Mandy Gunakesara

Author of the epa chapter in Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”

Mandy Gunasekara proudly identifies as the “chief architect” of the United State’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement and pushed for rollbacks of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. She was the staffer who infamously handed the late Senator James Inhofe the snowball he used as a prop on the Senate floor to “prove” that global warming wasn’t real. She also has ties to multiple Koch-funded organizations but has denied knowing about their connections. She is now a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and she wrote the chapter on the Environmental Protection Agency in the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership.” Gunasekara, along with Trump’s other conservative allies, has been a driving force in reversing the Endangerment Finding.

  • Birthday: November 29, 1984 

    Hometown: Decatur, Mississippi 

    Primary residence: Oxford, Mississippi

    Current role: Author of the EPA chapter of Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership”

    Education:

    • JD from the University of Mississippi School of Law

    • BA from Mississippi College

    Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

    • Visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment (Sep 2022 - Present)

      • “At Heritage, Gunasekara will contribute to the center’s efforts to craft a policy agenda that rejects Biden’s ineffective and unsustainable climate policies, unleashes American energy production, and reduces barriers to economic freedom.”

    • Principal at Section VII Capital LLC (Jan 2021 - Present)

    • Co-founder of the Satoshi Action Fund (Mar 2022 - Present) 

      • ```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````Member of the CO2 Coalition (directed by climate change denier William Happer)

    Past roles: 

    Fun facts: 

    • Gunasekara was the “chief architect of the Paris Accord withdrawal and the repeal of the Clean Power Plan” 

    • Gunasekara was the staffer who handed James Inhofe his infamous snowball in 2015 as alleged “proof” that global warming wasn’t real 

    • Gunasekara is a seventh-generation Mississippian

    • The “45” in the Energy 45 Fund refers to Trump being the 45th president.

  • Authored the EPA chapter in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership

    • Throughout this 32-page chapter, Gunasekara lays out her ideas about what a conservative EPA should look like under the next conservative presidential administration. She details policy, personnel, and budget reforms for offices under the EPA. 

    • Key quotes: 

      • “The challenge of creating a conservative EPA will be to balance justified skepticism toward an agency that has long been amenable to being coopted by the Left for political ends against the need to implement the agency’s true function: protecting public health and the environment in cooperation with states.”

      • “The EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker and returned to its congressionally sanctioned role as environmental regulator.” 

      • The Biden Administration’s “top-down, coercive approach” “is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables.”

      • “...the position of EPA Administrator has been overshadowed by the creation of multiple “Climate Czars” at the Biden White House.” 

      • “Although the U.S. environmental story is very positive, there has been a return to fear-based rhetoric within the agency, especially as it pertains to the perceived threat of climate change.” 

    • Key policy proposals: 

      • “Returning the environmental justice function to the [Office of the Administrator], eliminating the stand-alone Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.” 

      • “Returning the enforcement and compliance function to the media offices (air, water, land, and emergency management, etc.) and eliminating the stand-alone Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assistance, which has created a mismatch between standard-setting and implementation.”

      • “Resetting science advisory boards to expand opportunities for a diversity of scientific viewpoints free of potential conflicts of interest.”

      • “Eliminating the Office of Public Engagement and Environmental Education as a stand-alone entity and reabsorbing substantive elements into the Office of Public Affairs.”

    • The “Day One Executive Order” includes a list of actions to be taken on the first day of the President’s term, such as orders to “stop all grants to advocacy groups and review which potential federal investments will lead to tangible environmental improvements” and “determine the opportunity to downsize by terminating the newest hires in low-value programs.”  

    • Addressing climate change:

      • “Remove the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) for any source category that is not currently being regulated. The overall reporting program imposes significant burdens on small businesses and companies that are not being regulated. This is either a pointless burden or a sword-of Damocles threat of future regulation, neither of which is appropriate.”

      • “Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding.” 

      • “Establish a significant emissions rate (SER) for greenhouse gasses (GHGs).”

    • Even Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from Project 2025. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.” 


    Withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord

    • Mandy Gunasekara was the “chief architect” of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. She dismissed the Agreement as an “ineffectual effort to curb emissions,” and that “The Paris Agreement is for those who want to stand behind a piece of paper without doing anything meaningful.” 

    • At the time of this withdrawal, the United States was the only country in the world to back out of its climate promises. This move caused the US lose its standing as a climate leader. On his first day in office, President Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement. If elected in 2024, Trump would withdraw the US from the Agreement once more. 

    Founder of the Energy45 Fund

    • The day after Mandy Gunasekara resigned from her role as Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator at the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, she launched the Energy 45 Fund “to inform the public about the environmental and economic gains made under the Trump Administration” by “educating policy makers and the general public regarding legislation and other matters of importance to the people and economy of the United States.”

    • Energy45’s website included a page called “Exposing Liberal Energy Fantasies” that read: “Led by self-avowed socialists, the Democrats have made a leftward lurch so dramatic that it would make Stalin blush. Their policies to combat climate change are nothing but a proxy for draconian government control that prohibits car ownership, kills domestic energy production, and harms low-income communities the most.” 

    • Energy45 was a part of the CO2 Coalition, a group that blatantly denied climate change and was funded by the Koch and Mercer family foundations. 

    Testifying before the House Oversight Committee about Big Oil’s denial and deception

    • In 2019, for the first time, a Big Oil CEO – Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil from 2006 to 2016 – testified before a New York State attorney general about Exxon lying to its investors by “exaggerating the stringency of its financial safeguards in pricing risks from regulations restricting greenhouse gas emissions.” 

    • One week before Tillerson testified, Mandy Gunsekara testified before the subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. She was defending two former Exxon scientists and the fossil fuel industry’s history of climate denial and deception. Gunasekara testified that the absence of fossil fuels would be “hugely detrimental to the standard of living of everyone.” 

    • Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questioned Gunasekara during this hearing, asking her if she knew that the CO2 Coalition was funded by the Kochs and the Mercer Family Foundation. Gunasekara claimed not to know about this funding, but later claimed that her engagement with the Coalition was “active, inspired, and educated.” 


    Handing Inhofe his infamous snowball

    • Mandy Gunasekara was the staffer who handed Senator James Inhofe the snowball on the Senate floor as a prop to “prove” that climate change was not real in 2015.

    Reversing the Endangerment Finding

    • In 2022, Many Gunasekara and Johnathan Brightbill started a secret campaign to reverse the Endangerment Finding. The two secured $2 million in funding from conservative groups including the Heritage Foundation. The funding allowed Gunasekara and Brightbill to draft regulatory documents to facilitate the abandonment of the Finding. Gunasekara and Brightbill collected an “arsenal of information” to dispute the climate science and eventually led the Trump Administration’s rescission of the Endangerment Finding on February 12, 2026.

  • Mandy Gunasekara has profited off her climate crimes by holding various high-status positions and wielding significant political power. Information on her income and net worth are not publicly accessible online. 

  • Mandy Gunsekara’s role in the architecture of carbon capital is in the policy and advocacy worlds. She has held multiple government positions, including the EPA administrator during the 2016-2020 Trump Administration. She has used her political power to roll back Obama-era vehicle efficiency standards and the Clean Power Plan, and she was the chief architect of the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. 

    The CO2 Coalition – of which Mandy Gunasekara was a member – is a nonprofit that seeks to educate “thought leaders, policy makers, and the public about the important contribution made by carbon dioxide to our lives and the economy.”

    Their “Climate Facts” library publishes claims that contradict accepted climate science:

    • “Current CO2 levels are near record lows. We are CO2 impoverished.”

    • “More CO2 means more plant growth.”

    • “The current warming trend is neither unusual nor unprecedented.”  

    • “We are living in one of the coldest periods in all of Earth’s history.” 

    • “IPCC models have overstated warming up to three times too much.”

  • Besides efforts to increase transparency about Mandy Gunasekara’s affiliations by organizations like DeSmog, there has not been much public pushback against her.  By promoting her alleged climate crimes, we hope to provide greater scrutiny to her leadership roles.

    • “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.” –Gunseakara to E&E News in 2019

    • “[The CO2 Coalition] 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.” –Gunasekara during a House Oversight Committee hearing in 2019

    • “I came to D.C. to push back against what I saw as the overreach of the last administration. And I wanted to come over to the EPA to help set the agenda for President Trump.” –Gunseakara to E&E News in 2019

    • "I think when you’re in the agency, it’s focusing on getting the work done and doing it the best you can in a way that is consistent with our direction. You’re just focused on the mission at hand and getting it done." –Gunasekara in 2019

    • Referring to Donald Trump: “ So I get to defend the greatest president in modern history.” –Gunseakara to E&E News in 2019 

    • “The Paris Agreement is for those who want to stand behind a piece of paper without doing anything meaningful.” –Gunasekara in 2019

    • “[Y]ou have to adjust to your audience, wherever it may be. And speaking out to 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.” –Gunasekara in 2019 as a guest on the SuperTalk Mississippi radio talk show, discussing the left’s “infiltration” of the education system.

Connections within the Polluter Industrial Complex

What is the Polluter Industrial Complex?

  • Gunasekara has held multiple government positions: 

    Gunasekara ran for election to the Mississippi Public Service Commission to represent the Northern District in 2023, but she was disqualified from the Republican primary by the Mississippi Supreme Court for failing to meet the state citizenship requirements. 


    In an interview with E&E News, discussing former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, Gunasekara said, “When I first started working for Sen. Inhofe, I met with Wheeler, and he basically told me, ‘If you want to be a successful climate staffer and [a] staffer for Sen. Inhofe, these are the things you need to read. These are the people you need to reach out to.’ And so he really helped set up what ended up being a very successful two years. He helped set me up with that.”

    • Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) 

      • From June 2022 to October 2023, Mandy Gunasekara was the director of the Center for Energy and Conservation at the Independent Women’s Forum. 

      • The IWF is a 501(c)(3) think tank and has a sister organization, the Independent Women’s Voice (IWV). The IWF was originally founded in 1991 to support Clarence Thomas’s US Supreme Court nomination. It officially self-identifies as non-partisan and neutral, but, in the words of the IWV president and board chair Heather Richardson Higgens, “Being branded as neutral, but actually having people who know know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.” 

      • An investigation by the Center for Media and Democracy found that though the IWF and IWV use the term “independent” as a marketing ploy to appeal to women, in reality, they push “corporate-backed policies or extreme candidates that actually make things harder for working women and their families, in CMD’s assessment.” For example, the IWF “routinely attacks policies popular with many women, like equal pay, earned sick leave, and raising the minimum wage, as well as Title IX and protections for battered women.” 

      • One of the main goals of the IWF’s Center for Energy and Conservation is to “level-set fear-based rhetoric surrounding the climate and cultivate meaningful policies that lead to cleaner air, cleaner water, and a lower-emissions future. Importantly, the center will connect the role our modern energy industry has played in successful environmental outcomes and a better, more prosperous way of life.” 

      • IWF connections to right-wing organizations

        • At least half of IWF staff members have previously worked for Koch-controlled groups or organizations that receive Koch funding. 

        • Carrie Lukas, president of IWF, used to work for the Cato Institute. 

        • IWF has received funding from DonorsTrust in the past: 

          • $792,000 in 2017

          • $625,000 in 2018

      • The IWF’s corporate sponsors have included: 

        • Marathon Petroleum Corporation

        • The Walton Family Foundation

        • Facebook

        • American Beverage Association

        • Juul

    • Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) 

      • Mandy Gunasekara was formerly a board member for Aii, an “independent, national research and educational organization dedicated to identifying our nation’s infrastructure needs, creating awareness of those needs, and finding solutions to critical public policy challenges.”  

      • Aii is a think tank that consists of two nonprofits: the National Infrastructure Safety Foundation and the Public Institute for Facility Safety. 

      • Her husband, Surya Gunsekara, is currently on Aii’s Board of Directors.

  • Gunasekara is a member of the CO2 Coalition which, according to DeSmog’s analysis of public tax records, has received: 

    • At least $420,000 from the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation between 2004 and 2012 (Koch-affiliated) 

    • $320,000 from the Mercer Family Foundation

    • Nearly $210,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation

    • $54,000 from the Charles Koch Institute

    When questioned by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about her connection to the CO2 Coalition during a House Oversight Committee hearing, Gunasekara said: “So I’m not familiar with the makings of the institution. I just recently came on board as an advisor that works with them, but I’m not a part of the infrastructure so to speak.”

    Because Energy45 is a registered 501(c)(4), Gunasekara is not required to disclose its funders and is able to channel “dark money” donations to anti-climate advocacy.  She has said that her donors preferred to stay anonymous. OpenSecrets reported that Energy45’s website was purchased while Gunsekara was still on EPA payroll. 

  • Gunasekara is married to lobbyist Surya Gunasekara, who works for a lobbying firm called the Capitol Hill Consulting Group. Surya Gunasekara has lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute, Endo Pharmaceuticals, the National Propane Gas Association, and AMERESCO. The Energy45 website is registered in his name, but Mandy told the Center for Responsive Politics that she just shares a GoDaddy account and that he has no official role in Energy45.


    Mandy Gunasekara herself has lobbied for the National Association of Chemical Distributors.

  • Mandy Gunasekara has a JD from the University of Mississippi School of Law, and spent two summers (2008 and 2009) as a law clerk for the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and and Commerce Office of General Counsel. 

    In 2019, Gunasekara testified that lawsuits against oil companies were “frivolous.”