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.
Weather Guard Lightning Tech
Australia’s $17B Grid Expansion, Recycling Blades to Steel
Allen covers Suzlon hitting 2 GW in a single Indian state, Nabrawind’s crane-free turbine install in Namibia, Antora’s South Dakota thermal battery, Australia’s $17 billion grid expansion, and Shimizu recycling old turbine blades into steel.
Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes’ YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!
GOOD MORNING.
The wind industry is not just getting bigger.
It is getting smarter.
And today … we have the proof.
Let us start in India.
SUZLON GROUP just crossed a milestone.
Two gigawatts of wind orders … in a single Indian state.
The latest deal … sixty-five turbines at three megawatts each
for a company called SUNSURE ENERGY.
SUNSURE is not a utility.
It is an independent power producer
building round-the-clock clean energy
for data centers … electric vehicles … and heavy industry.
Wind paired with solar and battery storage.
Power that does not stop when the sun goes down.
SUZLON is already building six hundred and sixty-four megawatts
of additional commercial and industrial projects in the same region.
And SUNSURE … backed by PARTNERS GROUP of Switzerland …
has seven gigawatts in development across India
with a target of ten gigawatts by two thousand thirty.
That is not government-led.
That is private capital chasing wind.
Now … across the ocean to Africa.
A Spanish company called NABRAWIND [NAH-brah-wind]
just solved a problem that has plagued remote wind farms for years.
How do you install a turbine
when you cannot get a crane to the site?
Their answer is a system called SKYLIFT.
No heavy-lift cranes. None.
A self-erecting tower combined with a blade installation tool
they call the BLADERUNNER.
They just put up a GOLDWIND six-megawatt turbine
at a wind farm in NAMIBIA.
And here is the part that changes the math.
Traditional crane installation needs calm air.
Six to eight meters per second. Maximum.
NABRAWIND’s system works in fifteen meters per second sustained …
with gusts up to twenty.
That site blows hard. All the time.
Which is exactly why they chose it.
When complete … seven turbines …
two hundred and thirty gigawatt-hours a year.
About six percent of NAMIBIA’s entire electricity demand.
NABRAWIND was acquired by Australia’s FORTESCUE last year
as part of its industrial decarbonization push.
So India is stacking private-sector wind orders.
Africa is installing turbines without cranes.
And in SOUTH DAKOTA …
they are storing the wind itself.
A California startup called ANTORA ENERGY
just built a five-gigawatt-hour thermal battery
at an ethanol plant in BIG STONE CITY.
More than two hundred solid carbon blocks.
When the wind blows at night and nobody needs the power …
the blocks absorb cheap electricity and heat up.
When the plant needs energy …
the blocks release heat or generate electricity
through special cells that capture light
from superheated material.
Think of it as a giant toaster oven battery.
Full power expected by October.
The plant’s president put it simply.
Nobody has got a switch for the wind.
It blows when it wants to blow.
Now … down under.
The AUSTRALIAN government just announced
the biggest single expansion of its electricity grid.
Nineteen renewable energy projects.
Seven-point-eight gigawatts of generation.
Seven-point-nine gigawatt-hours of battery storage.
Seventeen billion dollars in private investment.
Nineteen thousand construction jobs.
Power for four million homes.
Among the largest … RWE’s [arr-vay’s] THEODORE wind farm in QUEENSLAND.
One-point-one gigawatts. Up to one hundred and seventy turbines.
Three billion Australian dollars.
RWE … the same company building offshore wind
in England and Denmark …
is now building onshore in AUSTRALIA.
And the AUSTRALIAN government is not stopping.
They just opened the next round of tenders.
Another five gigawatts.
Finally … JAPAN.
Major contractor SHIMIZU [shee-MEE-zoo] CORPORATION
has developed a way to recycle old wind turbine blades.
Not into park benches. Not into landfill.
Into steel.
The blades are cut and crushed into a material
that goes into electric furnaces
to adjust the carbon content of steel …
making it harder and stronger.
JAPAN expects to replace one hundred to two hundred turbines a year
by the two thousand thirties.
That is two to three thousand tonnes of blade waste. Annually.
SHIMIZU has built about twenty percent
of the wind power facilities in JAPAN.
They see this technology as a way to grow
their entire wind energy business.
So … let us step back.
India stacks two gigawatts of private-sector wind orders.
Africa installs turbines in gale-force winds … without a crane.
South Dakota stores surplus wind in superheated carbon blocks.
Australia backs nineteen projects with seventeen billion dollars.
And Japan turns old blades into stronger steel.
From the factory floor to the scrap yard …
from the wind farm to the furnace …
the industry is solving problems
at every stage of a turbine’s life.
And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 25th of May 2026.
Join us for the UPTIME WIND ENERGY PODCAST tomorrow.
We’ve all heard ideas like the one being expressed here, though this one sounds extreme. Jail sentence? Education is exclusively an exercise in pounding in bad habits?
What’s the outcome for students in the very worst of our schools that make no attempt whatsoever to help its pupils learn to think critically? Well, their kids learn to:
- Read and write
- Do math, at least through algebra
- Understand some level of history and geography
- Make friends and get along with others
- Establish independence from the parents
- Gain the qualifications for employment
What’s the alternative? Illiteracy? Social isolation? Child labor? Poverty? Neurotic sloth? Being a burden on society?
Is it a coincidence that the countries with the best educated children are the happiest, sanest and most productive nations on the planet?
If you’re a competent woman working at the highest echelon in the U.S. government, better start packing your bags.
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