Set Polluters Loose and Undo Climate Action:
We’ve waited decades for meaningful and robust federal action to combat climate change and protect people from the harms of pollution. Project 2025 couldn’t care less about these threats — and now they want to destroy our hard-fought gains.
How they’d do it:
Make our air dirtier and worsen climate change.
Project 2025 would make it even harder for the EPA to take action against climate change by attacking the “Endangerment Finding.”
Read More 1Much of what the EPA does is tied to the Endangerment Finding, which according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) “requires the EPA to take action under the Clean Air Act to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, and four other heat-trapping air pollutants from vehicles, power plants, and other industries.”
Project 2025, however, wants to establish a system to ‘update’ the 2009 Endangerment Finding. According to NRDC, ‘updating’ the Endangerment Finding means restricting the federal government’s mandate to combat climate change in order to advance the public health and welfare of the American people and our lands.
If Project 2025 were successful in getting the federal government to ‘update’ the Endangerment Finding, it could become much harder for the EPA, under the Clean Air Act, to take measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, and other harmful effects of climate change.
From page 425 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Cut off weather, ocean, and climate data by disbanding NOAA.
Project 2025 would disband the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides critical weather data and insightful scientific research.
Read More 2The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) plays a critical role in helping us understand the effects of human behavior on the world’s oceans and atmosphere. NOAA issues “daily weather forecasts,” “severe storm warnings,” and more. It also monitors the climate, manages fisheries, restores coastal environments, and supports marine commerce. According to NOAA, the agency’s “products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product.”
Additionally, NOAA’s reports have made important discoveries about the effects of climate change. NOAA’s expertise is frequently relied on by other federal agencies to “understand how they can respond to and adapt to climate change.”
The proposal to disband NOAA would leave federal agencies unequipped to combat climate change, not to mention deprive scientists, businesses, and the public of key data.
From page 664 of the Mandate for Leadership:
Transfer environmental funding away from mission-based entities to state regulators who, in many cases, do not support sustainable policies.
Project 2025 seeks to undo progress made through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) by any means necessary.
Read More 3The IRA creates ambitious and expansive investment in climate action and infrastructure development, and is a top target of Project 2025. Even without new legislation, Project 2025 advocates to shift climate-related IRA funds away from mission-based organizations with subject matter expertise and toward state regulatory entities. This would, in our estimation, allow state leaders not committed to climate sustainability (or those who deny climate change altogether) to misuse funds in a way that would set back climate action.
From page 424 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Expand offshore oil and natural gas drilling on public lands and waters.
Project 2025 would push the Department of the Interior to allow oil and natural gas lease sales “to the maximum extent permitted.”
Read More 4The groups behind the Mandate for Leadership want to “conduct offshore oil and natural gas lease sales to the maximum extent permitted.”
This section of the Mandate for Leadership was written by William Perry Pendley, a former Trump administration official who had to recuse himself from dozens of matters before the Bureau of Land Management while he was leading it, due to flagrant conflicts of interest as the former president of a special interest organization that called for the widespread transfer of federal public lands to private holders. Not only that, Pendley has referred to climate science as ‘junk science’ and likened the existence of climate change to unicorns.
This proposal would allow fossil fuel companies to drill on more public lands and waters, undoing progress made by the current administration to decrease this harmful practice.
From page 523 of the Mandate for Leadership:
