Granholm 'bullish' on Congress passing clean energy tax credits

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday she is "bullish" that Congress will ultimately pass some form of clean energy tax credits — particularly as moderate Democrat Joe Manchin conducts bipartisan meetings with senators on an energy bill.

The bipartisan infrastructure law that passed last year "is sort of the spine of the president's clean energy and energy future agenda, but the tax credits are the lungs of it," Granholm told POLITICO's Sustainability Summit. "They absolutely need to pass and I am feeling actually pretty bullish about it at this very moment."

The clean energy tax credits were included in Democrats' broad budget reconciliation package that collapsed in the Senate last year because of opposition from Manchin. The credits included extensions of long-held incentives for renewable sources such as wind and solar, but would also subsidize new technologies including nuclear and clean hydrogen.

Manchin has said he supports tax credits for clean energy, but he has voiced opposition to expanding credits for electric vehicles.

But Granholm also indicated that updating the nation's mining regulations to help increase U.S. production of critical minerals — a top priority for West Virginia's Manchin — could convince him to support incentives for electric vehicles.

"We've got to be responsible in terms of how quickly we can permit and how much we've got to move on doing extraction in the United States," she said. "If we address those things, I think he understands the importance of bringing down the price of electric vehicles because they're so much cheaper to drive [and] they're so much cheaper to maintain and to own over the course of the lifetime of the vehicle."

The Energy Department recently put out a funding announcement under the bipartisan infrastructure law for processing the mined materials used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

"That piece of things, if we're able to get that in the ground, helps to resolve the issue that he's been rightfully concerned about," she said of Manchin.