Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Colonial Pipeline Crisis: If You Drove an Electric Car, ‘This Would Not Be Affecting You’

Secretary of the Department of Energy Jennifer Granholm said at a press conference at the White House on Tuesday that people who are driving electric cars are not affected by the hacker-forced shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline.

“I just have a question for each of you. I’ll start with you, Secretary Granholm, because ladies first,” a reporter asked. “Obviously, we have the acute issues with the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. But looking more holistically in a macro view, how does this speed up the efforts at DOE to move in more of a renewable direction since this is going to have an impact on people at the pump?”

“Yeah, I mean, we obviously are ‘all in’ on making sure that we meet the President’s goals of getting to 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Granholm said. “And, you know, if you drive an electric car, this would not be affecting you, clearly. “

“But it’s just — it’s another — it’s — I don’t want to — this company is acting in a responsible way,” Granholm said. “They took their pipeline down so that the ransomware would not spread. And so, up to this point, they have — they’re carefully reviewing so that they’re doing this in a responsible way.”

“The broader issue is a very important issue,” Granholm said. “It’s an issue for the president’s priority and the American Jobs Plan — the issue of investing in a transmission grid, for example, so that you don’t have the cyber issues associated with it.” The secretary added, “So there’s a lot of broader questions in this, and we hope that we’ll be able to see that investment in infrastructure that will facilitate clean and renewable energy.”

Granholm’s appointment is not without controversy. Jarrett Skorup the director of marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, based in Midland, Michigan, wrote about her appointment in December of 2020: “When Granholm was governor, she directed hundreds of millions of dollars to politically favored companies in the hopes of creating ‘green’ jobs. She famously promised Michiganders, ‘In five years, you’re going to be blown away.'”

Skorup continued, “That prediction came true in a way: Michigan taxpayers were shocked at how spectacularly the effort failed. Her key subsidy program, the Michigan Economic Growth Authority, approved billions of dollars in tax credits for 434 projects. A Mackinac Center analysis found that only 10, or 2.3 percent, of those projects were successful in meeting their job creation promises. Despite the lack of success in creating jobs, the deals she made still cost Michigan taxpayers today billions even though she left office a decade ago.”

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