Architect of Trump’s Paris Climate Accord exit may return to EPA as chief of staff
Mandy Gunasekara also helped write the Affordable Clean Energy rule, a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
President Donald Trump’s not only shaking up Washington, D.C. by his firings (e.g., the mass termination of National Security Council members).
The President is now creating quite a stir with a new hire: Mandy Gunasekara, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official, is expected to return to the agency in a top role.
Gunasekara is poised to be EPA’s next chief of staff, sources told E&E News. She first joined the agency in March 2017 and was later named principal deputy assistant administrator in the air office.
She left EPA in February last year to found the Energy 45 Fund, a nonprofit group that defended President Trump’s energy policies.
Gunasekara’s return to EPA as chief of staff was first reported by The Washington Post.
Gunasekara said in a text message that she couldn’t comment at this time.
Asked for comment, EPA spokeswoman Molly Block said, “Ryan Jackson is Chief of Staff at EPA until February 21st, at which time Michael Molina will serve as Acting Chief of Staff.”
Gunasekera has been a major mover-and-shaker, in terms of pushing forward common-sense energy policies that focus on real environmental protections while avoiding unnecessary regulations burdening American businesses.
Mandy Gunasekara, who ran the Office of Air and Radiation under former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, played a key role in writing regulations to roll back pollution controls for coal-fired power plants and vehicle emissions, as well as the effort to leave the Paris climate accord.
Since leaving the EPA early last year, she founded Energy 45, a nonprofit “dedicated to informing the public about the environmental and economic gains made under the Trump administration.”
…Energy 45’s webpage credits Gunasekara with being “the chief architect of the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.”
She also helped write the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, a replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan.
Gunasekera’s work with Energy 45 has been focused on effective communication about climate science and the environment, in terms of Trump’s priorities and policies.
“Historic resistance from Democrats, the media and even some Republicans has made your accomplishments even more monumental,” Gunasekara wrote, adding, “I am increasingly concerned with the rhetoric from the far-left supportive of Venezuelan-style socialism, government take-overs and crony ‘green new deals’ that do little for the environment and threaten our economic success.”
….Gunasekara has spent time writing op-eds for newspapers such as USA Today and appearing on television networks such as Fox News, aiming to serve as a counterweight to critics of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle environmental safeguards.
“I think what Republicans are starting to understand is, we need to be better about communicating the good work that we’re doing,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post last year. “I always say, we’re right on the policy, we’re right on the facts,” she added. “But what we’re not great at is conveying that.”
Gunasekera appeared on OANN to share her thoughts on the Green New Deal
It’s a good thing liberal tears don’t raise global temperatures, otherwise we would be looking at Venus-like planetary conditions.
Mandy Gunasekara, the anti-climate propagandist whose answer to climate change is less renewable energy and more fossil fuels, is likely to be the EPA’s next Chief-of-Staff.@highbrow_nobrowhttps://t.co/gTCfmiaHpG
— Ale (@aliasvaughn) February 14, 2020
In keeping with his “bring back the worst people” campaign, @realdonaldtrump wants climate-change denier Mandy Gunasekara/@MississippiMGMandy to come back to the EPA, this time as chief of staff. (@washingtonpost) Hey, maybe she can just drop acid rain all over the country.
— Merryl Rosenthal (@MerrylJill) February 14, 2020
Mandy Gunasekara carried a snowball on the Senate floor to @JimInhofe so he could mock #ClimateChange and worked to pull the US out of the Paris accord at EPA. Now she’s in line to become EPA’s next chief of staff. By @eilperin and @brady_dennis: https://t.co/rLdanfxAAH
— James Hohmann (@jameshohmann) February 14, 2020
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Comments
Does she support Gen IV nuclear?
Once again, PDJT is irritating the correct people.
Now THAT is awesome! Time to take start breaking up another job-killing machine!
Every hate-attack and lie from the left is a very positive endorsement. And predictable. Orange Man Good.
And the USA is the only industrialized country to meet the Paris Accord Targets. And, the Kyoto Protocol Targets as well!
Yes. And the left/Democrats will never embrace substance, facts, or truth. They have an agenda and it is not the environment except as it can be exploited as a tool. They want the unstated purpose of the Paris Accord, not its stated purpose.
None of this makes a difference until the Supreme Court ruling that categorized CO2 as a pollutant is reversed.
First I can finally buy a one-flush toilet again, use the good old style dimmable light bulbs, and use cheap clean coal power. And in a realistic car that doesn’t cost a thousand to figure out which thing is blowing up my engine.
(he really needs to end the Ethanol thing though; yet he is helping remove the refinery credit trading).
Nice to know the EPA will continue to be fixed.
Not tired of winning. Not one bit. And we need an Airforce 1 S that can go supersonic so Trump can do even more rallys.
So should 2024 be Jr. or Melania?
“Mandy Gunasekara carried a snowball on the Senate floor to @JimInhofe so he could mock #ClimateChange…”
I like her already!
Where is Inhofe these days?
He used to come out with his most wasteful government expenditures each year didn’t he?
Am I permitted to notice she appears to be attractive, too?
Maybe it’s okay to say that here, but let’s just keep such observations among ourselves. Okay?
Another one of Trump’s roaming wrecking balls coming back to destroy some more of obama’s cancerous policies.
The EPA needs to have its priorities thoroughly straightened out.
They had decided that most of the real goals of the Agency had been achieved, so they ignored their core responsibilities (such as, to keep lead out of city water) to chase after new justification for their positions, such as declaring CO2 a pollutant, and grabbing authority over mud puddles and stock tanks.
They need clear and firm direction.