion that we need to bring everyone on board the clean energy revolution—and if confirmed, he’ll play a huge role in helping this Administration tackle the climate crisis and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
