This post is part of a series examining where 2024 candidates running for public offices in the Southeast stand on key energy and climate issues. Note: The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy does not support or oppose candidates or political parties. Links to reports, candidate websites, and outside sources are provided as citizen education tools.
In this blog post, we examine the policies and positions of Anna Paulina Luna, Republican Party candidate running for reelection to the United States House of Representatives from Florida’s 13th congressional district. Also in this series, we profile Republican candidate Whitney Fox. Election Day is November 5, 2024.
Anna Paulina Luna currently serves the United States House of Representatives from Florida’s 13th congressional district as a member of the Republican Party. She was elected to office in 2022 and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Previously, she was the director of Hispanic engagement for Turning Point USA. Luna grew up in Orange County, CA, and earned a degree from the University of West Florida.
Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
Anna Paulina Luna, who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee, is opposed to offshore wind turbines having stated “these ugly and ineffective turbines[…] pose untold dangers to our state’s coastal communities […] My Florida Republican colleagues and I are committed to ensuring that no turbines are placed off of Florida’s coasts,” and introduced a bill amendment that would require the US Government Accountability Office to publish a report examining the adverse effects of wind energy.
Climate Change
Rep. Luna voted for H.R.1 a bill that would expand oil and gas drilling on public lands and cut environmental regulations, as well as repeal both the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which is focused on financing for clean energy and energy efficiency for underserved communities, and the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, the policy to incentivize oil and gas infrastructure owners to make improvements to minimize methane leaks and collect fees from methane polluters. Luna joined 10 other Floridian Republicans and voted in favor of shutting the government down days before Hurricane Helene devastated large portions of the area she represents in Tampa Bay, Florida, a move that FEMA’s administrator said could leave the agency underfunded to respond to damage from any subsequent storms.
Electric Transportation
Luna praised efforts to overturn the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule, and has argued that the “US doesn’t actually have a grid or infrastructure that can actually enable or support a majority of Americans driving EVs.”
Energy Equity and Energy Burden
As a Congresswoman, Anna Paulina Luna has said about climate justice: “Those who are advocating for climate justice … are empowering a country [China] that is going to destroy us all.”
High-Risk Energy: Coal, Nuclear, Oil, Gas
Luna promotes increased fossil fuel production as a path to energy independence. According to her website, Luna “will continue to lead the charge in Congress for American energy independence by restoring oil and gas leases, reinstating the Keystone XL pipeline, and fighting the Left’s radical Green New Deal regulations.”
This past May, Luna disclosed that she had invested between $200,000 and $450,000 in America First Natural Resources LLC, a top political donor’s energy company that aims to produce oil and gas in the United States.
Luna called herself a proud cosponsor of the National Nuclear Commitment Act, which states that “Congress is committed to embracing and accepting nuclear power as a clean baseload energy source that is easily compatible with other intermittent energy sources and necessary to achieve a reliable, secure, and green electric grid.”
During a Natural Resources Committee hearing Luna said “I know and firmly believe that coal is the energy of the future […] And as radical environmentalists [around the world] try to force their countries into an electrified transition, the world is not ready for it in terms of minerals mined and processed.”
Voter Information
Election Day is November 5. Here are important dates and deadlines to consider, from the Florida Division of Elections:
- Deadline for county elections offices to send vote-by-mail ballots to UOCAVA voters: September 21, 2024
- Deadline for county elections offices to send vote-by-mail ballots to domestic voters: September 26, 2024 – October 3, 2024
- Deadline to register to vote: October 7, 2024 (no deadline to change party affiliation)
- Deadline to request that ballot be mailed: October 24, 2024
- Early voting period (mandatory period): October 26 – November 2, 2024. [In addition, county supervisors of elections have the option to offer more early voting on the 5 days before the mandatory start, and/or 1 day after the mandatory end (i.e. potentially opening Oct. 21-Nov. 3 for early voting)]
- Election Day: November 5, 2024
*Visit Vote-by-Mail and Military and Overseas Citizens Voting for information about deadlines to send a vote-by-mail ballot, to request a vote-by-mail ballot and to return vote by a mail ballot.
Find additional important election information here.
#CandidatesOnEnergy2024
Featured Image Courtesy of Anita Denunzio on Unsplash.
The post Candidate Anna Paulina Luna On Climate & Energy appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
Seminal astrophysicist Carl Sagan explains why uncomfortable ideas may be banned in religion, they must not be shunned in science.
This is an important concept in American life today, as conspiracy theorists are convinced that climate change denial cannot be considered in scientific circles.
I happened to bring this up in my interview with Dr. V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution, who has been amassing data on global warming since the 1970s. He laughed, and explained, “If I could prove that human activity was not causing temperatures to rise, I’d be be one of the wealthiest and most famous scientists in world history.”
As suggested at left, a great deal of the hardship that has befallen the U.S. was simply bad luck. Al Gore came within a whisker of victory in 2000, a win that would have forever changed the course of our nation in terms of energy policy, education, healthcare, and international affairs.
If Bernie had become the 2016 nominee, we wouldn’t have had Hillary Clinton telling our country’s most mean-spirited and least-educated people that they were “deplorables,” ushering a criminal sociopath into the White House.
We Came Incredible Close to Averting the Disaster that Is Donald Trump
Social democracies are nations in which the tax base provides everyone with healthcare and education, and where the richest and most powerful people are not free to ruin the environment.
I run into someone from one of these counties a couple of times a month, and I like to ask why their people are consistently at the top of the World Happiness Rankings. The normal response is always some variant of the following:
It’s hard to be happy living in a society that is indifferent to the suffering of others. It’s part of the very nature of human beings to care about one another.
Something else I notice about these places is that very few people are religious. Sweden, e.g., is about 80% atheist.
That means no childish tribalism, no ridiculous dogmas, no worries about eternal damnation, etc.
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