jack: i'm jack and i hope you'll start your day with me. and i'm delighted to be joined by secretary-general fer granholm, as you already know, served as secretary of energy for joe biden for four years and brings her expertise to the d.g.a. group as senior counselor. jennifer: great to be on today. jack: i want to talk about the bill going through congress at the moment. let's talk first about your time in government now because energy policy was obviously so central to what the biden administration was trying to do. you got your own big beautiful bill passed through congress, if i can put it that way. somehow when we got to the next election, it wasn't seen as a key campaign point for joe biden or kamala harris. when you look back at it, do you

feel like you didn't get the support you should have? jennifer: no doubt. the two bill, really, the bipartisan inflation act, they spurred so much activity in building out our energy, but here's the challenge. by the end of -- december of 2024, we counted at d.o.e.950 announcements of factories that were coming to america or expanding in america. for everybody who cares about reshoring, etc., bang, bang, bang, it was happening. however, a lot of those were announcements and maybe ground breakings but not so much ribbon cuttings. contracts were being let. but the point is people on the ground, you know, in spotty areas were feeling it because they were being hired but in a lot of places it hadn't begun

yet. i'm former governor of michigan, too. and in michigan the loss of manufacturing jobs and the loss of offshoring of manufacturing is so huge. the notion of being a part of an effort to reshore and bring it back and just in the energy column alone, and since there are 195 countries who have signed on to the paris agreement, that means there's demand in the world for these products, this technology and equipment and the question is who will be building it? we had been on the path to a place it was happening and i was proud of that but wish we had been able to get it passed in the first year so you would see the ramifications much more clearly on the ground. jack: is there a political lesson to learn that because you have to work in the reality for politics and the democrats lost the next election as we all know. jennifer: this administration

has shown if you approach things with cingular purpose you can move more rapidly especially if you have control of both chambers. moving more rapidly would have been preferrable. and we are at the whims of what was happening in congress as well. but i think for every next president coming up and everybody wants to move fast, it's not a question. but in terms of these kinds of projects that have long lead times, getting it done early so you can see the benefit from the ground is an important lesson. jack: do you think as you look now, the bill going through congress, are there any positives can you take from what you see? can you say something with regard to that? jennifer: here's what i would say, i'm positive and excited about what i heard from senator

curtis that there is some potential for emileation -- for emileeration, and the house listened in terms of the nuclear provision placed in service deadlines and beginning of construction deadlines, however, i don't think it's enough realistically. and what i'm hopeful for is these conversations are helpful and john ketchum, all the above fine, but let's make sure we convince it right because if we want to push on natural gas and you can't get a turbine until 2021 and you have the two ferc chairman coming on after me, ferc said after the end said we

need by 2030128 giga watts of power and 128 to be added for a.i. and electrification. i heard a lot of people saying it's 150, whatever that number is, it's a lot. so let's not cut out the biggest portion of what's been added to the grid the past couple years. i was proud of the fact there was a record amount of clean power added to the grid. if you add in hydroelectric and add in the vogel plant, the nuclear plant, it's over 60 giga watts of clean power, a record amount of solar and that same number was projected for this year. so if you add 120 giga watts in two years and some of that is intermittent and some of that is firm. and you have to get to 128 firm by 2030, you know, we were on the trajectory to get there. but if you eliminate the tax

credits, and as everybody has been saying, the investors and the developers, the market right now is frozen. it is frozen. nobody is doing anything until they get the rules of the road. all that to say i think these conversations are helpful to get everybody to understand what is happening and the timing of it. and if we keep these incentives in place -- i understand the desire to ween off incentives over the longer hall. but we have an urgent moment. if the urgent moments have propelled it from adding to the grid, keep it going because we know the a.i. is working at it, we can winnow that down. jack: the bill is on an uncertain piece of legislation but we can see the consoles of

it and expect it will pass in the next few weeks. what's the best way for the democrats given that reality, do you say we'll just bring it all in again? jennifer: everybody has to be really thoughtful about this and you can't be demonizing one side or the other. everybody wants to say let's reshore manufacturing. i haven't heard anybody say that's a bad idea. we want to get more manufacturing in the united states, especially advanced manufacturing. if you want to do that, what's the best way to do that? can you build on the incentives in the inflation reduction act to make the kinds of products that will make america lead? those kinds of things you can have a bipartisan consensus on and democrats should be saying that, similarly adding generation to the grid. i think there are ways democrats can point to being this pro growth, pro clean energy policy, and pro resilience and pro

reliable grid, all of that. if you take all of that renewable power and you add batteries to it, and you sync it up right, renewables become base loadlike so let's focus on the battery, research and deployment. there's a lot of batteries out there now doing 10-hour plus batteries. next year has a partnership with eos, for example, to do that. let's focus on continuing to develop these technologies as democrats and focus on the incentives that will get us to where we need to be. let's listen to the importance of making sure we have deficit control and i think we can get there. similarly, i think we can get it there somewhat in the provisions in this bill. if they fix the three things everybody is talking about, the transferability of the credits, the fiat rigor impossible to work with, and the placed in service, you know, time lines, if they fix those three

technical fixes, then i think it could be workable. jack: you think that's going to happen? jennifer: i heard a number of voices up here saying, you know, if you can be careful about how you talk about it, these are technical fixes, so things that are unworkable, and the business community has asked for this and asked for certainty. so i'm hopeful there will be willing ears to listen. jack: you put a lot of emphasis on the future of the e.v. market. what do you think in terms of what the president is doing with tariffs on china and do you have some sympathy with that? jennifer: joe biden put tariffs on e.v.'s as well and i have sympathy to making sure we are on the lead on this. however, if you take away the tax incentives for the buildout of the batteries for e.v.'s, then you are basically just potentially saying china, it's yours because china is developing this and see our

pullback as their opportunity. and you know, we talk about critical minerals, of course, in the batteries. we talk about the battery supply chain. china has big footed the united states on that. we were starting to get some of that back, you know, the responsible extraction of lithium and graphite and all these projects the lone program funded to fill in the gaps and supply chain, the anode and the cathode and separator substance. all these companies coming to america to build up the supply chain. if you eliminate the public-private partnerships for that to happen, you're ceding the territory on e.v.'s and critical minerals and national security in my opinion to our adversaries and i'm hopeful people see the importance of having public-private partnerships in order for these critical industries to succeed in america because there's no

doubt there's an industrial strategy in china that is subsidizing what is happening there and they have a leg up to selling to a global market. jack: king of e.v.'s is elon musk, a man rarely out of the headlines and certainly been on a bit of a journey the last few years, if i can put it that way, do you see him as a positive force in this conversation? jennifer: he obviously has been. obviously, tesla has been an amazing car industry product, etc. he's obviously been incredible. you know, obviously the later part of his journey has been more challenging, let's say. and i am worried about the -- the tax credits i know are not in the house bill. but if you take away the demand side incentives for people to purchase electric vehicles, and remember, these tax credits were

pegged to income, so it's not like a bunch of wealthy people get the $7500 tax credit. but if you take away the demand side, then what you have done is essentially gutted the ability for all of these batteries that have announced they were coming to the united states to be successful. the projections are that taking away those credits will reduce the e.v. sales by 40%. and that means all the batteries we were building out in anticipation of a big push in e.v.'s become stranded assets so they're not going to turn on. that again is benefiting our economic adversaries rather than building up this capability in the united states. so my worry is that for mr. musk engaging in this fight that is counterproductive will further

cement many in congress and the president's desire potentially to take away the credits. jack: would you like to see the democrats work with him now he's distanced himself from the white house? jennifer: the democrats would welcome him working with us politically financially, etc., maybe, i'm not running but i do know people who are and it all depends, is it good, is it bad? it's a little hard to know how that comes out. it's not -- the story is not over yet, obviously. what time is it? jack: it's probably changed even while we've been speaking. is there a different way democrats can talk about this stuff that would resonate more with voters than it did when you were in the administration? jennifer: it's a great question because we know climate change is not the highest on people's list. but i think that attracting jobs in america and leading the

competition in the world and lowering energy costs, i think those are really important things. if you eliminate the ability for the robust ability of the buildout of solar, which is the cheapest form of energy, then you substitute it with a more expensive form of energy, or you don't substitute it fast enough with any form of energy and you see blackouts, etc., the ramifications for consumers are very significant. so democrats talking about costs, keeping costs low by using the cheapest form of energy and, again, increase -- i say this as former governor and people who don't want their kids to move away from them in a lot of the midwestern states, and when they lost factories and people felt like their kids aren't going to stay or they're not going to see their grandkids, the ability for people's kids to have future-facing jobs in an industry that is in global demand is very high-tech. that's exciting. that's great stuff. i think democrats can really

talk about that and should be talking about that a lot more. jack: do you regret it wasn't talked about before? jennifer: i think democrats have to do a better job of speaking to all channels and being fearless about going to places that may not be allies, you know, like pete buttigieg obviously goes on fox news a lot but it's not just the cable network, the cable shows, you know, there may be five million voters or listeners. but in the ecosystem, the social media ecosystem, joe rogan has 38 million listeners. so we have to go to places where people are listening and we didn't do that. and that i really regret. we need to really focus on expanding and being fearless and saying stuff and going places. because once you go, you're not a mystery anymore and people don't fantasize about the conspiracies. you know, you go and talk

straight to people, i think it's a much better strategy. jack: given we have a republican trifecta undoing the work you did, do you still feel optimistic about the future? jennifer: i definitely feel optimistic about the future. i'm worried about the time lines, with the d.g.a. group now, i'm working with private sector entities and the d.g.a. group absorbed the albright-stone bridge group and madeleine albright's group and so we have people in 35 different countries. i think it's 45 different countries but a huge listening opportunity on the ground for what's happening globally as well as what's happening here. and the reason why i'm optimistic is because people see the opportunity that's out there across the globe. this clean energy sector is a $28 trillion global opportunity and businesses want to participate in that.

and so even the tariffs present an opportunity for us to still go after european businesses, south american businesses, and if you want to avoid the tariffs, come and locate in the united states. it would be better if they also had access to the tax credits, too, so they could do both development of clean energy projects as well as the manufacturing of the devices so it's an opportunity there. for those businesses in the united states who feel like i'm ready to go and want to see an opportunity in another state, other countries, it's a moment. because obviously this is a global issue. and when i went to the last -- at the last c.o.p., we meet with the other energy ministers, i'm so sorry, but don't worry, we've got this. we want to lead. the united states, you've had

such a big footprint, perhaps it clouded out their ability to lead. so if that's true and other countries see this as an opportunity, that's great. jack: there you go. positive note to end on. we're out of time. i could talk all day. thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. jennifer: thanks. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] >> democracy, it isn't just an idea. it's a process shaped by leaders, elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. it's where debates unfold and decisions are made and the nation's course is charted. democracy in real time. this is your government at work. this is c-span. giving you your democracy unfiltered.

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