In 2008, Moran delivered testimony to the US Senate committee on Environmental and Public Works outlining the scientific evidence for climate change, and future predictions which resulted from the research. Between 2009 - 2011 Moran was seconded to President Obama's White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Obama instructed the federal government to develop an ocean policy, which was released in 2012. Moran was involved with the government's response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Moran was selected to be on Secretary Steven Chu's team in that response. Moran describes the efforts as "an incredible response, actually, by BP and the government". She is a supporter of renewable energy, "when I first started to be seriously concerned about the fact we need to stop [creating] CO2, I got involved in the first offshore wind farm in the U.S".