Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm won her confirmation to be the Energy Department secretary on President Biden’s cabinet, but she did so without the support of Oklahoma’s U.S. Senators.
Granholm’s confirmation in the Senate came on a 64-35 vote with all Democrats and 14 Republicans agreeing on her nomination.
Senators Jim Inhofe and James Lankford voted against the confirmation.
Inhofe voted against Granholm, citing her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline which would have carried oil to the Cushing hub in Oklahoma.
“I’m concerned she will push Green New Deal-inspired policies that will harm Oklahoma’s economy, especially our oil and gas industry and rural communities. I oppose her confirmation because of these concerns,” said the senator in a statement on his website.
“I am very concerned for the future of Oklahoma’s energy economy and jobs under Jennifer Granholm,” Inhofe said. “As Governor of Michigan, she pushed clean energy and electric vehicles, advocated for auto industry bail outs and approved hundreds of millions of dollars in DOE grants to ‘green’ startups that later went bankrupt.
He also cited her previous comments that “We ought to be doing everything we possibly can to keep fossil fuel energy in the ground…”
Inhofe said Granholm’s record proves she would forcefully carry out Biden’s GND-inspired energy agenda.
After the Senate vote, Granholm tweeted that she is “obsessed with creating good-paying clean energy jobs in all corers of America in service of addressing our climate crisis.”
She later told MSNBC, “I am all about bringing clean-energy jobs.”