Washington, D.C. – President-elect Biden has nominated former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to serve as Secretary of Energy at the Department of Energy. The following statement can be attributed to Maria Korsnick, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute:
“We welcome the nomination of Governor Jennifer Granholm as the incoming Secretary of Energy, where she will play a key role in furthering President-elect Biden’s climate agenda and continue our progress towards a fully decarbonized economy. As former governor of Michigan, she saw first-hand the hard work and dedication of thousands of highly-skilled workers responsible for the majority of the state’s carbon-free electricity produced by Michigan’s three nuclear power plants.
“Under Gov. Granholm’s leadership, we hope to see continued growth of the strong bipartisan support for nuclear energy in playing a pivotal role in addressing the worsening climate crisis as recognized in the Biden team’s ambitious climate plan. We are committed to working with the incoming Energy Secretary to build a carbon-free future for America that includes and appropriately values nuclear energy, alongside other carbon-free energy sources like wind and solar. This means a continuation of programs essential to clean energy job creation and the deployment of more carbon-free technologies – like the programs to demonstrate small modular reactors and other advanced reactors, the Versatile Test Reactor and other R&D efforts, along with programs that incentivize all carbon-free electricity and mirror the technology-neutral policies emerging in the states.
“We look forward to working with Gov. Granholm to expand on previous efforts that aim to preserve our largest source of carbon-free energy and pave the way for advanced nuclear technologies responsible for creating highly-skilled, well-paying carbon-free energy jobs. With the right policies and programs, we can bring advanced nuclear technology to market, re-establish U.S. global leadership, and power homes, businesses and critical infrastructure around the world with even more carbon-free nuclear power.”