What Project 2025 Plans for the Environment

Vice President Kamala Harris was back in North Carolina last week, visiting Fayetteville the day after the Republican National Convention formally nominated Donald Trump and J.D. Vance for president and vice president. In the course of speaking on the policy consequences of electing that pair, she noted regressive policies laid out in detail by key Trump supporters, compiled in a plan labeled by its authors “Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership”. 

In calling attention to the extreme record and rhetoric of J.D. Vance, Harris said of his speech to the Republican convention, “What is very telling is what he did not talk about on that stage. He did not talk about Project 2025…[a] 900 Page blueprint for a second Trump term. He did not talk about it, because their plans are extreme, and they are divisive.” 

From the standpoint of environmental and climate action advocates, the question becomes whether this Project 2025 blueprint addresses questions of environment, energy, and climate change—and if so, how? 

The answers are “yes” and “in the most pro-polluter ways imaginable.”

Project 2025’s Plan for the Environment

For those with the time and inclination, the full 900 pages of this blueprint for a new Trump Administration can be read here: 

For those who are more inclined toward a summary, we have the following notes (with page citations). We look at the section targeting the Environmental Protection Agency in some detail, and offer summaries of the sections on federal energy-related agencies and the Interior Department.

Environmental Protection Agency, p. 417-448

This section opens with a frontal assault on the very concept of a transition to clean, renewable energy sources. Regarding the EPA under the Biden Administration, it says: “There has been a reinstitution of unachievable standards designed to aid in the “transition” away from politically disfavored industries and technologies and toward the Biden Administration’s preferred alternatives. This approach is most obvious in the Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables.” p. 418 

Project 2025 aims to dismantle the EPA by making it a priority target for the “Day One” executive orders, freezing work including the implementation of policies developed under the Biden Administration, re-opening even long-established rules for the cutback of protections, mandating new industry-friendly approaches, and ultimately severely reducing the size and scope of environmental protection (pps. 436-445). By targeting recent EPA protections, Project 2025 wants to undo (“revisit”) the designation of PFAS chemicals as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA ( p. 431). Similarly, the manifesto seeks to create statutes based on the Supreme Court’s disastrous and unprecedented elimination of Clean Water Act protections for most American wetlands as “waters of the United States” (p. 429). Project 2025 also calls for the elimination of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (p. 421), undermining the EPA’s long-overdue emphasis on exposing and addressing the long history of subjecting disadvantaged communities to the most polluting facilities and activities. 

Project 2025 wants broad sweeping environmental protection rollbacks and harmful structural changes. The document calls to pack scientific advisory boards with representatives of polluting industries, under the guise of “expand[ing] opportunities for a diversity of scientific viewpoints”(p. 422). Project 2025 allows for the use of more dangerous and environmentally-toxic pesticides by requiring “cost-benefit” analysis, which includes the effectiveness of a poison as an offset to its health and environmental threats (p. 435). The plan also aims to reverse the Biden Administration’s 2022 expansion of the Good Neighbor Rule’s scope beyond power plants and strip California of its ability to help drive the transition to low- and zero-emission vehicles (p. 424; p. 426). These disastrous changes would have profoundly negative impacts on our health and the environment if enacted.

Energy, p. 363-416

In overview, Project 2025 falsely claims that the United States faces an “energy crisis” of artificially created shortages of oil and natural gas, proclaims a need to “stop the war on oil and natural gas,” (p. 365) and calls for the refocus of FERC on promoting oil and gas instead of “progressive” policies (p. 365). In addition, the Department of Energy should include a mandate to develop new nuclear weapons (pps. 366-367). “Special interest” programs like the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations should be eliminated (p.369), and in general, efforts to develop and promote clean and renewable energy sources should end. Work to reduce carbon emissions should be eliminated from these federal agencies (p. 377). “Needed reforms” include “End the focus on climate change and green subsidies,” and “Eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances” (p. 378).

Interior, p. 517-544

Project 2025 decries the performance of Democratic administrations since Jimmy Carter in restricting the use of federal lands for the extraction of oil and gas and characterizes the policies of the Biden Administration in particular as the “dire adverse national impact of Biden’s war on fossil fuels” (p. 520). The details on the Interior Department include a long list of specific executive orders, which should be immediately issued by a reinstalled Trump Administration to maximize the exploitation of federal lands and offshore waters for extraction of fossil fuels (p. 522-523), including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Tongass National Forest (p. 530-531). The document calls for eliminating Biden Administration efforts to conserve more federal land as natural areas and reverse Trump-imposed (and arguably illegal) reductions of National Monuments (p. 532-533). It calls for reinstating drastic Trump Administration illegal executive limits on the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements for environmental impact studies and statements and protections for species under the Endangered Species Act (p. 533-534).

What Can You Do?

We at NCLCV believe the best thing you can do for the environment is vote; vote for the leaders that have proven their dedication to protecting our land, our air, and our water. See our newly released endorsements here.