The stuff in Project 2025 on climate and fossil fuels is even worse than you would imagine. As Michael Mann said, this would be “game over for climate progress.” If you care about a livable future, it’s worth understanding what’s in this radical right blueprint. Buckle up.
First, you’ve got to understand that Project 2025 comes straight out of the well-oiled climate denial machine. It was put together by right-wing think tanks funded by the likes of ExxonMobil and the Koch Brothers. Big Oil’s fingerprints are all over this.
These are real radicals. Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, the lead organization behind Project 2025, has said that the solutions to “so-called” climate change are worse than the problem itself and loves to talk about the “moral case” for fossil fuels.
No wonder that Project 2025 reads like a handbook for planetary destruction. Let’s look at the details: first, they want to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure investments that have created over *312,000* jobs and pumped $361 billion into clean energy projects.
I mean, you don’t even have to care about the climate. Clean energy is a huge driver of job growth, it’s bringing back manufacturing, revitalizing communities, lowering costs, making us competitive with China. Stopping this industry makes us weaker across the board.
The plan would also dismantle all of our clean energy programs, like the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the DOE Loan Program, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and DOE’s Clean Energy Corps. They’ll do everything they can to kill clean energy in the US.
DOE would also be instructed to stop looking at the climate impacts of new fossil fuel development, especially Liquified Natural Gas export terminals, which the Biden Administration is now taking a closer look at thanks to pressure from frontline groups and climate activists.
Think the changes at DOE are bad? Get a load of what they want to do at EPA. Project 2025 proposes an executive order that aims to destroy the agency by freezing existing regulations, eliminating employees, stopping all grants to community groups, and slashing its budget.
They don’t just hate the EPA, they’re also obsessed with destroying NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency. Weird? Totally, until you understand that NOAA provides a lot of the best science on the climate crisis, exactly what deniers hate.
That’s just part of the attack on science. Project 2025 aims to take out any mentions of climate at departments like USAID or the Department of Agriculture. They’ll end any use of the social cost of carbon, aka calculating the damages done by pollution and climate impacts.
They also want to scrap the publication of the National Climate Assessments, which provide the best look at how climate is impacting the US. You know, because maybe if we pretend the problem isn’t there, it will just go away?
It’s not just climate that’s on the chopping block, it’s *all* environmental protections. The changes at EPA would be devastating for air and water quality. They even want to weaken protections against PFAS, the forever chemicals poisoning communities across the country.
Let’s pause on PFAS for a sec, because this shows just how radical this agenda is. I live in New Hampshire where we have a big PFAS problem that lots of Republican politicians and voters care deeply about. I bet they have no idea that Trump would basically promote the stuff.
Project 2025 isn’t just about gutting agencies, however, it’s about weaponizing them on behalf of Big Oil. The plan aims to turn the US Government into not just a cheerleader, but an attack dog for the fossil fuel industry, pushing fracking, drilling and mining wherever possible.
You know how Trump asked Oil CEOs for $1 billion to help elect him so that he could be a “dictator on day one” and “drill, drill, drill.” Well, Project 2025 aims to make good on that promise.
The plan reads like a hit-list for the worst ideas in the world. The Willow Project? Approving it wasn’t enough, Project 2025 wants to expand it. LNG exports? It’s pedal to the metal, planet be damned.
Project 2025 would turn the Department of the Interior into a fully-owned subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel production on public lands would be prioritized wherever possible, offshore drilling expanded to the max. Don’t like oil rigs off the coast? Too bad.
The International Energy Agency said back in 2021 that there should be no new coal, oil and gas development if we wanted to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Project 2025 goes the exact opposite direction, dooming hopes of hitting our climate targets.
Look, I could go on and on. They want to end all energy efficiency standards for appliances. Increase fossil fuel subsidies. Kill wind energy. And of course fire all federal employees who stand in the way of their agenda.
Project 2025 is a climate disaster. It’s also just downright cruel. Like, they want to kill the Office of Children’s Health Protection at the EPA. For fucks sake. You go out of your way to say you want more kids to get asthma and lead poisoning? What sort of monsters are you?
I have a 3-year old and reading through this plan again didn’t just horrify me, it absolutely enraged me. Look, I get all the media focus on Biden and Trump, but this election is really about the future we aim to create – or if we’re going to have one at all.
Want to know the most important thing you can do on climate? Help defeat Trump this November and make sure Project 2025 never gets enacted. And you know what, screw recycling on this one. Shred this trash and burn it deep in the Earth's core.