Former Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced Thursday that she will be joining the boards of directors for Southern California Edison Company and its parent corporation, Edison International—one of the largest utility companies in the U.S. The move comes just six months after Granholm’s Department of Energy awarded $600 million to a consortium of California utilities, including Southern California Edison.
During her tenure at the DOE, Granholm faced numerous ethics violation accusations, including conflicts of interest and using her official position to promote companies in which she had financial ties or prior relationships. Despite widespread reporting on her controversial tenure, Granholm was never charged or disciplined for any wrongdoing, Just the News reported.
Following her nomination and throughout her confirmation hearings, legacy media outlets showered Jennifer Granholm with favorable coverage, hailing her as a “champion” of clean energy policies and the climate agenda. Despite the early praise from climate-focused news publications, her tenure was plagued by controversy and ethics concerns.
In May 2021, just four months after her confirmation, reports surfaced that Granholm held shares in Proterra, an electric bus company that the Biden-Harris administration had heavily promoted. According to the Associated Press, Granholm admitted in 2023 congressional testimony that she had “mistakenly provided false information” about her family’s stock holdings. By that time, she had divested her shares in Proterra, earning a $1.6 million profit, according to the Washington Free Beacon.\
In April 2021, Jennifer Granholm testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, stating that she owned no individual stocks and had only invested in mutual funds. However, in February 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. ethics officials had warned top Energy Department officials—including Granholm—that they or their family members owned stocks that could violate conflict-of-interest rules.
By June 2023, Granholm admitted to the Committee on Energy & Natural Resources that she had owned stocks in six companies, which U.S. ethics officials had determined to be “non-conflicting.” Additionally, she failed to disclose that her husband had investments in Ford Motor Company. In a letter to the committee, Granholm claimed she had “mistakenly” testified that she did not own individual stocks. Despite the admission, the committee took no further action.
Proterra went bankrupt in August 2023, leaving transit districts across the country stranded with broken electric buses that couldn’t be repaired. That same year, Jennifer Granholm faced public embarrassment when her highly promoted “EV Road Trip” turned into a PR disaster. As she attempted to showcase the viability of electric vehicles, her advance team quickly realized that there weren’t enough charging stations to accommodate her fleet— which included a Cadillac Lyriq, a Ford F-150 Lightning, and a Chevy Bolt EV.
The embarrassment started when, according to reports, “one of the station’s four chargers was broken, and others were occupied. So an Energy Department staffer tried parking a nonelectric vehicle by one of those working chargers to reserve a spot for the approaching secretary of energy. A family with a baby, in need of the blocked spot, objected to the Energy Department’s misuse of energy infrastructure and public vehicles. The parents called 911. ”
Shortly after these revelations, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), then the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called for the inspector general to investigate Jennifer Granholm’s alleged conflicts of interest. In April, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) escalated the pressure, calling for Granholm’s resignation over the issue. Meanwhile, House Republicans on the Oversight Committee also launched an investigation into Granholm’s investments in Proterra.