Jennifer Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a prominent Canadian-born American politician, lawyer, educator, and author. She's best known for breaking barriers as Michigan's first female Attorney General (1999–2003) and first female Governor (2003–2011), serving two terms in the latter role during challenging economic times, including the Great Recession. She focused on job creation, diversifying the economy (especially toward clean energy and revitalizing the auto industry for electric vehicles), and education/healthcare reforms.
From 2021 to 2025, she served as the 16th U.S. Secretary of Energy under President Joe Biden. In that role, she led efforts to advance clean energy technologies, achieve net-zero carbon emissions goals by 2050, oversee massive investments (around $200 billion) in clean energy projects and manufacturing, create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and strengthen energy infrastructure resilience (including cybersecurity for the power grid). Her tenure emphasized reshoring supply chains, nuclear deterrence, scientific research, and equitable clean energy transitions.
After leaving the Department of Energy in January 2025, she has taken on roles as a Senior Counselor at DGA Group (advising on clean energy, geopolitics, and infrastructure), joined boards (including in utilities and sustainability), and continued as an influential voice in climate policy, often recognized on lists like Time's Most Influential People and Forbes' top climate leaders.
Educationally, she's an honors graduate of UC Berkeley (BA in political science and French) and Harvard Law School (JD). She became a U.S. citizen in 1980, is married to Daniel Mulhern (they share middle names in a nod to equality), and has three children. She's also authored A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Economic Future.
Details on her Energy Policies
Jennifer Granholm's energy policies as U.S. Secretary of Energy (2021–2025) centered on accelerating the transition to clean energy, achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 (a key Biden administration goal), creating good-paying union jobs, reshoring manufacturing supply chains, and ensuring an equitable transition. She restructured the Department of Energy (DOE) to emphasize not just research and development (R&D) but also large-scale deployment of zero-carbon technologies.
Her approach was heavily influenced by landmark legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which enabled massive investments. Key elements included:
- Massive Investments and Deployment: Oversaw over $200 billion in DOE investments (including grants, loans, and public-private partnerships) to speed up the clean energy transition. This supported record-breaking deployment, such as adding the equivalent of nearly 30 Hoover Dams of zero-carbon energy to the grid in 2024 alone, more than doubling previous solar power records, and spurring an 11x expansion in new transmission miles.
- Manufacturing and Supply Chain Reshoring: Promoted "Made in America" incentives, leading to announcements of nearly 1,000 new or expanded factories for clean energy products (solar panels, EVs, batteries, small modular reactors, clean hydrogen, geothermal, etc.). This created hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs (estimates around 400,000+ tied to DOE efforts) and strengthened domestic supply chains for critical technologies.
- Innovation and Technology Acceleration: Launched the Energy Earthshots initiative (modeled after the successful SunShot for solar), setting bold targets like reducing long-duration energy storage costs by 90% within a decade, advancing affordable clean hydrogen, enhanced geothermal, and more. Focused on breakthroughs in batteries, grid modernization, nuclear (including small reactors), offshore wind, and industrial decarbonization.
- Grid and Infrastructure Modernization: Prioritized expanding the electric grid to handle increased clean energy integration, doubling transmission capacity goals, and addressing challenges like rising demand from electrification and data centers/AI.
- Equity and Justice: Emphasized Justice40 principles (directing 40% of benefits to disadvantaged communities), energy efficiency for affordable housing, workforce training in underserved areas, and ensuring the transition benefits communities hit hardest by pollution or economic shifts.
- Core DOE Missions: Maintained focus on national security (nuclear deterrent via National Nuclear Security Administration), scientific leadership (17 national labs), and environmental cleanup from legacy defense programs.
Her policies faced criticism from some quarters (e.g., accusations of overemphasizing "radical green" priorities or regulatory overreach on issues like LNG exports), but supporters highlighted the unprecedented scale of clean energy growth, job creation, and U.S. leadership in technologies like EVs and renewables.
Post-tenure, she's continued advocating for these themes as a Senior Counselor at DGA Group, advising on grid resilience, nuclear revival, supply chains, and energy for high-demand sectors like AI. Overall, her tenure is credited with transforming DOE into a major driver of both climate action and economic revitalization through clean energy.
Happy birthday to her today (February 5, 2026—she turns 67)! She's a trailblazer in public service, especially for women in politics and clean energy advocacy.