New Jersey governor-elect Mikie Sherrill (D.) turned to former energy secretary Jennifer Granholm, an architect of Biden-era green energy policies—which polls show are unpopular with Garden State voters—to co-chair her transition team’s energy task force. [emphasis, links added]
The governor-elect’s energy team is a quasi-reunion of Biden administration alumni—in addition to Granholm, former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Allison Clements will serve as its other co-chair.
It’s a signal that although Sherrill ran to the middle on energy issues during her gubernatorial campaign, she is prepared to govern as a climate hawk.
Granholm and Clements have a long history of supporting far-left policies, such as EV mandates, gas stove bans, and expensive offshore wind projects—policies New Jerseyans broadly do not support.
Granholm was one of the Biden administration’s leading cheerleaders for EVs. As energy secretary, she urged Americans to switch from gas-powered cars to EVs, downplayed concerns about EV ownership like cost and range anxiety, and boasted of the administration’s billion-dollar handouts directed to the EV industry.
Fewer than 10 percent of new car purchases in New Jersey are battery electric, according to the latest industry data, even with a state law requiring electric cars to make up 43 percent of new car purchases by 2027.
The figure also reflects the views of New Jerseyans, the majority of whom say they wouldn’t consider buying an EV and oppose EV mandates, according to a 2024 Rutgers University poll.
Granholm’s EV promotion culminated in a 2023 four-day road trip where she drove an EV across four states in an attempt to prove that battery-powered cars are reliable.
The road trip, though, was derailed after Granholm’s team used gas-powered SUVs to block open EV chargers at a stop in Georgia to make space for her vehicle, a move that prompted angry drivers waiting for a charge to call the police.
Granholm eventually blamed her staff for the incident, explaining that “it was poor judgment on the part of the team.”
The road trip resulted in both a congressional investigation and an inspector general probe, which found the trip cost taxpayers $124,823 and that Granholm’s staff’s expenses were higher than the set per diem.
In addition, Granholm, who later acknowledged she owned a gas-powered stove, led the Biden administration’s charge to ban a large swath of gas-powered stove models.
Under her leadership, the Energy Department introduced regulations that would have banned half of the gas stove models on the market.
But banning gas stoves is at odds with New Jersey voters’ public opinion. A March 2024 Affordable Energy for New Jersey survey found 67 percent of registered voters prefer natural gas to power their appliances and heat their homes.
Only 20 percent prefer electricity to power appliances like stoves. Similarly, only 20 percent of voters support a Garden State proposal to require all homes to transition from natural gas to electric heat.
Granholm was also a proponent of offshore wind during the Biden administration.
She helped craft the goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind power by 2030, offered $3 billion in federal funding to offshore wind developers, and facilitated power contracts between developers and state regulators.
Two of the offshore wind projects the Biden administration approved were planned for federal waters off the coast of New Jersey.
After vigorous opposition from locals, environmental groups, and lawmakers, however, both projects were canceled. The wind farms would have raised electricity rates for residents, according to experts.
Just 29 percent of New Jersey voters support the installation of offshore wind turbines off the state’s coast, according to an October 2024 Stockton University poll.
Even among those who agree with the policy, New Jerseyans do not rank creating offshore wind farms as a priority—only 24 percent of voters think offshore wind turbines should be a major priority for lawmakers, according to the Stockton survey.
Granholm’s tenure was marred by conflict-of-interest concerns. She introduced the gas stove rules less than a month after promoting a study about the alleged health harms associated with gas stove use.
We can and must FIX this. Through @POTUS‘ Inflation Reduction Act, Americans will have greater access to Electric and Induction Cooktops:
✅Keeps pollution out of the home.
✅Cooks food faster.
✅Helps families save money.https://t.co/UUuE14pdy3 https://t.co/sgfV8o6NZX— Secretary Jennifer Granholm (@SecGranholm) January 4, 2023
That study was funded by the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and with which Granholm met privately as energy secretary.
Granholm also engaged in private talks with Chinese energy official Zhang Jianhua days before she and Biden announced the United States would sell off tens of millions of barrels of emergency oil reserves, a move critics panned for weakening energy security and giving leverage to adversaries like China.
Jianhua served as an executive of China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, which purchased at least two million barrels of oil from the emergency reserves the Biden administration sold off.
After former President Biden nominated Granholm to lead the Energy Department in 2021, she reported that she served on the board of directors of and owned a $1 million to $5 million stake in Silicon Valley-based electric bus maker Proterra.
She then waited months—and only after Biden personally promoted the company at the White House—before finally selling the stake.
Read rest at Free Beacon
