From grid resiliency to electric vehicles to renewable fuel sources, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy sees opportunity for Houston to be a leader in a clean energy transition.
During her first official visit outside of Washington, D.C., as secretary of energy, Jennifer Granholm visited with policy and industry stakeholders in the Houston region on May 28 to discuss advancing the local clean energy economy.
Granholm touted the Biden administration's American Jobs Plan and its investments to build a clean energy economy that creates millions of good-paying jobs, saves consumers money, and reduces the health impacts of pollution.
Granholm visited Air Liquide’s hydrogen production facility in La Porte, Texas, and hosted a roundtable on advancing the clean energy economy with U.S. Representatives Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Lizzie Fletcher, and Sylvia Garcia, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, and industry leaders from the Houston area.
"We've got the whole delegation here as a united front on this challenge, which is, how do we make sure that people understand that this clean energy transition is about opportunity and creating jobs instead of fearing it," Granholm said.
“Clean energy takes all kinds of forms into the future, and Texas can be a leader in that,” she said.
According to the Houston Business Journal, Rep. Garcia, who represents areas including Pasadena, South Houston and regions along the Houston Ship Channel in Texas' 29th congressional district, noted that some residents in her working-class district worry about how the clean energy transition could impact their livelihoods in the energy sector. She urged DOE to ensure that energy workers are included and given the training needed to participate in a clean energy economy.
"It's about their jobs; it's their pensions; it's their future; it's their training, their families," Garcia said. "We've got to make sure that those people who work in all those plants throughout my district know that things are changing."
