Meet this energetic mom from Mississippi who wants to promote prosperity and fact-based energy and environmental policy.
Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Mandy Gunasekara, who is launching IW’s Center for Energy Prosperity momentarily, is the latest entry in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
Mandy, whose impressive resume includes having served as chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says that the mission of the Center for Energy Prosperity is advancing our energy potential, protecting the environment, and promoting healthy communities. The Center will promote the idea that the key to environmental success is balance.
“There’s been a politicization of the Environmental Protection Agency and the environmental movement, which came to a head during the Obama administration,” Mandy explains. “We’ve seen this being reimplemented in the Biden administration. So, our approach, and the approach that makes the most sense from a practical and legal perspective, is balance. We have got to balance the interests of reducing emissions and improving the environment without negatively impacting economic productivity, growth, and innovation."
“Extreme measures such as shutting down industries or banning technologies are a bad approach to environmental protection,” she continues, “and come with a host of negative consequences, including lost jobs and gutted communities. The Center for Energy Prosperity will advocate for a better, more balanced way.”
Mandy also emphasizes the importance of understanding our modern energy industry and all that it enables. “We should celebrate U.S. energy – coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and renewables. It’s very fashionable to criticize fossil energy right now but the reality is that it provides 80 percent of our daily energy use and 60 percent of our electricity. Life would be much harder without it and as our understanding about the environmental impacts of energy use and affiliated development has grown, we have minimized its negative, external effects. Fossil fuels not only power our lives, but also produce the products we use every day.”
Mandy is a seventh-generation Mississippian who met her husband, Surya, at Ole Miss Law School. She was “pulled to Washington” by her interest in public service. But Mandy now lives in Oxford, MS., where she and her husband have an office on Oxford’s historic Square that is a common setting for Mandy’s many TV hits on national and local networks. Mandy is also a candidate for public service commissioner for Mississippi’s Northern District. She advocates for energy policies that make life better — not worse — for ordinary people.
We know you will enjoy this energetic woman who wants to promote prosperity and fact-based energy and environmental policy in the nation and closer to home, while raising children she clearly hopes will be eighth generation Mississippians, who’ve enjoyed the same opportunities she had.
