The writer, a Los Angeles freelancer and former Detroit News business reporter, writes a blog, Starkman Approved.
By Eric Starkman
It didn’t take long for former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to cash in on some political chips she was owed serving as President Joe Biden’s Energy Secretary, hardly a surprise for those familiar with the historical ways of Michigan’s former two-term governor.
Jennifer Granholm
Granholm last week was named a director of Edison International, one of the largest electric utility holding companies in the U.S. and will also serve on the board of its Southern California Edison subsidiary, which delivers electricity to 15 million people in the state.
Granholm’s appointment comes in wake of a $600 million grant to a California consortium that included Southern California Edison and other entities for power line upgrades that was made last August by the Department of Energy (DOE) under Granholm’s leadership.
Edison International in 2023 approved a resolution providing that directors of the parent company and its Southern California Edison subsidiary be paid annual retainers of $127,500.
Jeff Monford, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison, said Granholm will only receive $127,500 for serving on both the company’s board and its parent corporation. He also denied that Granholm’s appointment was influenced by her DOE grant.
“Jennifer Granholm brings strong expertise, experience and leadership to the Edison International and Southern California Edison boards to benefit SCE customers and Trio clients,” Monford said. “Granholm will provide guidance based on her understanding of the technical, political and economic forces shaping our industry today, and she shares our commitment to respond collaboratively to the challenges the electric utility industry faces.”
Trio is Southern California Edison’s global sustainability and energy advisory affiliate focused on helping large commercial, industrial, and institutional organizations navigate energy transitions.
Filed For Bankruptcy
Prior to becoming Biden’s Energy Secretary, Granholm was a director of California-based electric bus maker Proterra, which granted her options that she cashed out for $1.6 million before the company filed for bankruptcy. Granholm’s Proterra holdings were cited by Republican lawmakers after Biden hailed Proterra in a virtual tour of a company factory during the pandemic.
The Biden Administration denied that Granholm had anything to do with the celebratory visit.
By any measure, Granholm has a dismal record when it comes to green energy.
The Biden Administration’s electric vehicle policies were a bust, as they politicized EVs by mandating regulations intended to force Americans to drive them despite a lack of national charging infrastructures. Granholm and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2021 announced a $7.5 billion joint effort to build a national electric charging network.
As of last June, only seven charging stations under the Granholm/Buttigieg initiative had been opened, prompting the Institute for Energy Research to dismiss the program as a “debacle.” According to the IER, the program’s many delays resulted from Biden’s orders “to force social-engineering mandates and requirements” upon federal funding programs.
“I never thought I would see the day when our products were so heavily politicized, but they are,” Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford said in a 2023 interview with the New York Times.
Most of Granholm’s green energy initiatives proved to be failures during her two terms as governor. In 2012, one year after Granholm left office, the Heritage Foundation compiled a list of 19 federally supported green energy companies that filed for bankruptcy. Four of the nation’s top eight came from Michigan. Mackinac Center for Public Policy in 2015 highlighted some of Granholm’s other signature green energy failures.
Ethical Questions
Granholm’s ethics also have repeatedly been called into question.
Sen. John Barrasso,
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the top Republican on the Senate Energy panel, in 2023 asked the Energy Department’s inspector general to investigate what Barrasso called “multiple instances of questionable ethical conduct since the start of her tenure’’ in 2021.
Barrasso’s request came after Granholm revealed she owned financial stocks, contradicting earlier testimony she gave to the panel.
Granholm also said her husband, Daniel Mulhern, owned previously undisclosed stock in Ford Motor Co., a key player in the Biden administration’s efforts to improve fuel efficiency and boost sales of electric vehicles.
Granholm’s Department of Energy in one of its final actions under Biden, earmarked $22.9 billion in green energy loans to utility companies based in Michigan—defying the agency's inspector general, who called on the Biden administration to suspend the loan program amid conflict-of-interest concerns. More than $14 billion of that total was awarded to DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, two companies with ties to Granholm, solely for projects in Michigan.
As reported by The Washington Free Beacon, DTE Energy's political action committee contributed more than $34,000 to Granholm's 2006 gubernatorial campaign. Then-DTE Energy CEO Stephen Ewing, whom Granholm appointed to serve on the state's Early Childhood Investment Corporation Executive Committee, contributed $3,400 to Granholm's campaign in 2004.
Consumers Energy's political action committee gave Granholm's gubernatorial campaign $25,000 in that same timespan. And Brandon Hofmeister, the company's current senior vice president of strategy, sustainability, and external affairs, served as Granholm's energy and climate policy adviser and deputy legal counsel when she was governor.
Loan to Ford
Granholm also approved a $11.6 billion below market loan to Ford for the construction of three manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky to produce batteries for Ford and Lincoln electric vehicles. Ford’s general counsel, Steven Croley, is a former senior Obama aide and previously worked at the DOE, as did Christopher Smith, Ford’s chief lobbyist.
Under Granholm’s leadership, the DOE made $107.4 billion in green loans, the vast majority following Trump’s election in November, according to the Free Beacon. The DOE continued to make the loans despite the agency’s inspector general calling on the agency to suspend the program, warning of conflict-of-interest rules and the “significant risk of fraud.”
The Free Beacon reported in January that DOE’s Loan Programs Office director Jigar Shah held a financial stake in Plug Power through his green investment firm before joining the Biden administration. The Loan Programs Office finalized a $1.7 billion loan for Plug Power before Trump assumed office.
Just prior to the presidential election, Granholm announced a $500 million taxpayer donation to GM to cover some of the costs to retool an aging plant in Lansing for electric vehicles. Granholm said the giveaway would save 650 jobs and create 50 new ones, suggesting that GM CEO Mary Barra would have closed the plant and built more EVs in Mexico, where GM manufactures the EV Cadillac Optiq and the electric versions of the Chevy Equinox and Blazer.
Despite being bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, GM is Mexico’s biggest auto manufacturer and is most vulnerable to President Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs.
As for Southern California Edison, on whose board Granholm will sit beginning in April, the company is facing multiple lawsuits from homeowners and renters who lost their homes in recent Los Angeles area fires, alleging the company failed to de-energize all of its electrical equipment despite red flag warnings issued by the National Weather Service.
Contact Eric Starkman at eric@starkmanapproved. Anonymity assured.
