by Ken Abramczyk
A nearly 900-page document, Project 2025 is a blueprint for former President Donald Trump to advance the Heritage Foundation’s agenda to dismantle federal agencies, slash federal spending and programs, and restructure the federal government.
Americans should read what the Heritage Foundation has planned for our environment in Project 2025’s chapters on the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, and Department of Commerce.
Project 2025 slashes programs designed to tackle climate change through emissions controls, environmental regulations, and even weather forecasting. Additionally, the agenda accuses and accuses the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrators of ignoring “the will of Congress, aligning instead with the goals and wants of politically connected activists” and claims it will return the EPA “to its congressionally sanctioned role as environmental regulator.” [1], [2], [3]
Many policy changes under Project 2025—such as Trump’s executive orders, regulatory changes by federal agencies, and legislation requiring congressional approval—would hinder the U.S. government’s ability to fulfill climate goals to which we committed when joining the 2015 Paris Agreement. Trump withdrew from the agreement in 2020; Biden rejoined in 2021.
Many organizations have criticized these proposals due to how these cuts, reorganizations, and new mandates will devastate the environment and reduce quality of life in the United States. According to the Center for American Progress—an independent, nonpartisan policy institute dedicated to improving the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas—Project 2025 threatens to reshape American energy policy by undermining decades of conservation and climate progress. [4]
Project 2025 will “alter the future of American fossil fuel production, climate action and environmental justice,” according to Yale Climate Connections, an initiative of the Yale Center for Environmental Communication that serves as a news service designed to help the public understand the reality of climate change. [5]
Project 2025 eliminates restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtails federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and eases permit restrictions and procedures for fossil fuel projects such as power plants. Department of Energy offices dedicated to clean energy research and implementation would be eliminated, and guidelines for energy efficiency and requirements for household appliances would be removed. Additionally, under Project 2025, the oversight capacities of the Department of Interior and EPA will be curbed or eliminated, preventing these agencies from tracking methane emissions, managing environmental pollutants and chemicals, and conducting climate change research. [6]
Oil spills devastate coastal cities
According to the Center for American Progress, in the policy changes to the Department of Interior’s oversight, Project 2025 proposes a dramatic increase in offshore drilling and calls to reinstate a Trump-era secretarial order that could result in the immediate leasing for oil exploration in the mid-Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and in the outer continental shelf of offshore Alaska. These actions threaten coastal communities with the impacts of deep-sea drilling and oil spills, which can economically devastate coastal communities that rely on tourism and fishing. The Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010—the largest marine oil spill in the petroleum industry’s history—devastated the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in a $1 billion loss for the fishing industry and a $500 million loss for the tourism industry.
Project 2025 calls for dismantling the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), eliminating many of the NOAA’s functions, sending those responsibilities to other agencies, and privatizing these functions or placing them under control of states and other territories. Project 2025 claims that NOAA’s six main offices, including the National Weather Service (NWS), form a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”
NWS assists with storm event responses
According to Project 2025, the NWS should “fully commercialize its forecasting operations” and invest in cost-efficient technologies, which in turn will increase competition. Project 2025 states the National Hurricane Center should present data neutrally, without adjustments to support any one side in the climate debate; in other words, the center needs to fit its narrative to Project 2025’s directive to downplay or remove any references to climate change.
Future Forward USA Action—a collective organization of strategists, researchers, ad-makers, and data analysts—emphasizes that Project 2025 criticizes the practice of preparing for unpredictable events such as hurricanes by labeling precautionary measures as the “fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable.” Project 2025 seeks to dismantle the NOAA and NWS even though doing so could leave people in the path of destructive and catastrophic weather events. [7]
The NWS also helps communities connect and coordinate national, regional, and local resources in responses to weather events. Project 2025’s changes could also create obstacles for cash-strapped communities trying to obtain updated climate and weather data to make critical decisions for weather events and disaster preparedness. [8]
Trump claims he knows nothing about Project 2025, but many of his key allies support it. CNN reports that more than 140 former members of the Trump administration are involved with the agenda. [9]
We don’t have much time left before the election on November 5, so please inform your neighbors and friends what we can expect will happen to our planet and our nation under a second Trump administration. Be sure that your voter registration is updated, accurate, and active, and seek ways to help the Cherokee County Democrats as we strive to ensure Kamala Harris is elected our next president and Tim Walz our next vice president. Please help by volunteering. Sign up at Cherokee County Democrats.
Ken Abramczyk serves as a volunteer writer. The opinions presented herein are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Cherokee County Democratic Committee (CCDC). The CCDC has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this article.
