This week, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is traveling to Illinois to visit clean energy sites. It comes a day after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to continue pushing America toward cleaner and more sustainable energy. She joined The 21st to talk about the executive order, the recently-passed infrastructure bill, electric vehicles, and more.
When former Texas Gov. Rick Perry faces the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for his confirmation hearing on Thursday, his first test could be whether he remembers the name of the agency he's been picked to head.
The Department of Energy (DOE) is one of three agencies Perry proposed eliminating when he was running for president in 2011. During a debate, he successfully listed the Department of Commerce and the Department of Education. But he couldn't bring to mind the name of the third agency — the Energy Department.
Finley, with the Illinois State Geological Survey at the University of Illinois, says FutureGen, which recently lost its federal funding, would have been an important demonstration of clean-coal technology.
The Illinois coal industry is not happy with the federal government’s decision to stop funding a clean-coal project in Illinois.
A Department of Energy spokesman says it has concluded the project couldn't meet a September deadline to use its $1 billion in federal stimulus funding.
