NEWS

Updated 6:39 p.m. ET

President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to be the next secretary of energy, two sources familiar with transition discussions told NPR.

Granholm will bring experience in promoting clean-energy manufacturing as Biden tries to implement a sweeping $2 trillion climate plan.

The selection was first reported by Politico.

Granholm has been Michigan’s attorney general and served two terms as governor until 2011. She was also an energy adviser to Hillary Clinton and is an adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkeley law school.

When Chrysler and General Motors faced bankruptcy during the Great Recession, Granholm worked with the Obama administration on a bailout that pushed them to invest in green technology such as battery storage. Since then, automakers have dramatically ramped up production plans for electric cars.

“Prior to the pandemic, clean energy was one of the fastest growing industries in Michigan, supporting over 125,000 jobs,” she wrote in a recent The Detroit News op-ed. Now, she said, “low-carbon recovery measures” are needed to create jobs and help a middle class that’s been battered by the pandemic’s economic collapse.

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