Carol Browner

Carol Martha Browner (born December 16, 1955) is an American lawyer, environmentalist, and businesswoman, who served as director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2011.

Born in Miami, Florida, on December 16, 1955, Browner is the daughter of Isabella Harty-Hugues and Michael Browner, both of whom were professors at Miami Dade Community College, in social science and English respectively.

She has two younger sisters.

Browner grew up in South Miami, and her hikes in the nearby Everglades – only a bicycle ride away from her house – gave her a close connection to the natural world: "I was very shaped by growing up in that kind of environment where nature was right there."

Browner received her B.A. degree from the University of Florida in 1977, majoring in English.

She then graduated from the University of Florida College of Law with a J.D. degree in 1979.

During 1980 and 1981, Browner worked as General Counsel for the Florida House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations.

There she helped revise Florida's Conservation and Recreational Lands Program.

In 1983, she moved to Washington, D.C. and worked as associate director for the national Citizen Action group, a grassroots lobbying organization that was active in environmental issues.

Browner met Michael Podhorzer, a specialist in health-care issues at Citizen Action, in 1983.

Between 1986 and 1988, Browner served as chief legislative assistant to Democratic U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles from Florida.

In that role, she worked on a complex negotiation to expand Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve as well as on a ban on offshore drilling nearby the Florida Keys.

They married in 1987 and lived in Takoma Park, Maryland.

They have a son, Zachary, born in 1987.

From 1988 to 1991, Browner worked as legislative director for Senator Al Gore, and became known as a Gore protégé.

She helped prepare amendments to the Clean Air Act and managed Gore's legislative staff.

During 1989, she served as a legal counsel for the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

She was not averse to in-field investigation, and once dived in coastal waters to do research while pregnant.

Browner then headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation from 1991 to 1993, where she turned it into one of the most active departments in the state government.

She was the longest-serving administrator in the history of the EPA, staying through both terms of the Clinton presidency.

During her tenure, she reorganized the agency's enforcement structure and oversaw two new programs designed to create flexible partnerships with industry as an alternative to traditional regulation.

She started a successful program to deal with contaminated lands in urban areas.

She took the lead within the administration in defending existing environmental laws and budgets and was the driving force behind a stringent tightening of air quality standards that led to a prolonged political and legal battle.

As Secretary of Environmental Regulation, Browner headed the Florida Department of Environmental Regulation from 1991 to 1993, while living in Tallahassee.

It was the nation's third-largest such state agency, with 1,500 employees and a budget of some $650 million.

There she believed that economic development and environmental protection did not have to be in conflict with each other.

She revitalized the demoralized department and turned it into one of the most active in the Florida state government.

She shortened the amount of time it took the department to review development permits for wetlands-affected areas and for manufacturing plants; in doing so, she annoyed some environmentalists who thought that the streamlined procedures diminished public review.

Browner pushed for the halting of construction of new hazardous waste plants and municipal waste incinerators, on the grounds that health and environmental consequences were insufficiently known.

She brokered a deal with Walt Disney World that would allow it to build on wetlands it owned, in exchange for $40 million of work by Disney to restore endangered wetlands nearby.

Browner previously served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001.

She currently works as a Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group, a global business strategy firm.

Browner grew up in Florida and graduated from the University of Florida and the University of Florida College of Law.

After working for the Florida House of Representatives, she was employed by Citizen Action in Washington, D.C. She became a legislative assistant for Senators Lawton Chiles and Al Gore.

Afterward, Browner became a founding member of the Albright Group and Albright Capital Management in 2001.

She also served on a number of boards of directors and committees dealing with environmental issues.

Her director role in the Obama administration was sometimes informally referred to as the "Energy Czar" or "Climate Czar".

Her efforts towards getting comprehensive climate and energy legislation passed in Congress came to no avail, but she assumed a prominent role in the federal government's response to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill during 2010.

She left her position in 2011 and the job itself was abolished shortly thereafter.

Following that she rejoined the merged Albright Stonebridge Group, continued being active in several boards of environmental organizations, joined the boards of some energy- and agriculture-related companies, and became an advocate for nuclear energy in response to the dangers of global warming.