Trump’s Project 2025 Could Threaten Climate Progress and Democracy
Supporters of former President Donald Trump have crafted a comprehensive blueprint to dismantle federal agencies and public health standards, including crucial environmental protections. If Trump returns to the presidency, his political allies are ready to significantly undermine US climate and environmental policies. As Trump continues to garner support from oil and gas executives, a proposed policy agenda from various right-wing organizations could potentially jeopardize our limited timeframe for climate action and exacerbate global warming, warn climate scientists and advocates.
This agenda coincides with recent disclosures that Trump has pledged to save the fossil fuel industry billions of dollars through regulatory rollbacks in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions. Industry lobbyists are already preparing executive orders for Trump to implement this promise. Following these revelations, several high-ranking Democrats in Congress have initiated investigations into what they perceive as a troubling quid pro quo.
Prominent far-right policy advisors and think tank employees are working under the Project 2025 presidential transition project to orchestrate a complete dismantling of the administrative state. Project 2025 could essentially spell the end of federal climate and environmental protections. Everything from regulations to curb hazardous air pollutants to programs that help make cleaner and more energy-efficient purchases affordable would be at risk. Agencies like the EPA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could face significant cuts. Peer-reviewed science could be marginalized, and the economic interests of polluters could be prioritized in government decisions. The federal government would focus on authorizing fossil fuel production and projects while eliminating funding and programs that support renewables like wind and solar.
According to the Project 2025 website, the objective is to be ready to enact this agenda “on Day One of the next conservative Administration.” Trump, the predicted GOP nominee, has committed to expanding oil and gas drilling on his first day in office. He used a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity to declare that his immediate priorities would include shutting down the southern border and “drilling, drilling, drilling.”
If the Project 2025 policy agenda is indeed implemented, “it would be game over for climate progress in the US, turning the reins of our government over to the polluters,” cautioned Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist and Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. “And in the absence of American leadership, global efforts to reduce carbon emissions and avoid catastrophic warming will likely fail.”
The Heritage Foundation is spearheading Project 2025, which includes a comprehensive conservative policy agenda, a playbook for the first 180 days of an incoming Republican presidential administration, and personnel recruitment and training. This $22 million initiative involves over 100 right-wing organizations, many known for spreading climate misinformation and having documented connections to major corporate donors and industrial polluters like ExxonMobil and Koch Industries.
The policy agenda offers no strategies to control the carbon pollution causing global warming. Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation did not respond to inquiries. However, Heritage’s Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, told The New York Times that one of its objectives is to “investigate whether the dimensions of climate change exist.” In terms of the role of fossil fuels in driving climate breakdown, he told the Times: “I think the science is still out on that quite frankly.”
This statement is simply false. Mann warned that these comments should raise alarm bells. “It underscores the threat posed to our planet by a political party that actively promotes anti-science and would sell out the entire planet for the short-term profit of the polluters and plutocrats that now rule their party.”
And the science is unequivocally clear that the planet is in grave danger.
The Earth is confronting an ecological and climate emergency with life on the planet “under siege,” according to scientists. Last year was the hottest yet on record, and global average temperatures exceeded the 2.7°F (1.5°C) mark during that time. In the United States, a record-breaking 28 extreme weather disasters costing over $1 billion in damages devastated communities from Maui, Hawai’i, to Montpelier, Vermont. In the Southwest, Phoenix suffered through its deadliest summer on record as heat killed more than 600 residents. Ocean temperatures off the southern coast of Florida reached hot tub levels, and coral reefs worldwide are currently experiencing another mass bleaching event. According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, current climatic changes—driven primarily by heat-trapping emissions from fossil fuel consumption—are “unprecedented” in human history, and the effects are “worsening across every region of the United States.”
Original Story at www.sierraclub.org