Editor's Note: This series examines the Heritage Foundation's effort to transform the government through a process called Project 2025. Lean to the Left writers CJ Waldron and V. Susan Hutchinson explore how allies of Donald Trump hope to increase the power of the presidency, eliminate career government positions, and cede regulatory responsibility to the individual states. It is critical for voters to understand key parts of this manifesto, in context with current and future GOP proposals. The statements in Project 2025 are, at best, misleading with outright lies, twisted interpretations of the Constitution, and personal opinions sprinkled throughout, and much of the document has been incorporated into the GOP Platform. So, beware.
Understanding Project 2025: The Environment
We learned very quickly in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic that Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party care absolutely nothing for the health and safety of people across the country. Project 2025 lays out exactly how much farther they are willing to go to inflict long term harm on the health of the American people with their policies on protecting, or rather not protecting the environment.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services, over 12 million people worldwide die due to environmental pollution. In the United States we can expect an increase in respiratory and cardiac diseases as well as some cancers if the conservatives get their hands on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Lies, Hypocrisy and Looking Out for Corporate America
Kevin Roberts, in the forward to Project 2025, claims that the federal government is “growing larger and less constitutionally accountable – even to the President.” This is probably the biggest lie in the entire document.
As an example of this lack of accountability, he claims the EPA is strangling domestic energy production. The truth is that under President Joe Biden, energy production is at an all-time high. Is this contradictory to our claim America should be using clean energy? Not at all. We know that the short-term need for oil and gas production must be addressed as we move to the long-term goal of clean energy.
The conservatives will have you believe the Democrats will leave everyone in the lurch and switch America to clean energy without warning.
Another big lie in Roberts’ forward is the statement “The next conservative President must possess the courage to relentlessly put the interests of the everyday American over the desires of the ruling elite.” Could someone from the Heritage Foundation please explain how Trump’s quid pro quo to big oil puts the interests of “everyday Americans” first?
The Project 2025 plan for “creating a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe water, healthy soil and thriving communities” is just a bunch of words thrown together to distract from the real purpose, which is to remove or drastically revise policies that protect the health of Americans and strip regulations so corporations can increase their already enormous profits.
Although Project 2025 does not call for eliminating the EPA, this doctrine targets multiple offices and programs, as well as Biden’s successful Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022.
Project 2025 claims the EPA has been “reimagined in an attempt to expand the reach of the federal government.”
As with goals defined for various other federal agencies, Project 2025 wants to give states more control of environmental protections. With the help of the Supreme Court, the EPA’s authority is already being eroded. This recent ruling says the federal government cannot dictate that states protect the rights to clean air of individuals in surrounding states. This “Good Neighbor Program/Interstate pollutant transport” program is specifically called out for repeal in the section on the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR).
The Heritage Foundation has already checked this one off their list even before Trump reclaims power.
Dismissing the Need for Federal Regulations
Destroying standards that have a national, and possibly global effect means conservatives can force their anti-environment policies on everyone. We have seen in other sections of this document, most notable the Department of Education, that the ultra-conservative minority believes everyone should live by their rules. Throwing every American’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness out the window is their ultimate goal.
Examples of their disdain for federal regulations include establishing car standards that would consider cost and choice, stopping the increase in standards for airplanes under the International Civil Aviation Organization and reconsidering the Cleaner Trucks Initiative so decreasing emissions does not create “complex burdens on the industry.”
The Heritage Foundation is all about reducing the cost to industries and any detrimental effect on those “everyday Americans” is acceptable risk that needs to be taken.
A Variety of Damaging Reforms
Office of Water (OW)
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is a particular target of Project 2025. The intent of the CWA is to “give states and authorized tribes the authority to grant, deny or waive certification of proposed federal licenses or permits that may discharge into waters off the United States.” Among other things, Project 2025 wants a clear definition of what is a United States waterway in context of private property rights, claiming OW regulations currently infringe on these rights.
Their plan for the OW is to “reform the guidance on guidance.” They want guidance documents to be clearly intended as guidance, which means “they do not have the effect of law and should not be treated by the office as if they did have any such effect.” Project 2025 wants clear rules and definitions, enforced time limits and requirements for regulations covered under the CWA. They also want to shift employees to other programs and out to regional offices.
It sounds very much like they don’t really want guidelines, but their set of strict rules pushed out to the state level when it comes to waterways.
Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM)
The mission of OLEM is to establish guidelines for the disposal of hazardous waste, establish safe waste management practices for all levels of government including waste reduction and recycling, support of state programs to redevelop contaminated sites so they could be reused and encouragement of technology development to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater.
If you do not know what perflouornonanoic acid (PFNA) and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are you need to educate yourself now. PFNA is found in carpets, food-contact paper and cleaning products that have been sold to consumers for decades. They resist heat, water and chemicals and remain in the environment forever as they do not degrade. The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) has designated PFAS as hazardous substances.
Project 2025 wants to “revisit the designation of PFAS and its associated chemicals as hazardous substances under CERCLA.” CERCLA is the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act responsible for not only clean-up of inactive hazardous sites, but for costs to those transporting hazardous substances and on current or former owners of those facilities. CERCLA gives authority to the President of the United States to respond to the release or threat of release of hazardous substances into our environment.
Revisiting, in the context of the Project 2025 doctrine, means they want to remove the hazardous label for PFAS and its related substances and make sure the President cannot impede or stop production of products that contain these chemicals.
In March of 2024, well after Project 2025 was published, the EPA requested a toxicology review of PFNA. The executive summary states “this assessment concludes that the evidence demonstrates that oral exposure to PFNA causes developmental effects in humans, and that the evidence indicates that oral exposure to PFNA is likely to cause hepatic and male reproductive effects in humans given sufficient exposure conditions.”
It identifies exposure to PFNA as being associated with low birth weights.
Does anyone think the Heritage Foundation will now change their mind on PFAS? It is not very likely. Once they open the door to “revisit” this hazardous material designation, it paves the way for stripping that designation from other materials used in manufacturing.
In addition, Project 2025 calls for conducting new chemical evaluations in the context of “competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers” and revising regulations for new chemical review.
As Cheryl M. Cail, Acting Chief of the Waccamaw Indian People states, “There is a plan to set things up so that manufacturers can move through the use of new chemicals with even less review.”
As if paving the way for increasing consumer exposure to hazardous chemicals is not enough, Project 2025 calls for transferring the EPA Safer Choice program to the “private sector”. The Safer Choice label on products lets people know an independent assessment was made on the product for their protection. Making manufacturers now responsible for appropriately labeling their product means they can now get a product cleared without all the previous red tape and testing and label it “safe.”
Would you believe anything a manufacturer tells you about the safety of their product knowing that their only interest is profit and not your family’s life?
Looking Out for the Health and Safety of Your Family
Project 2025 is the blueprint for a Trump presidency. In 2010 Citizens United designated corporations as “people” and made it legal for them to buy political influence with large campaign contributions. Many of the bills proposed in Congress are often drafted by lobbyists for political interests, not the people’s representatives.
When it comes to protection of the environment, which affects every living thing on the planet, corporations will always choose their interests first and use political influence to clear the way for increased profits.
The right to clean air and water with very limited exposure to toxic chemicals should always be federally controlled.
The writers of Project 2025 claim to be experts on every government agency they want to reform or eliminate. When it comes to our environment and health, their ideas are hazardous to all Americans, which is why understanding Project 2025: the Environment is so critical.
To look out for our own safety and keep the conservative minority from exposing us to an unhealthy environment, we need to exercise our right to vote and put Representatives, Senators and a President in power who will have our backs and protect not only the health of all Americans, but our planet as well.
Vote Blue up and down the ticket as it will take not only a Democratic President to keep us safe, but a Democratic House and Senate andlocal offices as well.
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