GLOBAL WARNING

Why Project 2025 is an environmental catastrophe in the making

- ZOYA TEIRSTEIN

When president joe biden took office, Democrats held a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a single-vote edge in the Senate. Despite the monumental odds, he has presided over the most productive presidential term for climate action in American history. Under Biden’s direction, the federal government took up the arduous task of incorporating climate considerations into scores of administrative operations and procedures. The epa cracked down on superpollutants and issued stricter emissions regulations for passenger vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending bill Congress has ever passed, brings the nation closer to its goal of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2030.

That progress hasn’t gone unnoticed by ultraconservative factions of the Republican Party, who have a proposal to undo it. We’re talking about, of course, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 887-page master plan for a second Trump administration. Written by a network of far-right policy groups on the foundation’s behalf, it suggests executive orders Donald Trump could issue if reelected, and proposals for regulatory changes that would fundamentally alter the way the government works. “It’s real bad,” said David Willett, senior VP of communications for the League of Conservation Voters. “This is a real plan, by people who have been in the government, for how to systematically take over, take away rights and freedoms, and dismantle the government in service of private industry.”