Published

1 year ago

December 24, 2024

Alice Rush

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 Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Democratic Party candidate running for election to represent Florida in the United States Senate. Also in this series, we profile Republican candidate Rick Scott. Election Day is November 5, 2024.

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a first-time Senate candidate running to represent Florida. She served as a United States Congresswoman from 2019-2021 representing Florida’s 26th congressional district. Mucarsel-Powell is the first South American born immigrant to serve as a member of the US Congress, having been born in Ecuador. She graduated from Pitzer College and earned a Master’s degree from Claremont Graduate University. Her prior work includes being an associate dean at Florida International University.

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency

While in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell supported clean energy tax incentives for wind and solar energy, energy storage technology, energy efficiency, and modernizing the electric grid to make it more energy efficient and resilient. On her website, she says “Extreme heat continues to drive up electricity bills, but Florida has only tapped about 2% of its rooftop solar potential. Debbie will push to expand solar panel power in Florida and lower the cost of Floridians’ electricity bills.”

Climate Change

Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign website states “Debbie knows climate change is real and she is ready to take action to address the climate crisis that is impacting Floridians, their lives, and their property.”

While a sitting Congresswoman, Mucarsel-Powell sponsored the WISE Act which would require using a percentage of the federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund for projects to address green infrastructure, water or energy efficiency improvements or other environmentally innovative activities, designed to mitigate the impacts of climate change. She also voted in favor of the Climate Action Now Act, the purpose of which was to encourage the United States’ earnest participation in international climate change mitigation efforts.

In an op-ed in the South Dade News Leader she wrote, “reducing carbon emissions will bring our economy into the 21st century and create sustainable, green jobs.”

Electric Transportation

While in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell supported clean energy tax incentives for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

Energy Equity and Energy Burden

According to Mucarsel-Powell’s website, she “would support legislation like the bipartisan REBATE Act to allow local governments to receive federal grants to carry out high-efficiency electric home rebate programs that put money back into Floridians pockets.”

High-Risk Energy: Coal, Nuclear, Oil, Gas

Mucarsel-Powell has taken the “No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge” to not accept money from fossil fuel donors.

Voter Information

Election Day is November 5. Here are important dates and deadlines to consider, from the Florida Division of Elections:

Deadline for county election offices to send vote-by-mail ballots to UOCAVA voters: September 21, 2024
Deadline for county election 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.

** Due to Hurricane Helene, Governor DeSantis has issued Executive Order 24-212 making changes to election rules for some residents of the counties most affected by Helene. Hurricane Milton may affect voting as well. Check here for the latest information.

Find additional important election information here.

#CandidatesOnEnergy2024

The post Candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell On Climate & Energy appeared first on SACE | Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

Candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell On Climate & Energy

Renewable Energy

Homeschooling

Published

8 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Alice Rush

Decent and intelligent people respect the rights of parents to homeschool their children, but there are two reasons for concern: a) socialization, failure to expose children to their peers, so that they may make friends and come to understand the norms of society, and b) the quality of the education itself.

Almost all homeschooling in the United States is conducted on the basis of a radical rightwing viewpoint, normally a blend of evangelical Christianity and Trumpism.

Homeschooling

Renewable Energy

The Positive Effects We’ve Had on Others Are Profound, Whether We Know It or Not

Published

19 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

There’s a theory that most people underestimate the positive effects they’ve had on other people.

Yes, that’s the theme of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but it’s also the core of the 1995 film “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” in which a music teacher who deemed that his life had been a failure because he never completed writing a great symphony, is gently and beautifully corrected. Please see below.

The Positive Effects We’ve Had on Others Are Profound, Whether We Know It or Not

Renewable Energy

Renewable Energy Concepts Can’t Violate the Laws of Physics

Published

1 day ago

February 28, 2026

Alice Rush

In the early days of 2GreenEnergy, my people and I were vigorously engaged in finding solid ideas in cleantech that needed funding in order to move forward.

I vividly remember a conversation with a guy in Maryland who was trying to explain the (ostensible) breakthrough that he and his team had made in hydrokinetics. When I was having trouble visualizing what we was talking about, he asked me to “think of it as a river in a box.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “You mean you take a box full of standing water, add energy to it get it moving, then extract that energy, leaving you with more energy that you added to it.”

“Exactly.”

I politely explained that the laws of physics, specifically the first and second laws of thermodynamics, make this impossible.

He wasn’t through, however, and insisted that, in his office, his people had constructed a “working model.”

Here’s where my tone descended into something less than 100% polite. I told him that he may think he has a working model, but he’s wrong; if he believes this, he’s ignorant; if he doesn’t, but is conducting this conversation anyway, he’s a fraud.

“But don’t you want to come see it?” he implored.

“No. Not only would not fly across the country to see whatever it is you claim to have built, I wouldn’t walk across the street to a “working model” of something that is theoretically impossible.”

—

I tell this story because the claim made at the upper left is essentially identical. You’re pumping water up out of a stream, and then claiming to extract more energy when the water flows back into the stream.

Of course, social media today is rife with complete crap like this. We’ve devolved to a point where defrauding money out of idiots is rapidly replacing baseball as our national pastime.