"There’s a lot that you can do with the money that’s sitting at DOE," said Dan Reicher, who ran DOE’s energy efficiency and renewable energy office under President Bill Clinton, and jokingly refers to the agency as "the Department of Everything."
The $40 billion in DOE loan guarantee money is just a small fraction of the trillions of dollars needed to meet Biden’s goals of achieving net-zero emissions on the power grid by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050. And the omnibus spending package passed by Congress shifted some funding inside DOE, boosting money for clean energy research and a home weatherization program, while rescinding $1.9 billion under a loan program for the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing.
To run his Energy Department, Biden has tapped former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a staunch clean energy advocate who worked closely with the Obama administration to bail out her state's auto industry during the Great Recession — a program that also directed stimulus funds to build the LG Chem facility there that produces batteries for the Chevy Volt.
“Granholm was really good on this stuff when she was governor. She’s been even more engaged on the climate fights since she left,” said John Podesta, the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton who later led Obama administration climate efforts. “She still has very strong connections to unions, to the auto companies.”
Granholm is already leaning into her argument that a clean energy transition can help the U.S. economy — and blue collar workers — weather the economic turmoil from the pandemic.
“We’re going to be working at the Department of Energy with the ... states and the cities, to help give them incentives, little carrots, little sticks,” Granholm told ABC’s “This Week,” on Dec. 20, adding that “combating climate change is such an economic opportunity for this country.”