Mandy Gunasekara

Credentials

J.D. University of Mississippi School of Law, 2010¹
B.A. Communication and Media Studies, 2007²

Background

Amanda (Mandy) McGrevey Gunasekara is a Republican “climate and energy strategist,” former Trump administration official at the Environmental Protection Agency, and the founder of the “pro-Trump nonprofit” Energy 45 Fund.

The Energy 45 Fund (Energy 45) describes itself as “a Jackson, Mississippi based 501(c)(4) non-profit educational organization dedicated to informing the public about the environmental and economic gains made under the Trump Administration.”³

Gunasekara created Energy 45 in 2019, the day after she announced she was resigning from her position as principal deputy assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation under then-Administrator Scott Pruitt.⁴ ⁵

When E&E News asked her why she left the administration to found the group, Gunasekara commented that “there is a void in the communication space of folks going out there and promoting the positive story of the president’s energy, economic and environmental agenda. So I get to defend the greatest president in modern history.”⁶

Gunasekara returned to the EPA in March 2020 as chief of staff to Andrew Wheeler, the successor to Scott Pruitt as EPA administrator.

Gunasekara is a member⁷ of the CO2 Coalition, a group directed by climate change denier William Happer that portrays carbon dioxide as “a nutrient vital for life” and advocates for more of it in the atmosphere.

The CO2 Coalition suggests that “increasing levels of the greenhouse gas CO2 from fuel combustion will slightly increase the surface temperature of the earth,” and that “the warming is so small” from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 that “the resulting longer growing seasons and increased plant productivity from additional CO2 will of great benefit to life on earth.”⁸ In an October 2019 Senate hearing on the oil industry’s involvement in climate change denial, Gunasekara said she had only recently come on board at the CO2 Coalition as an advisor⁹

According to public tax records analyzed by DeSmog, the CO2 Coalition has received at least $420,000 from the Koch-affiliated Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, according to available records for 2004 to 2012). It has also received $320,000 from the Mercer Family Foundation, nearly $210,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and $54,000 from the Charles Koch Institute.

Coalition director Will Happer was implicated in an undercover Greenpeace investigation, during which Happer told the undercover Greenpeace reporters that he would be charge $250 per hour to produce research promoting the benefits of carbon dioxide. He agreed to write the report – for a purported Middle Eastern oil company – while keeping its funding sources secret.¹⁰

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Happer reportedly described climate change and the scientific consensus on it as “a completely imaginary threat that doesn’t exist.” He described people who believe in it as “brainwashed,” and that findings by the national security community on climate change threats as coming from “insular and paranoid” scientists.¹¹

Gunasekara’s CO2 Coalition profile describes her as “the chief architect of the Paris Accord withdrawal and the repeal of the Clean Power Plan” while she was President Trump’s principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA.¹²

During the Obama administration, Gunasekara worked for Sen. James Inhofe at the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. She was famously¹³ the staffer who handed Inhofe the snowball that presented to the Senate in 2015 as supposed evidence against global warming. She also served as majority counsel for Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) while he was the committee’s chair, prior to her first appointment to the E.P.A.¹⁴ ¹⁵

Gunasekara is a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), a group whose chairman has said “being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know, know that you’re actually conservative” puts IWF and its sister organization, the Independent Women’s Voice (IWV), in a unique position in “the Republican conservative arsenal.” IWF vocally opposed the Clean Power Plan, and was responsible for creating a supporting group called Balanced Education for Everyone with the goal of stopping the teaching of global warming in U.S. Schools, describing it as “junk science.¹⁶ ¹⁷ ¹⁸

Gunasekara is also a senior fellow at Life:Powered, a pro-fossil-fuel initiative created by the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez mentioned this affiliation when Gunasekara appeared at a committee hearing as a Republican witness in support of oil company ExxonMobil, amid litigation regarding the firm’s efforts to mislead the public about climate change. Gunasekara testified that the hearing was part of a “politically-motivated campaign” to smear the oil industry, and argued that any global warming would be manageable, The Guardian reported.

TPPF has received over $3 million from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, and more than $500,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, another Koch funding vehicle. ¹⁹ ²⁰

Gunasekara got her start in politics as a White House intern during President George W. Bush’s second term. She then worked as a field director for Mississippi politician Delbert Hosemann’s first campaign for secretary of state. From 2008-2009, she was a law clerk for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Following a two-year stint working for Ohio Congressman Bob Latta as senior legislative counsel, Gunasekara moved to the private sector in 2014, taking a position as director of legislative affairs for the National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD). According to NACD‘s website, this department “works to educate our members and the public on current policy and promoting informed legislation for the betterment of the chemical distribution industry and society.” (Emphasis added.)²¹ ²² ²³

Mandy Gunasekara’s husband, Surya Gunasekara, works for a lobbying firm called the Capitol Hill Consulting Group. While Surya Gunasekara was listed on Energy 45’s original domain registration records, which have since been made anonymous, Mandy Gunasekara claimed in an interview that her husband had nothing to do with the business, and that his name had appeared on the domain registration because they shared an account at the registrar GoDaddy.

According to his OpenSecrets profile, Surya Gunasekara has also worked for the American Petroleum Institute.²⁴

According to a search of the U.S. House of Representatives lobbying disclosures, Surya Gunasekara been listed in lobbying disclosures for the following clients:²⁵

Client	2012	2013	2017	2018	2019
AMERESCO			Y	Y	Y
AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE	Y	Y
Assette			Y	Y
Coldchain Technology Services, LLC					Y
easy2u, LLC, (Formerly: EasyGoing, LLC)					Y
Endo Pharmaceuticals			Y	Y
McGinnes Industrial Maintenance Corporation				Y
National Alliance of Forest Owners					Y
National Propane Gas Association					Y
NOVARTIS CORPORATION			Y	Y
ORACLE			Y	Y	Y
Verizon Communications, Inc. and various subsidiaries				Y
Waste Management, Inc.				Y	Y

Mandy Gunasekara Financial Disclosure Reports

Stance on Climate Change

Gunasekara is affiliated with groups that have suggested there is no need to reduce CO2 emissions or touted supposed benefits of increasing CO2 emissions. She is a senior fellow at Life:Powered, a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) that, in one publication, suggested “there is little to no evidence that there is a need to reduce carbon emissions in this country.”²⁶

Gunasekara is also a member of the CO2 Coalition, and has called her affiliation with the group “active, and inspired.”²⁷

The Coalition has stated that doubling CO2 levels in the atmosphere would result in warming “so small that the resulting longer growing seasons and increased plant productivity from additional CO2 will be of great benefit to life on earth.”²⁸

September 27, 2019

Gunasekara declared on Twitter:²⁹

“ICYMI: It is preposterous to me that many of my peers are so afraid of climate change that they say they can hardly think about it. I think what they should really be afraid of is gov overreach caused by such exaggeration over the effects of climate change”

February 22, 2019

In an interview with E&E News, Gunasekara responded to a question on her views on climate change:³⁰

“Consensus on global warming is varied and nuanced. As a general matter, the climate is changing, and humans have a role. That’s a serious issue that deserves our continued attention.”

Key Quotes

December 4, 2019

“Thankfully for the United States, President Trump understands that the international climate change process and its high-cost, ineffective outcomes are not worth his time nor the American taxpayers’ resources. While Pelosi will continue peddling false information at home and abroad, President Trump will continue to deliver on his promise to put the American people and their well-being first,” Gunasekara wrote at The Daily Caller.³¹

November 7, 2019

Via Twitter:

“Freeing America from the Paris Climate Agreement is a major victory for all Americans. Under President Trump we are seeing the cleanest air and water on record. It’s time to Keep American Energy Great!”

November 5, 2019

In The Daily Caller, Gunasekara was quoted as saying:

“The United States withdrew because the Paris Accord was simply a bad, ineffective deal. It came with billions of dollars of direct and indirect costs to American taxpayers and the economy, while producing no meaningful impact on the environment or climate. Its range of virtue-signaling policies are designed to make our reliable fossil-based energy more expensive — prohibitively so…

“In their quest to fulfill the Paris Accord and force an arbitrary shift to unreliable, costly energy sources, the Climate Mayors network has shown the United States what our future would be, had the president worked to stay in the agreement.

“What these politicians share — beyond their economically depressing climate policies — is the choice to feel good about the future, while ignoring the harm their policies are causing today. The rest of us? We’re on a path for an even stronger, cleaner and healthier future.”³²

October 23, 2019

During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on the oil industry’s efforts to suppress the truth about climate change, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questioned Gunasekara about her role with the CO2 Coalition:³³

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [2:18:45]
“Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Miss Gunasekara. You’re here advocating… I heard you mention the CO2 Coalition a few times. You believe they should have a credible seat at the table in climate policy, correct? “

Mandy Gunasekara [2:18:58]
“Yeah, I believe all scientists should have a credible… “

AOC [2:19:01]
“So the CO2 Coalition Are you aware that they are primarily funded by the Mercer family and the Koch brothers?”

MG [2:19:06]
“So I’m not familiar with the makings of the institution. I just recently came on board as an advisor that that works with them, but I’m not a part of the infrastructure so to speak.”

AOC [2:19:18]
“So you may be unwitting to the fact that this coalition that you’re a part of is funded by the Mercer family and the Koch brothers. Are you aware that the Koch brothers own oil refineries across several states in the United States and control some 4000 miles of gas pipeline and infrastructure?”

MG [2:19:33]
“Yes. “

AOC [2:19:35]
“Do you think that there may be any role in their financing with the CO2 Coalition with the advancement of their private interests?”

MG [2:19:40]
“Again, I don’t know about the financing with regard to the CO2 Coalition. I’ll say my engagement with them though, is it’s not unwitting. It is active, and inspired, and educated because a lot of these folks are scientists that have long been diminished and ignored. And the CO2 Coalition has provided a platform for them to provide reality and balance in the context of the climate discussion.”

AOC [2:20:07]
“Understood. Thank you for your testimony that you are not unwittingly working for the Koch brothers.”

June 14, 2019

Gunasekara appeared on Fox Business to discuss Joe Biden’s climate plans, claiming that:³⁴

“There’s a lot of people at the EPA that actually understand the true mission of the agency which is to advance public health in the environment, not to become the agency of climate change or the agency of control, which is what the Democrats are actually proposing with their climate plans.”

March 2019

Speaking on Fox News about the so-called “yellow vest” protests in France, Gunasekara declared:³⁵

“My message to the French leadership is they should shed the Paris agreement…”

February 25, 2019

Testifying at a Congressional Western Caucus policy forum and press conference on “exposing the Green New Deal,” Gunasekara declared:³⁶

“The Green New Deal is not a serious proposal. It reads like Karl Marx’s Christmas list and is a Soviet-style central planning document calling for a government takeover of the agriculture, transportation, housing and health care sectors.”

February 20, 2019

“What is lost in the climate change hyperbole from left-wingers like Ocasio-Cortez and Markey is the fact that the U.S. is already the leader on environmental issues in spite of oft-criticized actions like withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord,” Gunasekara wrote at Fox News.³⁷

October 16, 2019

“The Green New Deal is utterly unrealistic. It would have no real impact on global emissions , have an equally insignificant impact on climate indicators like temperature and sea level rise and riddle American taxpayers with a cost burden so great some studies have found that the federal government would have to tax every family making $30,000 a year at a 100 percent rate for 10 years to raise it.” – The Daily Caller.³⁸

Key Actions

December 12, 2022

After James Inhofe’s early retirement from the U.S. Senate in February 2022, a report by E&E News examined the large network of his former staffers, many of whom occupy influential positions in the energy industry and climate denial industry.³⁹

Gunasekara was among those named in the report:

“‘He showed us how to stand by your principles in the face of opposition, whether it’s someone pushing back or watching activists yell at him on climate stuff and him maintaining his composure and sticking to his guns,’ said Mandy Gunasekara, who was an EPW attorney and later served under Wheeler at EPA. She now works in conservative energy advocacy and is running for a spot on Mississippi’s Public Service Commission.

“‘He has built up the conservative approach to energy and the environment,’ she said. ‘He’s built up a lot of people who are substantively a part of shaping that now and far into the future,’

“Gunasekara, who worked on Trump administration efforts like exiting the Paris Agreement, repealing the Clean Power Plan and replacing it with the Affordable Clean Energy rule, learned some of her communications strategies from working for Inhofe, who was frequently the target of harsh criticism for climate denial or other actions.

“‘Sen. Inhofe demonstrated courage,’ she said. ‘And if you’re going to engage in these issues and stick by your guns, you have to have courage and you also have to communicate what you’re doing to the public.'”

February 6, 2020

Gunasekara testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on why the Trump administration’s proposed rollback of regulations on Mercury Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, would be “a positive change and how claims that the new standards would harm children are false and feed into a culture of alarmism.”⁴⁰

October 23, 2019

Gunasekara testified before the House Oversight Committee to discuss “the truth about climate change.” As DeSmog reported, this was the first-ever congressional hearing to examine the oil industry’s denial and deception around climate change.

According to the full hearing description, “The Subcommittee will examine how the oil industry’s climate denial campaign has negatively and disproportionately affected people of color and vulnerable populations in our country and around the world, as well as drowned out the voices of everyday Americans.”⁴¹

In her testimony, Gunasekara stated that:

[1:05:10] “I was also proud to have drafted the legal and policy case for exiting the Paris Climate Agreement which represents the flawed environmental policies of the last administration that was quick to sell out American Workers to curry favor among international elites.

“It is an attempt to revive a completely debunked effort aimed at bankrupting one of our nation’s largest energy companies. It is the latest product of a politically motivated campaign hatched years ago by politicians, activists, and well-funded foundations that want to demonize and entire industry and paint them as corrupt institutions that have, in their own words, pushed humanity towards climate chaos.

“This hyperbolic rhetoric is dishonest. The purported policies are ineffective and it represents all that is wrong in the mainstream environmental discussion.

“Our energy industry and the men and women who work in it are to be celebrated, not demonized.”

Gunasekara claimed at the hearing that access to “easy energy” was directly responsible for human “flourishing,” and that giving third world countries access to more energy should be a priority. She also said that an absence of fossil fuels would be “hugely detrimental to the standard of living of everyone.”

During the hearing, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confronted Gunasekara about the funding and intent of the CO2 Coalition, and posed questions suggesting that Gunasekara was working in the interest of oil companies:

August 15, 2019

As a guest on the SuperTalk Mississippi radio talk show, Gunasekara spoke about “President Trump’s energy administration and how the field is evolving.”⁴²

After talking about Trump’s deregulatory agenda, Gunasekara described the strategy to appoint conservatives to the federal judiciary:

“The judiciary strategy in terms of getting conservative judges on all across the country at all levels is extremely important because you’ve seen the the alternative, the activist judges that are out there. That a district judge in California is powerful to the point that they can stop the president from doing something that is explicitly within his authority and needed for the safety of the country.”

“[Y]ou have to adjust to your audience, wherever it may be. And speaking out to the millennial generation is so important because what the left did, effectively, was infiltrate the education system. So they’ve been force fed a lot of misinformation as it relates to the importance of energy and how it’s reduced poverty in the United States and the world as well as the role of the environment and our interaction with that. So I do have to adjust my tone and a lot of different ways, but I want to be effective towards a lot of folks.”

July 11, 2019

Gunasekara, representing Energy 45, was a signatory to an American Energy Alliance open letter to congratulating him for rolling back automobile fuel efficiency rules, called “Corporate Average Fuel Economy” or CAFE standards. The letter urged Trump to resist California’s authority, established in the Clean Air Act, to set stronger state fuel efficiency regulations – a rule commonly called the “California waiver” – and allow other states to follow California’s rules.⁴⁴

“Your efforts to reform this mandate will save consumers money, preserve their choices, and ensure that the federal government, and not a single state, sets national policy,” the letter reads.

“The existing mandate makes cars more expensive…because of the mandate, those consumers who prefer trucks, SUVs, or crossovers pay more to subsidize those who buy smaller vehicles or electric vehicles.”⁴⁵

May 22, 2019

Gunasekara repeated a common anti-electric vehicle talking point in a Daily Caller article: “California’s electric vehicle craze is fueling child labor.”⁴⁶

May 9, 2019

Gunasekara noted her Energy 45 affiliation when she signed on to an open letter, organized by the American Energy Alliance, in opposition to an electric vehicle tax credit.⁴⁷

“The American Energy Alliance has organized a coalition to proclaim in one unified voice that there should be no expansion of the misguided electric vehicle tax credit,” Thomas Pyle wrote in a statement, quoted in The Daily Caller. “There is no question that the electric vehicle tax credit distorts the auto market to no gain.”⁴⁸

According to Pyle and others who signed the letter, electric vehicle tax credits “overwhelmingly benefit the rich.” DeSmog’s Koch vs. Clean project has systematically debunked this, among other well-rehearsed talking points and misinformation put forward by industry about electric vehicles.⁴⁹

The letter cites research by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a group that has received over $600,000 from ExxonMobil, as well as millions from “dark money” groups DonorsTrust and Donors Capital Fund.⁵⁰

February 8, 2019

Shortly after resigning from her first Trump administration appointment at the Environmental Protection Agency, Gunasekara appeared on Fox News to claim that the Green New Deal would be a threat to the economic success of the U.S:⁵¹

“…it’s a complete disaster. And we know that it would cost around $5 trillion to the economy. Actually, just heard a more recent study say it could go up to $7 trillion to the economy, and it would put in peril tens of millions of hard working jobs in the coal, oil and natural gas industry.”

February 27, 2018

Gunasekara testified at a Congressional Western Caucus policy forum and press conference on “exposing the Green New Deal introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.”⁵² ⁵³

Other witnesses included prominent climate change deniers and figures such as Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Marc Morano of CFACT, geologist David Legates, and Tom Pyle of the American Energy Alliance.⁵⁴

“The only thing serious about the Green New Deal is how dangerous it really is for the nation,” Gunasekara said in her testimony. “For those willing to set aside politics, Congress has an opportunity to work collaboratively with President Trump and focus on solutions that enhance market-driven innovations without limiting our position as an energy superpower. Our entire economy is built on successful production, efficient development and affordable use of fossil-based energy resources. The path of the future is not to shut off use of these resources, but to continue to develop them in the cleanest, most efficient way possible and then share these innovations with the world.”⁵⁵ ⁵⁶

Affiliations

CO2 Coalition — Member.⁵⁷
Energy 45 Fund — Founder and president, 2019.⁵⁸
U.S. EPA Officer of Air and Radiation — Principal deputy assistant administrator, November 2017 – February 2019. ⁵⁹
National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD) — Senior director, legislative affairs, November 2014 – January 2015.⁶⁰
Life: Powered (Texas Public Policy Foundation) — Senior fellow. [15]
Lululemon Athletica — Key leader, May 2010 – April 2011.⁶¹

Political Affiliations

Publications

Gunasekara has written for a range of publications such as USA Today, and has appeared in numerous interviews for television networks like Fox News.

The Daily Caller