Mandy Gunasekara joins to discuss this month’s policy focus: The Painful Reality of Expensive Heat. It’s no coincidence that we picked this topic for February, typically the coldest month of the year. We look at the reasons you are paying more than ever to heat your home, why rolling brownouts and blackouts are more common, and why the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) trend ultimately increases global emissions. Finally, we discuss the launch of the new Center for Energy and Conservation.
Mandy Gunasekara is a senior policy analyst at Independent Women’s Forum. She is a veteran Republican climate and energy strategist, communicator, and environmental attorney with a well-earned reputation for delivering results. In 2020, she became a Principal at Section VII Strategies, a boutique energy, environmental, and tax policy consulting firm. Previously, Mandy served as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she set and implemented environmental policy priorities for the Trump-Pence administration. Prior to that, Mandy was the Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. In this role, Mandy was the chief architect of the Paris Accord withdrawal and the repeal of the Clean Power Plan.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we highlight this month’s Policy Focus, the Painful Reality of Expensive Heat. It’s no surprise that we pick this topic for February, typically the coldest month of the year. We’re going to look at the reasons why you’re paying more than ever to heat your home. Why rolling brownouts and blackouts are more common, and why the trend known as environmental, social, and governance, ESG, ultimately increases global emissions. Finally, we’re going to discuss the exciting launch of a new center at IWF called the Center for Energy and Conservation, and the author of our Policy Focus is here with us today. Mandy Gunasekara is a senior policy analyst at IWF. She’s a veteran Republican climate and energy strategist, communicator, and environmental attorney.
In 2020, she became a principal at Section VII Strategies. Previously, Mandy served as chief of staff of the EPA, where she set an implemented environmental policy priorities for the Trump/Pence administration. Prior to that, Mandy was the principal deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation. In this role, Mandy was the chief architect of the Paris Accord Withdrawal and the repeal of the Clean Power Plan. Mandy, always a pleasure to have you on She Thinks, thanks for joining us today.
Mandy Gunasekara:
Thanks for having me, Beverly. It’s wonderful to be with you.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to let our listeners know where they can find the Policy Focus. Go to iwf.org and you can search for it under Policy Focus, the Painful Reality of Expensive Heat. Do check it out, but we’re going to be talking about so much of that here. And I just want to start, Mandy, by getting into the data, the data behind the heating costs so far this winter. Where are we on increased costs for heating homes this winter?
Mandy Gunasekara:
It depends on where you’re located, which largely where you’re located will depend on what resources you rely upon for your heat. But Americans are paying anywhere from 14 to 30% increase for their heating bills or power bills affiliated with keeping their homes warm during these cold winter months compared to this time last year. And the reality is these increased costs, if we had better leaders making better decisions, they would not be increased at the rate that they are, causing the extent of pain financially for people, nor be susceptible to some of the disruptions that we’ve seen play out in places like Buffalo in just the worst kind way.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to break down some of these numbers even more. You had some disturbing ones that low-income households of course faced the most, they were hit the hardest. You said that “One out of six US families had fallen behind on utility bills,” and a recent survey by the National Energy Assistant Director’s Association assessed the impact of high energy costs, and they found that of those surveyed, “36% went without food for a day, 41% went without medical or dental care, and 31% didn’t fill a prescription because of the cost.” These are just shocking stats.
Mandy Gunasekara:
It’s shocking stats, and it should not be a choice that any American family should have to make today. We know how to provide affordable, reliable energy under just about any circumstance. The reality that so many Americans are facing these decisions that are being forced upon them and their family, is a result of policy choices from the top that are creating disruptions and high costs. And just to the stats you were reading, Beverly, on the choices, especially our low and fixed-income Americans will make, that’s because they have less take-home income and a larger portion of that take-home income is already spent on energy cost.
When those energy costs go up, it cuts directly into their take-home income. And then they have to make those choices, “Do I heat? Do I eat? Do I go to the doctor? Do I just deal with it and do I try to extend my prescriptions so I’m not straining my budget?” And it’s disheartening and it’s frustrating because again, if we had better leaders thinking about how decisions that impact our energy grid, especially during winter months, if they thought more critically and bigger picture, then we could avoid this whole situation.
Beverly Hallberg:
And what’s ironic is we hear this term often called climate justice, where people say that this is a way to make sure that low-income populations aren’t impacted by emissions that damage their health, but there’s never a focus on how higher costs are an economic burden to communities that are low income. Why is that forgotten altogether?
Mandy Gunasekara:
It’s a topic that those from the left that push these Green New Deal-type policies or they push the mantra of climate justice or environmental justice, they often ignore. They don’t want to talk about it. And part of it is because increased costs are a necessary part of their plan to make their preferred energy resources competitive, so to speak. They’re going to make fossil fuel energy that provides the bulk of the power we use every day, it’s critically important in providing heat to homes. They want to make that more expensive. And so, they ignore the economic burden that can create for middle, low, and fixed-income families here in America because it’s an inconvenient fact that doesn’t fit into their narrative about pushing wind and solar that are not reliable, come at a high cost, and then don’t provide the power when people actually need it. They just want to avoid the topic altogether because it undercuts what they are pushing in terms of their climate agenda.
Beverly Hallberg:
And you just talked about wind and solar and how there’s this focus on trying to make that the way that we get our energy, but the reality is that it’s very inconsistent for the obvious reasons. Let’s look at some of the main sources for heating homes, for powering homes, especially in the winter. The majority is still fossil fuels, correct?
Mandy Gunasekara:
Yeah, that’s right. And when it comes to heat, it’s especially the case, the majority of the power comes from natural gas, it comes from propane. In the northeastern parts of the United States, it comes from heating oil. These are all fossil-based energy. And any policies meant to deter the development or the fluid use of those resources it hits people’s ability to heat their homes from both a reliability or access perspective as well as costs. And that’s why this administration from day one, President Biden on the campaign trail, promised to, “End all fossil fuels,” he’s making true on that promise, but the effect of it is are these increased costs and energy and folks having to do without access to energy and times when they need it most, especially under harsh winter conditions. And sometimes they will try to deflect that reality. They will say, “Well, it’s because of climate change. It’s because the weather is more extreme, or these storms are more far-reaching,” and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
We’ve been experiencing winter weather storms in this country since it existed. And if the administration would approach how to build out a resilient grid under any weather conditions from a perspective of choosing the best technologies, not prioritizing what may be better politics for them, we could avoid this whole situation. And the reality is that fossil energy it provides around 60% depending on how you look at it for heat in winter months. But overall, on the day-to-day, the average American, we get 80% of our energy needs that are met by fossil energy sources. This includes coal, oil, and natural gas. Attacking these resources, it’s very flawed and it comes with the type of consequences Americans are unfortunately experiencing.
Beverly Hallberg:
And you also have the president and other politicians who will not just say, “Let’s end all fossil fuels,” they’ll give an arbitrary timeline for that. When a timeline is attached to it, what does that also do to the fossil fuel industry?
Mandy Gunasekara:
They set these arbitrary timelines that are removed from the technical capabilities of whatever technology they’re trying to replace. To break that down just a little bit, they’re trying to end fossil fuels. That means they’re trying to get away of coal, oil, and natural gas. That’s 80% of the energy that they want to ultimately do away with and then replace it with wind and solar, that only works some of the time. If I’m being gracious to wind and solar from a technological perspective, let’s say that they are providing power about 30% of the time. And when the administration sets arbitrary deadlines such as, “We are going to be net-zero by 2035 or 2050,” it’s setting a timeline and a statement that is not respective of the technical feasibility of existing technology. And it creates these unnecessary hardships where people are trying to comply with the deadline that was not set on facts or pragmatism or balance, which is extremely important in this space.
Instead, it was set for purposes of capturing a headline, but it comes with all of these consequences, and it’s a very irresponsible approach to talk about natural changeover in technological advancements. I like to use this as an example, Beverly, no one had to ban the rotary phone for iPhones to overtake the market. And that’s because iPhones were clearly a superior technology.
Now, it took time for that to turn over. There’s still people that use rotary phones today, but nonetheless, they are not being penalized by the federal government because they still choose to hold onto their rotary phone for whatever reason. It’s the same. You could talk about the same thing in the energy space. If and when there is a superior technology that can still meet current demand and future growth, the market will accept it and adapt to it. The problem is this administration is trying to force square peg in a round hole, and it creates all of these problems. And a lot of what’s driving these decisions is they’re going after headlines. They’re chasing politics, and they’re trying to appease donors who are largely detached and are removed or don’t care about the high-cost consequences.
Beverly Hallberg:
I’m glad you brought up the political angle because one of the hypocritical stances on this is that we are getting fossil fuels from Venezuela while we shut down the Keystone Pipeline. That was the first thing the president did when he became president. And this whole idea that we’re becoming so green and we’re going to use these alternative energies, which I’m glad you focus on this in the policy paper, you talk about it being a two-pronged approach. Yes, looking at alternative energies, but allowing for innovation in the fossil fuel market to take its place. We’ve already seen innovation, the politics of us purchasing fossil fuels from Venezuela, were you surprised by that move?
Mandy Gunasekara:
Yeah, absolutely surprised. And it’s almost like the administration, they just want to push all of this productivity overseas. And if they can’t see it, and those emissions don’t come from within the United States, maybe they don’t have to count it for purposes of their net-zero commitments. But that’s such a backwards approach and irresponsible approach to actual environmental improvement. We want productivity to occur in the United States, whether it is extracting oil and natural gas or building out manufacturing plants, creating chips, and the things that make our economy work. We want that done here in the United States because we have strict environmental standards, number one. And number two, we have stakeholders, whether it’s companies or the general public that actually care and pay attention. When we develop things in this country, we do it in a much cleaner, more efficient way.
Yes, I was very surprised that the Biden administration was shutting down US oil and gas production and then trying to appease and work with the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Not only is it problematic from the environment, but it’s also problematic from a humanitarian perspective because all that he’s done to that country and the devastation he’s brought among his own people.
Beverly Hallberg:
And something that you’ve written about before, which I think is an important aspect. When we think about fossil fuels today, I just mentioned there’s been innovation. They’re so much cleaner today than what they were decades ago. Can you just briefly talk a little bit about that? Because there are listeners that we have that have of course are going to say that we need to do whatever we can to have a clean environment. You and I would agree with that. What can you share with them on what we know about fossil fuels and the innovation they’ve had at this point?
Mandy Gunasekara:
That’s such a great question and a really great point. The reason we lead the world in emissions reductions, whether you’re talking about particle pollution or greenhouse gases, is because of breakthroughs in the extractive process of natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing is now done horizontal, not just vertical. They don’t just drill a hole down straight. They can drill one hole, spread it out, and extract a lot more resources that previously and historically were unavailable. Natural gas is cleaner from an emissions perspective compared to coal and oil and the growth of that has lent itself to us leading the world in overall environmental progress, especially when it comes to reducing our greenhouse gas footprint. But the other piece of it is, I don’t want to denigrate coal and I don’t like it when some of the natural gas folks go after coal because we now know how to extract and produce energy from coal in a very clean way.
And this has to do with the integration of scrubber technology. Scrubbers are what they are. They essentially are attached to the top of a stack, and they pull out a lot of the particle pollution that historically was released into surrounding communities and did cause a lot of health problems. But we know how to do that process in a way that cleans it up and limits that public health and environmental impact. Those type of breakthroughs are largely behind our environmental progress. And the fact that since 1970, I’ll just say this one stat because it’s amazing and people need to hear it more often. Since 1970, we have reduced air emissions by 77% while the economy has grown so many times over. And that’s because of smart, balanced environmental policy that balances the need for energy resources, but integrating smart environmental solutions that aren’t about putting people out of business or banning technology, just figuring out a better, cleaner, efficient way to do something that is vital to our way of life.
Beverly Hallberg:
And you talked about 80% of how homes are powered come through fossil fuels. I want to talk about the rolling blackouts and brownouts today. I especially think of California and how they face that, especially in the summer. What is the cause of that? Is that how the state is handling their energy source? And is it because they’re trying to use too many alternative energy sources that just aren’t reliable?
Mandy Gunasekara:
It’s a combination of two main things. They have an oversaturation of unreliable sources, so wind and solar, again, nothing wrong with wind and solar, but they only work when the sun shines or the wind blows. And the idea of keeping a grid-like California or even Texas up and running, when you have intermittent power resources like that, it becomes virtually impossible. And then throw into that the fact that instead of investing in existing infrastructure, there’s a lot of upkeep to power lines, transmission stations, and all the various pieces that make up a power grid. California has not done a good job spending resources to perform basic oversight and maintenance to keep those systems going and going strong. And as those decay or crumble in the way that any kind of infrastructure does, that creates additional problems where you have growing demand, less energy coming back in because they’re relying more and more on wind and solar and then the largely natural gas resources that are there, they’re undermining the ability of that to actually be delivered by not maintaining the infrastructure that’s necessary to take it from point A to point B.
And the last thing I’ll say, Beverly, is they’ve been going after nuclear plants, and nuclear is an existing technology that provides baseload power, that steady source of power that is so important for reliability and costs. But in California, they’ve been having conversations about shutting some of their last nuclear plants down. And that, it’s cutting off your nose despite your face type situation because it’s taking away a major power source that has very low emissions profile, which will just exacerbate the current situation.
Beverly Hallberg:
And another thing that’s exacerbated all of this and the investment trend is what is known as environmental, social, and governance. The acronym is ESG. People have probably heard of it, but you say that this is growing and this is a dangerous trend, and that it actually increases emission. How does this social justice side of energy actually lead to more emissions harming our environment?
Mandy Gunasekara:
What they’re ultimately doing is the ESG, the people who implement ESG are the ones who control access to capital. And whether you’re a small, mid-size, or even large company, you need access to capital to keep your company going. It depends on how you’re organized but at the end of the day, access to capital is essentially lifeblood of a healthy and growing operation. Now, what those who control that access to capital have done through the purview of ESG is they have set standards including compliance with net-zero policies. And at the end of the day, it constrains and inhibits the ability of fossil fuel companies to get access to capital and lends them to either going out of business or minimizing their growth and development. And like I just said a second ago, the reason we lead the world in environmental improvements is because of breakthroughs in the fossil fuel energy.
When ESG constraints capital, it puts these companies out of business, what it ultimately does is it sends that productivity and growth overseas to places like China and India or even Venezuela in instances where they don’t have the same environmental standards that we do in this country. It really has the opposite effect of what they are trying to do. And in the process, it’s putting great American businesses and companies out of business or forcing them to let people go that want to provide a vital service that we absolutely need here in this country.
Beverly Hallberg:
And something you point out in the policy paper, which I think is an important thing to think through, is that many Americans may be saying, “Well, I never voted for the Green New Deal.” The Senate didn’t pass it. It hasn’t been passed in this country. How has the green agenda progressed so much without legislation and what is the right path that we can actually take?
Mandy Gunasekara:
They’re using the powers of the financial markets, certainly, the ESG that I just referenced, but then also what this administration is doing is they’re using the power of the federal bureaucracy to implement new regulations or new standards that can squeeze businesses out of existence. And these standards, they should be set on technical realities and clear defined emissions reductions goals. Instead, they are largely set and implemented in ways that inhibit the continued of existence of certain types of companies. The extreme way to say it, Beverly, is they’re weaponizing the federal government against American industries that are absolutely necessary for our economy to continue to grow. And they’re solely going after them because they have fallen out of political favor. They’re using the regulatory powers alongside financial pressures to go after the fossil fuel industry, which is one of the centerpieces of the Green New Deal.
Now, the better way to go about this is to do away with these market-distorting pressures. They also, I’ll say one thing that’s been done, this was implemented, I believe it was the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, but it could have been the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal. I can’t remember exactly which one, but they instituted a new tax on natural gas. They called it a fee, a methane fee, but it’s a tax on this part of the American economy and the entities that rely on that for power. The better way is to get rid of these market-distorting tactics, to do away with ESG for access to capital and credit to be based off of merit, not compliance with social woke standards or social standards defined by the woke left.
When it comes to the regulatory state, regulatory standards need to be set based on existing technologies, not prospective technologies. And when it comes to the federal government, they should do away with these market-distorting tax components, not just taxing the energy resources we actually need, but also doing away with tax benefits that they have given to wind and solar that lend itself to a larger build-out of these type of energies that complicate the grid and don’t provide the power that we actually need and lend itself to a less resilient, less reliable grid.
Beverly Hallberg:
I want to round out our conversation by talking about the new center that has been launched at IWF called the Center for Energy and Conservation that is to deal with all of this. We talked about what can we do, you just named some things there, but also it’s taking a look at the center and getting information on a regular basis. Tell us more about it. I know you’re excited. I’m excited. Tell us what it’s all about.
Mandy Gunasekara:
We’re going to be launching it next week officially, and it will be focusing on promoting balance when it comes to this issue of energy, environment, and conservation. And the mission is promoting or helping America realize its energy potential, protecting the environment, and promoting thriving communities. And this is a three-pronged stool, if I could use that analogy, that will be necessary to get us to that better cleaner environmental future, but without sacrificing the modern way of life or the help and welfare and economic opportunity of so many Americans. That’s the mission. That’s the message we’re going to be focusing on.
We’re also going to be encouraging Republicans and conservative-minded leaders to lean in on the environment. For many years now, we’ve let extremists that ascribe to a leftist purview of the world overtake the conversation about the environment, and it has not been constructive, and it has not led to good outcomes. We have better solutions to all of these issues. And I’m going to encourage and help conservative-minded leaders and Republicans to lean in on the issue of environmentalism because we not only have the best ideas, we have the ideas that could actually work and make a difference.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I encourage our listeners to check it out. That launch is next week. As you just mentioned, Mandy, it’s called the Center for Energy and Conservation, and also the Policy Focus to remind people it is called the Painful Reality of Expensive Heat. Mandy Gunasekara, thank you so much for joining us. As always, it’s so informative.
Mandy Gunasekara:
Thanks for having me, Beverly.
Beverly Hallberg:
Thank you all for joining us. Before you go, Independent Women’s Forum does want you to know that we rely on the generosity of supporters like you. An investment in IWF fuels our efforts to enhance freedom, opportunity, and well-being for all Americans. Please consider making a small donation to IWF by visiting iwf.org/donate. That’s iwf.org/donate. Last, if you enjoyed this episode of She Thinks, do leave us a rating or review. It does help, and we love it if you shared this episode so your friends can know where they can find more, She Thinks. From all of us here at IWF, thanks for watching.
