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Jennifer Granholm

Also Known As Granholm, Jennifer Mulhern Granholm

Education

  • Graduated: B.A. in political science and French -
  • Juris Doctor degree - Harvard University - At Harvard Law School

Overview

Jennifer Mulhern Granholm is a Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician serving as the 16th United States secretary of energy since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the 47th governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, and as the 51st attorney general of Michigan from 1999 to 2003, as the first woman to hold both offices.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Granholm moved to California at age four. She attended the University of California, Berkeley—graduating with her bachelor of arts in 1984—and earned a JD from Harvard Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She then clerked for Judge Damon Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991 and in 1995 she was appointed to the Wayne County Corporation Counsel.

Granholm ran for attorney general of Michigan in 1998 to succeed 37-year Democratic incumbent Frank J. Kelley. She defeated Republican John Smietanka, the 1994 nominee and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, by 52% to 48% and served from 1999 to 2003. She ran for governor in 2002 to succeed Republican John Engler. She defeated Engler's lieutenant governor Dick Posthumus by 51% to 47% and became Michigan's first female governor on January 1, 2003. She was re-elected to a second term in 2006 against Republican businessman Dick DeVos by a large margin and served until January 1, 2011, when she left office due to state term-limits.

She was a member of the presidential transition team for Barack Obama before he assumed office in January 2009. After leaving public office, Granholm took a position at the University of California, Berkeley and, with her husband Daniel Mulhern, authored A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Future, released in 2011.She became host of The War Room with Jennifer Granholm on Current TV. In January 2017, she was hired as a CNN political contributor.

On December 15, 2020, the president-elect, Joe Biden, announced his intention to nominate Granholm to head the United States Department of Energy. She was confirmed by the United States Senate on February 25, 2021, by a vote of 64–35

Early career :

After graduating from Harvard Law School, Granholm clerked for Judge Damon Keith, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, from 1987 to 1988. She also worked for the Michael Dukakis 1988 presidential campaign . After working as an attorney in the Wayne County executive office from 1989 to 1991, Granholm became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991. She helped to prosecute drug dealers, gang members and child pornographers, sued the state and fought against credit card fraud. Of the 154 people Granholm tried, 151 were convicted. In 1995, she was appointed as Corporation Counsel for Wayne County, the youngest person to hold the position. Granholm defended the county against lawsuits, sued the state over road taxes, and fought to uphold environmental laws

Secretary of Energy (2021–present) : 

Granholm sworn in as Secretary of Energy by Vice President Kamala Harris in February 2021

Then-President-elect Joe Biden nominated Granholm to be the next secretary of energy. Granholm was seen as one of Biden’s least controversial nominees, winning support from unions, environmental groups, and some Republicans. University of California, Berkeley professor of energy Daniel Kammen, who worked with Granholm at UC Berkeley, said she will be "phenomenal for DOE" because "she understands the technology, she understands deployment and she knows how to run a big agency." She appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on January 27, 2021, and the committee voted to advance her nomination in a 13–4 vote on February 3, 2021. She was confirmed by the Senate 64–35 on February 25, 2021, and was sworn into office later that day by Vice President Kamala Harris. She is the first secretary of energy born outside the United States.[citation needed]

In April 2021, she said President Joe Biden "has a goal of getting to net zero carbon dioxide for this country by 2050. And that means that we have got to figure out ways to clean up our fossil fuel industry." On May 19, 2022, the Department of Energy announced a $3.5 billion program funded under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create four large-scale regional direct air capture hubs each consisting of a network of carbon dioxide removal projects.

Granholm had a call with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. They discussed closer cooperation in the energy field. In late 2021, she blamed the OPEC oil cartel led by Saudi Arabia and the U.S. gas and petroleum industry for rising fuel prices in the United States. When asked what her plans were to increase oil production in the United States, she laughingly replied: "That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this."

Granholm signed a detailed ethics agreement for the top energy government job and has since then, violated certain provisions of the STOCK Act.

On December 16, 2022, Granholm cleared J. Robert Oppenheimer, American theoretical physicist, often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project – the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons, of the 1954 revocation of his security clearance due to a "flawed investigation"

Early Life

Jennifer Mulhern Granholm born February 5, 1959 in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Shirley Alfreda (née Dowden) and Victor Ivar Granholm, both bank tellers.Granholm's maternal grandparents came from Ireland and Newfoundland, respectively. Her paternal grandfather was Hugo "Anders" Granholm, who immigrated to Penny, British Columbia, Canada, in the late 1920s from Royersford, Sweden, where his father was the mayor. The former Minister for Enterprise and Energy and former Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden, Maud Olofsson, lives in Robertsfors, and when the two met in Sweden, the media revealed that Olofsson's husband is a relative of Granholm. Her paternal grandmother was Judith Olivia Henriette (Solstad) Granholm, an emigrant from Gjerstad in Southern Norway. She came with the ship SS Bergen fjord from Oslo to Halifax, and from there she took the railway to Penny, British Columbia, where her uncles and several others had established a small logging village.

Granholm's family immigrated to California when she was four years old. She grew up in Anaheim, San Jose, and San Carlos. Granholm attended Ida Price Junior High and Del Mar High School before graduating from San Carlos High School in 1977 and won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant. As a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21. In 1978, she appeared on The Dating Game, and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.

In 1980, at age 21, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and worked for John B. Anderson's campaign for president of the United States as an Independent in the 1980 election. She then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, the first person in her family to attend college. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in political science and French.During a year in France, she helped to smuggle clothes and medical supplies to Jewish people in the Soviet Union and became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. She then earned a Juris Doctor degree at Harvard University, also with honors, in 1987. At Harvard Law School, Granholm served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the leading progressive law journal in the United States.

While Granholm was at Harvard, she met fellow law student and Michigan native Daniel Mulhern, a theology graduate from Yale University. They married in 1986 and they took each other's surname as their middle names. They have three children.

On February 21, 2010, when dual-citizen Granholm was asked about her preferred team to win the then heavily-anticipated gold medal match for men’s hockey at the 2010 Winter Olympics, between the United States men’s national ice hockey team and the Canadian men’s national ice hockey team, she mentioned that “of course” she supported the United States in gold medal game, while half-jokingly pointing out that she left Canada at the age of four.

On October 21, 2010, Granholm was made a Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, First Class, by the King of Sweden "for her work in fostering relations between Michigan and Sweden to promote a clean energy economy."                                 

Career

  • United States Secretary of Energy - Canadian-American lawyer, educator, author, political commentator, and politician

Reference

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