Orlando Democratic Rep. Anna V. Eskamani is one of seven American state lawmakers selected to participate in an ideas exchange with German state lawmakers through the Aspen Institute of Germany's Transatlantic State Legislator Exchange.

The institute's Laboratories of Democracy Initiative brings together representatives from the U.S. state legislatures and German Landtage for values-based discussions and exchange of ideas about how to tackle current international policy challenges on a subnational level.

This will be the second Session for the program. This year the focus will be on climate and energy policies.

This year, the American cohort will include Eskamani and a bipartisan set of state senators and representatives from California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington state, and West Virginia. The German representatives will come from a variety of political parties.

They'll meet twice, in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, from May 10-14, and Trenton, New Jersey, from Sept. 13-17.

"I am humbled to be a part of this international cohort and to represent the United States and Florida," Eskamani said in a news release issued by her office. "There are many lessons we can learn from our trans-Atlantic partners and ideas to share too. When it comes to climate and energy issues, these challenges are global in scale, and I can't wait to identify solutions collectively with my American and European peers."

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, the first exchange round extended over two years, from 2020 to 2021. Besides addressing broader issues in the trans-Atlantic relationship, the first cohort focused on the core topic of digitalization.

The project is supported by the Transatlantic Program of the Federal Republic of Germany, funded by the European Recovery Program of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

Eskamani has been a sponsor of numerous climate and renewable energy bills during her two terms, though not with much success. This past Session, her State Renewable Energy Goals Bill (HB 81) and Legal Rights of the Natural Environment (HB 6003) died in committees.