Jennifer Granholm
Secretary of Energy
Jennifer Mulhern Granholm was born in February 1959 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The family emigrated to California when she was four years old. At the age of 21, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She earned an undergraduate degree in political science and French from the University of California at Berkeley and a Juris Doctor from Harvard University. She clerked at the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
After several years in private practice, Granholm became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She was elected Attorney General of Michigan, serving there four years before becoming Governor for eight years. She was an adjunct professor of law and public policy at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy and UC Berkeley School of Law.
Granholm was nominated by President Joe Biden to be Secretary of Energy. She was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by the vice president on February 25, 2021.
She is married to Daniel Mulhern and they have three children.
In the News…
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm called on Texas to weatherize its electrical grid and said the state should consider connecting to grids beyond its borders. Her comments followed last month’s winter storm that left millions without power.
“There will be events like this that occur with greater frequency and we have to think about the resilience of the grid,” she said. “I hope that the legislature in Texas provides the ability for the grid to actually be prepared to sustain the kinds of storms that we saw because that will not just be a one-off.”
She added, “It would be great for Texas to consider connecting… to its neighbors. I understand the go-it alone sort of ethos, but there’s also an ethos of helping your neighbor too and I think connecting could benefit Texas in times of emergency but it could also benefit Texas and the rest of the country in good times when Texas is generating all sorts of clean energy.”
“We want to lead an energy transformation that creates opportunities for diverse union jobs in every sector of this clean energy economy including the building of a clean energy infrastructure… We want to see creating supply chains to strengthen America’s manufacturing sector in hard-hit communities across the Rust Belt,” she said, and to that end the Energy Department plans on investing billions of dollars in new technologies this year.
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Secretary Granholm today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Jennifer Granholm
Secretary of Energy
1000 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20585
