Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) wore a customized outfit to President Joe Biden's March 2022 State of the Union address.Saul Loeb/AP
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
As delegates arrived at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee earlier this week to officially nominate former president Donald Trump as their 2024 candidate, a right-wing policy think tank held an all-day event nearby. The Heritage Foundation, a key sponsor of the convention and a group that has been influencing Republican presidential policy since the 1980s, gathered its supporters to tout Project 2025, a 900-plus-page policy blueprint that seeks to fundamentally restructure the federal government.
Dozens of conservative groups contributed to Project 2025, which recommends changes that would touch every aspect of American life and transform federal agencies—from the Department of Defense to the Department of Interior to the Federal Reserve. Although it has largely garnered attention for its proposed crackdowns on human rights and individual liberties, the blueprint would also undermine the country’s extensive network of environmental and climate policies and alter the future of American fossil fuel production, climate action, and environmental justice.
“This is a real plan, by people who have been in the government, for how to systematically…dismantle the government in service of private industry.”
Under President Joe Biden’s direction, the majority of the federal government’s vast system of departments, agencies, and commissions have belatedly undertaken the arduous task of incorporating climate change into their operations and procedures. Two summers ago, Biden also signed the Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending law in U.S. history with the potential to help drive greenhouse gas emissions down 42 percent below 2005 levels.
Project 2025 seeks to undo much of that progress by slashing funding for government programs across the board, weakening federal oversight and policymaking capabilities, rolling back legislation passed during Biden’s first term, and eliminating career personnel. The policy changes it suggests—which include executive orders that Trump could implement single-handedly, regulatory changes by federal agencies, and legislation that would require congressional approval—would make it extremely difficult for the United States to fulfill the climate goals it has committed to under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
“It’s real bad,” said David Willett, senior vice president of communications for the environmental advocacy group the League of Environmental Voters. “This is a real plan, by people who have........