When the House last week passed its version of the Department of Energy’s 2024 budget, members crossed the aisle to defeat an amendment to cut the Secretary of Energy’s salary to $1.
Most of the “no” votes on the amendment from Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) were from Democrats and most of the “aye” votes were from Republicans, who control the chamber. Norman brought the amendment up for a vote in part because Granholm did not sell her stock in electric bus maker Proterra, a California-based company with manufacturing facilities in South Carolina, before President Joe Biden (D) made a virtual visit to the facility in 2021.
DOE has said Granholm divested the Proterra shares by a legal deadline after she became secretary of energy.
Among the Republicans voting “no” on the Granholm salary amendment were several whose districts or committee assignments give them influence over the annual budget of the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. These crossover Republicans were:
- Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-Tenn.), the chair of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee whose district neighbors DOE’s Oak Ridge Site and the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
- Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
- Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Ida.) whose expansive district borders DOE’s massive Idaho Site and the Idaho National Laboratory. Simpson is a former chair of the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.
The final vote on the amendment, No. 51 for the bill, was 166-247, with 26 members not voting according to the House’s official vote sheet.
