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CNN Live At Daybreak

Interview with Jennifer Granholm

Aired August 18, 2003 - 08:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The governor, Jennifer Granholm, is among those demanding to know what happened and how to keep it from happening again. The governor's with us live in Indianapolis today, where she's attending the National Governor Association meetings.
Good morning, governor. Nice to you have back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

You came to a pretty good place to talk about this. What are the governors saying?

GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D), MICHIGAN: You know, the governors are where the river meets the road. We are the ones who face this it the citizen whose say, I don't care who owns the transmission grid, or I don't care who's responsible. Well, they do care who's responsible, but they do want to know most of all, are we going to fix it? And that's really the bottom line. if this stuff gets stuck in Congress the next year and a half, then we are not going to have the results we need. We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

HEMMER: Hong on one second on that. How do you do that? What is the oversight committee today that can point the finger where it belongs?

GRANHOLM: That's the $50,000 question. Is it the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? Is it the FERC? No. Is it these reliability councils? No. Is it these regional transmission organizations? No. I mean, the problem is, is that it's so diffuse that nobody knows exactly who is responsible, and where to go to enforce reliability and hold people accountable for this happening.

Truly, average citizens just want to flip the switch and see the light come on. They don't want -- they want this resolved. And all of this finger-pointing is not going to get us there. We need standards.

HEMMER: I apologize for the interruption, but I'm just trying to follow your thought here. What you need, then, is pressure from the public to tell the people in Washington, fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again.

But if the power works today, what are the citizens in Detroit going to do? Are they going to say, you know what? The power's back on. My toaster works, my blow dryer works, an things are back to normal. If that's the case, then people go on with their lives and they forget the problems we saw last week. See where I'm going with this one?

GRANHOLM: From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is. I don't think that -- I know that governors are not going to let this know. I hope that Congress, and the president and the energy secretary are not going to let this go. I'm sure they're not.

There is a problem. Everybody's been saying it. Governor Bill Richardson, when he was secretary of energy, said it, that we have an old transmission grid, there needs to be investment in it. It needs to happen now, we can't wait anymore, because it's going to happen somewhere else if we don't get on the stick.

HEMMER: One of the things you told Wolf Blitzer yesterday is that you need the incentive to reinvest in the transmission grid. What's the incentive? Where is it? How do you do that?

GRANHOLM: Well, I think that the federal government who wants to have federal standards has got to come up with federal incentives for investment in the transmission grid. Obviously, there's a lot of carrots and sticks that can be used to provide those investments. Truly, it's because we don't have the standards now, and the accountability now and the enforcement now that the entities who are operating and owning these grids are not doing the investment, and that's what needs to happen.

In Michigan, just quickly, the transmission operation is owned by a company that's not in Michigan, and it's hard for us. I'm sure this is true in other states to figure out, to find out who is to be accountable when they don't even have a presence in Michigan other than operating the transmission grid. So we just need for there to be very strong federal standards and some accountability, and truly we've got to step back and see, what have we done over the past few years that has caused this to happen? Let's forget the partisan rhetoric, let's just figure out the best way to fix the problem.

HEMMER: It is a tangled web. Thank you, governor. Good luck in Indianapolis.

GRANHOLM: You bet.

HEMMER: Michigan is 100 percent, I want to point that out as well, back in your home state.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired August 18, 2003 - 08:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The governor, Jennifer Granholm, is among those demanding to know what happened and how to keep it from happening again. The governor's with us live in Indianapolis today, where she's attending the National Governor Association meetings.
Good morning, governor. Nice to you have back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.

You came to a pretty good place to talk about this. What are the governors saying?

GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D), MICHIGAN: You know, the governors are where the river meets the road. We are the ones who face this it the citizen whose say, I don't care who owns the transmission grid, or I don't care who's responsible. Well, they do care who's responsible, but they do want to know most of all, are we going to fix it? And that's really the bottom line. if this stuff gets stuck in Congress the next year and a half, then we are not going to have the results we need. We need, first of all, for there to be accountability, for there to be somebody who is responsible for enforcing standards and holding people's feet to the fire.

HEMMER: Hong on one second on that. How do you do that? What is the oversight committee today that can point the finger where it belongs?

GRANHOLM: That's the $50,000 question. Is it the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission? Is it the FERC? No. Is it these reliability councils? No. Is it these regional transmission organizations? No. I mean, the problem is, is that it's so diffuse that nobody knows exactly who is responsible, and where to go to enforce reliability and hold people accountable for this happening.

Truly, average citizens just want to flip the switch and see the light come on. They don't want -- they want this resolved. And all of this finger-pointing is not going to get us there. We need standards.

HEMMER: I apologize for the interruption, but I'm just trying to follow your thought here. What you need, then, is pressure from the public to tell the people in Washington, fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again.

But if the power works today, what are the citizens in Detroit going to do? Are they going to say, you know what? The power's back on. My toaster works, my blow dryer works, an things are back to normal. If that's the case, then people go on with their lives and they forget the problems we saw last week. See where I'm going with this one?

GRANHOLM: From a reality perspective, I'm sure part of that is true, but this is the largest blackout in U.S. history. If that is not a signal that we have got a problem that needs to be fixed, I don't know what is. I don't think that -- I know that governors are not going to let this know. I hope that Congress, and the president and the energy secretary are not going to let this go. I'm sure they're not.

There is a problem. Everybody's been saying it. Governor Bill Richardson, when he was secretary of energy, said it, that we have an old transmission grid, there needs to be investment in it. It needs to happen now, we can't wait anymore, because it's going to happen somewhere else if we don't get on the stick.

HEMMER: One of the things you told Wolf Blitzer yesterday is that you need the incentive to reinvest in the transmission grid. What's the incentive? Where is it? How do you do that?

GRANHOLM: Well, I think that the federal government who wants to have federal standards has got to come up with federal incentives for investment in the transmission grid. Obviously, there's a lot of carrots and sticks that can be used to provide those investments. Truly, it's because we don't have the standards now, and the accountability now and the enforcement now that the entities who are operating and owning these grids are not doing the investment, and that's what needs to happen.

In Michigan, just quickly, the transmission operation is owned by a company that's not in Michigan, and it's hard for us. I'm sure this is true in other states to figure out, to find out who is to be accountable when they don't even have a presence in Michigan other than operating the transmission grid. So we just need for there to be very strong federal standards and some accountability, and truly we've got to step back and see, what have we done over the past few years that has caused this to happen? Let's forget the partisan rhetoric, let's just figure out the best way to fix the problem.

HEMMER: It is a tangled web. Thank you, governor. Good luck in Indianapolis.

GRANHOLM: You bet.

HEMMER: Michigan is 100 percent, I want to point that out as well, back in your home state.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com