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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY