Wednesday, May 22, during a hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee to review the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request for the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico Questioned Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Jill Hruby on a number of issues.
Heinrich Commented on the Inflation Reduction Acts impact on manufacturing in New Mexico.
“You actually joined me to see the very first wind towers coming off the line at Arcosa’s manufacturing plant in Belén, New Mexico, and that's a great example of how the Inflation Reduction Act is bringing manufacturing back to the United States. And I believe that we need to do the same for components of our power grid, like transformers. Can you talk a little bit about how your budget request of $113 million for the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains can help ensure that we have American-made grid components?”
Granholm discussed the work the Department of energy is doing to prioritize American manufacturing.
“We're doing a number of things on this and thank you for your leadership on it. Our Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, as an example, did this with heat pumps through the Defense Production Act and was able to essentially seed domestic industry growth here. And we'd like to do the same with grid components, particularly transformers. I will say though that 48C gave us an opportunity to fund six grid transformer manufacturers in this country.”
Granholm continued to say that there are more opportunities under section 48C of the Inflation Reduction Act to promote clean energy manufacturing in America.
