Congress will review the Obama Administration’s nomination of Ernest Moniz for Secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) in hearings that start today, April 9.

Moniz has come under fire for his outspoken support of nuclear power, hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for shale gas and the overarching “all-of-the-above” energy policy advocated by both President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent in the last election, Mitt Romney.

Watchdogs have also discovered that Moniz has worked as a long-time corporate consultant for BP. He has also received the “frackademic” label for his time spent at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). At his MIT job, Moniz regularly accepted millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry to sponsor studies under the auspices of The MIT Energy Initiative, which has received over $145 million over its seven-year history from the oil and gas industry.

Aaron Swartz is dead, and yet he continues to change the world.

If you want to know where your member of Congress or House staffer is today, there’s a good chance they’re at the State of the Net conference at the DC Hilton, rubbing elbows with the tech lobbyists who love them.

New information on MIT’s conduct in the Swartz affair seems to contradict earlier statements from the university that it was not an active participant in the investigation and only reluctantly participated in the prosecution.

Under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), government prosecutors enjoy wide discretion. Typically, a prosecutor would push for a punishment proportional to the harm done by the crimes alleged. In Swartz’s case, it is clear this did not happen. JSTOR declined to press charges, but the government pursued the case anyway.

In the wake of Aaron Swartz’s death, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has launched an internal investigation into the role the University played in Swartz’s prosecution.

So, nine months after he first gets a contract with HHS, he starts disclosing the relationship, and only to the organization that can totally discredit him professionally, not to those that will more directly affect the health care debate? Gruber was first put under contract in March of last year–$95,000 to promote “the President’s” plan–and the received another $297,600 in June. Why no disclosure then? And why–after he decided he ought to start disclosing this stuff–did he not disclose it in a December 28 op-ed in the WaPo?

Even assuming that Gruber is the only one in the world who can run these simulations, don’t you think it’s rather, um, dubious that the guy evaluating the heath care reform–for $300,000–is also the package’s single biggest champion?