Energy Policy and Politics: A Conversation with Jennifer Granholm

Over the past 15 years, Jennifer Granholm has played an outsized role in U.S. energy policy and politics. From 2003 to 2011, she served as Governor of Michigan, a period during which she navigated her state through the worst U.S. economic crisis since the great depression, and one that she saw as an opportunity to diversify Michigan’s industrial base through energy policy. As a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team in 2009, she helped build the team that would ultimately design and implement many of the president’s key energy and environmental policies. In 2016, she was tapped by the Clinton campaign to replay this role in a prospective Clinton Administration. EPIC Executive Director Sam Ori recently got the chance to sit down with Governor Granholm. They talked about the state of the U.S. auto industry, the Trump administration’s environmental policies, the role of energy and climate issues in the 2016 presidential election, and the future of U.S. energy policy.