Watch: The Awkward Moment Gov't Live Video Chat Went South at a Key Moment

A video chat session held Monday with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy quickly went south on Monday, when the audio and visual cut out on the two guests.

The web chat was hosted by Ben Adler, a staff writer with Grist. Moniz opened the session by talking about how many gigatons of carbon the Energy Department is hoping to keep out of the atmosphere.

Source: screen shot

McCarthy then started talking about lowering carbon emissions, and was getting to her main point:

"But perhaps the most notable work that we do…"

And that's when the sound and video died. After the screen went black, Adler spent more than a full minute in silence trying to restore the connection:

"Um, I'm… ah… I'm sorry, I've lost sound," Adler says as his eyes darted back and forth desperately in search of a fix . "I can't hear you guys. Can someone, um… I'm very sorry, i can't hear you, but…"

When the picture and sound came back, Adler was relieved. "I don't know how you fixed that, but thank god you did," he said. "Can you talk again please?"

Moniz then asked, "Which part?"

Adler then suggests that they all move to the next question. But we never got to hear what EPA's most important work is.