Granholm to be energy secretary nominee
President-elect Joe Biden is nominating Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan who has been a strong voice for zero-emissions vehicles, as secretary of energy, two people familiar with the process said Tuesday. Granholm, an adjunct professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, has said the United States risks being left behind if it does not develop alternate energy technologies. The choice is a sign that Biden wants the department to play a role in combating climate change.
Arun Majumdar, a materials scientist and engineer who led a new research agency in the Energy Department under the Obama administration, is reportedly under consideration as deputy secretary. Majumdar, who has been working for the Biden transition team and was considered a candidate for the top Energy Department post, is an enthusiastic advocate for modernizing the nation’s electricity grid.
Granholm and Majumdar are both immigrants — she from Canada, he from India. Both come to the department from California with backgrounds and expertise in promoting and developing alternative technologies, evenas the bulk of the department’s mandate has to do with the maintenance and safeguarding of the nation’s nuclear weapons and handling the cleanup efforts at contaminated nuclear sites.
The nuclear program involves about 75% of the department’s budget, or $27 billion. “The Energy Department is actually the Nuclear Weapons Department,” said Daryl Kimbal, a spokesman for the Arms Control Association.
But its role in promoting research began getting more attention in the Obama administration, and it probably will feature prominently under Biden, given his promises to tackle climate change.
“It will be top ofmind in the Biden administration,” said Zeke Haus father, director of climate and energy with the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental research center in Oakland, Calif.