Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm gifted her home state of Michigan a hefty amount of$ 14 billion to produce green energy initiatives just before leaving the White House. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office announced on Thursday that a total of$ 22. 9 billion in loan guarantees was taken to be distributed to 12 state for such jobs.
The$ 14 billion taken by Granholm was given to two companies to which she reportedly has ties, DTE Energy and Consumers Energy, for projects just in Michigan. An additional$ 1. 3 billion product was given to Michigan’s Potash Company to help “fund a green manure plant. ”
The product Granholm gave the businesses followed their own economic assistance given to her for her plan. According to the Free Beacon, “DTE Energy’s political action committee contributed more than$ 34,000 to Granholm’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, according to state data. Then-DTE Energy CEO Stephen Ewing, whom Granholm appointed to serve on the state’s Early Childhood Investment Corporation Executive Committee, physically donated another$ 3,400 to Granholm’s battle in 2004. Consumers Energy’s political action committee gave Granholm’s gubernatorial campaign$ 25,000 in that same timespan, additional data show. And Brandon Hofmeister, the firm ’s present senior vice president of approach, conservation, and outside matters, served as Granholm’s energy and climate policy director and deputy legal counsel when she was governor. ”
The billions of dollars being handed out has raised eyebrows in the direction of the Loan Programs Office, which was reactivated under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in which it received tens of billions of dollars in lending power. Since then, the plan has officially given$ 107. 4 billion in “green money ” serving the Biden administration ’s climate agenda.
The Free Beacon information, “Biden administration officials have continued to dish out profitable money even after the Department of Energy’s investigator general issued a statement in December calling on the Department of Energy to halt the program. The guardian warned that company representatives are no complying with conflict-of-interest principles and that the plan carries a ‘significant risk of fraud. ’ ”
Despite this notice from the investigator standard, Granholm oversaw the billions of dollars in funding anyhow in her last days in the leadership.