Energy Secretary Granholm: ‘The Clock Is Ticking’ on Infrastructure

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” the administration will continue to push for a bipartisan deal on infrastructure, but “the clock is ticking.”

Granholm said, “You know, Jake, this has got to be done soon. Without putting a specific date on it. You noted they talked on Friday. They’re going to talk on Monday. The thing is, it’s just a bit perplexing why the Republicans haven’t moved further on critical pieces. And I’ll just say this. In my world, in the energy space, Republicans have pushed for pieces of the energy infrastructure that the president had put into the American jobs plan that are not in their counter offer. For example, they’ve been talking about investing in the transmission grid. That’s infrastructure. Both making it more resilient, making it cyber-proof, expanding capacity. That’s not in their counter offer. They’ve been talking about expanding and supporting nuclear. That was in the president’s plan.”

“It’s not in their plan,” she continued. “They’ve been talking about — I just came from West Virginia, touring West Virginia with Joe Manchin. There’s so much despair there in terms of loss of fossil fuel jobs. So the president put in his plan the ability for workers like coal miners to be able to be put to work in reclaiming abandoned coal mines and oil and gas wells. Republicans have talked about that. They have voted for it. That’s not in their bill. And that — it’s not in their counterproposal, including removing carbon pollution from fossil fuel industries by putting pipes underground to take that carbon pollution and store it underground. Those are infrastructure plays that Republicans have voted for and talked about. It was in Biden’s plan. It’s not in theirs. It’s just curious why there isn’t more coming together. The president still has hope. Joe Manchin still had hope. They’ll be talking on Monday. The House will start their markup on Wednesday.”

Granholm added, “The clock is ticking. There is an endpoint to this discussion. Perhaps there can be a meshing of efforts. Ultimately, we have to get to 10 Republican votes to be able to pass this in regular order. That’s the hope.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN