Biden Energy Nominee Holds Energy Investments, Including Interest In Electric Vehicle…

Jennifer Granholm, Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Energy, holds more than $1 million worth of stock options in an electric bus and battery maker set to go public later this year. 

Granholm, who was Michigan’s first woman governor from 2003 to 2011, has sat on the board of Proterra, a Silicon Valley-based electric vehicle maker since 2017. Granholm holds between $1 million and $5 million in vested stock options in the company—one of her largest individual assets, according to a financial disclosure statement released Monday, which lists her income and assets in broad ranges.

Proterra announced last week that it plans to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called ArcLight Clean Transition. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2021, subject to approval from ArcLight’s shareholders, according to a statement. The company’s shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq.

Granholm plans to resign from her board seat and forfeit her unvested options upon her confirmation, but she still may be able to participate in Proterra’s public offering, depending on when the deal closes. Her ethics disclosure states that she will sell off her vested options as soon as it is feasible, but she has 180 days until after her confirmation to do so. That leaves open the possibility that she could hold onto the stock options until after the company goes public.

Appointees often have holdings that overlap with their official responsibilities when they begin their terms, but such holdings can cause concerns about conflicts of interest. “I’d want her out of the options before she took office if at all possible,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration who often criticized the Trump administration for its ethical issues.   

There may be underlying restrictions set by the company that prohibit Granholm from divesting before the company goes public, says Virginia Canter, chief ethics counselor at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who added that Granholm will have an underlying conflict until she gets rid of the interest.

Representatives from the Biden transition team and Proterra did not respond to a request for comment. No matter when Granholm ultimately decides to divest, she has agreed to recuse herself from any matters that she knows involve Proterra for the first year after she is confirmed.

Proterra is not the only business in the energy sector that counts Granholm as an investor, according to her disclosure. Within retirement accounts, Granholm and her husband also own smaller stakes in publicly-traded companies with ties to the energy sector, such as solar panel manufacturer First Solar (worth $16,000 to $65,000), electric power company Duke Energy ($2,000 to $30,000) and Albemarle, a business that sells lithium used in batteries ($1,000 to $15,000). In September Albemarle announced it was selected by the Department of Energy to work with the agency on two research projects about lithium over the next three years. 

Within 90 days of her confirmation, Granholm plans to divest her stakes in those companies, according to her ethics agreement. She’ll also ditch her holdings in several other publicly traded companies, including Microsoft, Ford and Pfizer. She will hold on to her stock in companies such as real estate business Redfin, pharmaceutical firm Gilead and Uber.

Granholm served two terms as Michigan’s governor. The years since she left office in 2011 have proven lucrative. Her assets are worth at least $4 million, according to her disclosure. After leaving office, Granholm relocated to California, where she and her husband have held professor gigs at the University of California, Berkeley since 2011. 

From January 2019 to December last year, Granholm earned between $2.1 million and $2.3 million, according to her disclosure. About $1.3 million of that came from several six-figure salaries, retainers and director’s fees, including $160,000 for sitting on the board of shipbuilder and defense contractor Marinette Marine Corporation, $200,000 for her work as a political commentator for CNN and $390,000 in salary from her and her husband’s consulting business. She also earned more than $170,000 in speaking fees from groups such as the American Hospital Association ($20,000), the American Public Transportation Association ($18,000) and AIPAC New England ($10,000).