Gov. Jennifer Granholm will huddle in Washington, D.C. Wednesday with Barack Obama's presidential transition team to talk about energy issues, stoking speculation that she may be on the verge of being appointed U.S. energy secretary.
Aides to the governor said her business in the nation's capital is related to policy, not a cabinet appointment. But they acknowledged her meeting with Obama's energy advisers is bound to raise more questions about the possibility she will resign in the middle of her term for a job with the new administration.
"The governor will talk to the Obama transition team about green jobs and she'll meet with the Michigan delegation about the auto bridge loan," said Liz Boyd, spokeswoman for Granholm. "It's a policy visit."
Granholm will be accompanied to Washington by Skip Pruss, her top energy adviser and director of the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, and by Doug Parks, alternative energy expert at the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
She also is scheduled to appear late Tuesday on the Larry King CNN talk show to discuss energy matters.
The governor's name has surfaced on most short lists for the post, largely because she was tapped by Obama to lead panel discussions on alternative and renewable energy at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and at a campaign appearance in Florida.
Two others who had been high on the speculative list — Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan — now appear to be out of the running. The Associated Press Tuesday listed those still in the mix as: Granholm; John Bryson, retired chairman of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison and co-chair of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, a leading advocate for plug-in hybrid vehicles; Ralph Izzo, chairman of Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey-based energy holding company; and Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize winning physicist.
Granholm has been a familiar face on national television talk shows on which she manages to swing discussion about the auto bailout package to the need for U.S. energy independence. That issue has been a central theme of Obama's positions on economic and energy policy.
The Obama transition team hasn't commented on whether he has chosen an energy secretary. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden met in Chicago Tuesday with former Vice President Al Gore, a leading environmental spokesman.
The AP, citing Democrats familiar with the meeting, said it was not intended to be a discussion of whether Gore might take a position in the Obama administration
Granholm, chosen by Obama as a member of his economic transition team, has been a relentless advocate for alternative and renewable energy in Michigan for four years. She initially called for Michigan to be the hub of the nation's alternative energy movement in her 2005 State of the State address.
She has traveled the state in an ethanol 85 van sporting corn decals. She posed next to wind turbines in the Thumb as she stumped for accelerated use of wind power and the potential for manufacturing wind turbines in the state. She has visited overseas with foreign on alternative energy issues. She has courted alternative energy companies to locate in the Upper Peninsula, Midland area, Greenville, Battle Creek and Auburn Hills.
Granholm pushed for and signed legislation establishing a renewable energy portfolio for Michigan, which mandates 10 percent of the state's electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2015. She ushered in a program that has cut energy usage at state facilities by 18 percent.
If she becomes energy secretary, Granholm would be the second Michiganian in that post. Republican Spencer Abraham held the job from 2001-2005.
