Biden to Tap Jennifer Granholm for Energy Secretary

If confirmed as energy secretary, Ms. Granholm would oversee U.S. scientific research and the country’s nuclear arsenal, and could help incentivize the development of low-carbon energy sources through the distribution of federal loans. She would also likely work closely with other senior officials, including the incoming head of the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House climate coordinator, to pursue Mr. Biden’s campaign pledge to achieve net-zero emissions in the U.S. by 2050.

Ms. Granholm didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for Mr. Biden’s transition team declined to comment.

As governor, Ms. Granholm pushed a renewable portfolio standard requiring 10% of the state’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2015, a percentage that was later increased. During her tenure, she also worked closely with the Obama administration to help the auto industry, which faced collapse following the economic downturn. She has credited Mr. Biden with playing a key role in bolstering General Motors Co. and Chrysler during that period.

Ms. Granholm and Mr. Biden have a close relationship dating back years. She helped Mr. Biden prepare for his vice presidential debate during the 2008 campaign.

Other candidates Mr. Biden has considered for the energy secretary job included Arun Majumdar, a Stanford University professor and former vice president for energy at Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and former Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.

Mr. Majumdar could be nominated for another senior role at the Energy Department, possibly deputy secretary, some of the people familiar with the matter said. During the Obama administration, he became the first leader of the department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, or ARPA-E, working there from 2009 to 2012. The agency funds early-stage innovation projects, modeled on the research arm of Defense Department that is known as a catalyst for breakthroughs.

Mr. Biden has promised to place a new emphasis on this kind of work in government, including creating a new agency called “ARPA-C,” to address climate change. Mr. Biden has called climate change an urgent crisis and proposed the most aggressive climate agenda of any major presidential candidate, analysts say, likely making the Energy Department central to some of his biggest ambitions.

He has pledged to spend $2 trillion to help the country eliminate the greenhouse-gas emissions that warm the planet and to grow the domestic workforce. Mr. Biden wants that money to help spur progress and innovation from U.S. scientists and businesses on the electric power grid, utility-scale batteries, electrified transportation, carbon capture technology and advanced nuclear power—all efforts that get support from the Energy Department.

It would be a sharp contrast with the Trump administration, which de-emphasized the department’s role at promoting the growth of cleaner power in the U.S. Mr. Trump has questioned the science of climate change and worked to promote fossil-fuel consumption to boost the U.S. oil and coal industries. His Energy Department’s major initiatives included an attempted bailout for coal-fired power, support for boosting U.S. natural-gas exports and negotiations with other major oil producers.

Write to Timothy Puko at [email protected] and Andrew Restuccia at [email protected]