Project 2025 Explained: The Right-Wing Policy Map
Project 2025 Explained: The Right-Wing Policy Map For Trump – Promotes Mining in Indian Nation Lands, in the Boundary Waters, in Alaska & the Arctic Circle, in Arizona, in Colorado, & in New Mexico; and Eliminates Climate Change and Conservation Initiatives
Key Facts about Mining, Oil & Gas Drilling, Climate Change, and Conservation in Project 2025
Project 2025, spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation with help from more than 277 individual contributors and 100 other conservative groups, is a multi-part plan for the next conservative administration—namely a Trump presidency—which includes a LinkedIn-style database for presidential personnel hopefuls, training programs for executive branch positions and an as-yet-unreleased “playbook” laying out what Trump should do in his first 180 days.
Though the project is led by the Heritage Foundation and other private third-party groups and is not formally tied to Trump, who has tried to distance himself from the operation, its proposals were developed in part by former members of his administration and other Trump allies, and the ex-president has previously praised Heritage for its policy work.
The project has drawn the most attention for its “Mandate for Leadership,” a 922-page proposed policy agenda that describes itself as a “plan to unite the conservative movement and the American people against elite rule and woke culture warriors,” laying out plans for all aspects of the executive branch.
Mining: Project 2025 calls for mining on Indian Nation Lands. “A significant percentage of critical minerals needed by the United States is on Indian lands, but the Biden Administration has actively discouraged development of critical mineral mining projects on Indian lands rather than assisting in their advancement.” And “End the war on fossil fuels and domestically available minerals and facilitate their development on lands owned by Indians and Indian nations.” And “The ability of American Indians and tribal governments to develop their abundant oil and gas resources has been severely hampered, depriving them of the revenue and profits to which they are entitled during a time of increasing worldwide energy prices, forcing American Indians—who are among the poorest Americans—to choose between food and fuel. Indian nations with significant coal resources have some of the highest quality and cleanest-burning coal in the world, but the Biden Administration has sought to destroy the market for their coal by eliminating coal-fired electricity in the country and to prevent the transport of their coal for sale internationally.”
Mining: Project 2025 calls for mining and oil & gas drilling in Alaska and the Arctic Circle. “Alaska is not just blessed with an abundance of oil, it has vast untapped mineral potential. Therefore, the new Administration must immediately approve the Ambler Road Project across BLM-managed lands… this will permit construction of a new 211-mile roadway on the south side of the Brooks Range, west from the Dalton Highway to the south bank of the Ambler River, and open the area only to mining-related industrial uses.” And “Approve the 2020 National Petroleum Reserve Alaska Integrated Activity Plan (NPRA-IAP) by resigning the Record of Decision. (Secretary Haaland’s order reverted to the 2013 IAP, the science for which is out of date, unlike the 2020 IAP.) Reinstate the 2020 Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by secretarial order and lift the suspension of the leases. l Approve the 2020 Willow EIS, the largest pending oil and gas projection in the United States in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, and expand approval from three to five drilling pads.”
Mining: Project 2025 calls for mining in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, & Arizona. “Abandon withdrawals of lands from leasing in the Thompson Divide of the White River National Forest, Colorado; the 10-mile buffer around Chaco Cultural Historic National Park in New Mexico (restoring the compromise forged in the Arizona Wilderness Act); and the Boundary Waters area in northern Minnesota if those withdrawals have not been completed. Meanwhile, revisit associated leases and permits for energy and mineral production in these areas in consultation with state elected officials.”
Climate Change: The proposal would undo the federal government’s climate work, including by leaving the Paris Climate Agreement, overhauling the Department of Energy to promote oil and natural gas and deemphasize green energy sources, removing the Department of Agriculture’s focus on sustainability and curtailing climate research. “The new Administration must end the focus on climate change and green subsidies and eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances.” And “The new Administration must take the following actions to fulfill the nation’s trust responsibilities to American Indians and Indian nations: the new Administration must End the war on fossil fuels and domestically available minerals and facilitate their development on lands owned by Indians and Indian nations, and the new Administration must end federal mandates and subsidies of electric vehicles.”
Conservation: What does project 2025 say about conservation? “The new Administration should, to the extent authorized by law, limit the use of permanent easements and collaborate with lawmakers to prohibit the USDA from creating new permanent easements.” And “At its very heart, environmental extremism is decidedly anti-human. Stewardship and conservation are supplanted by population control and economic regression. Environmental ideologues would ban the fuels that run almost all of the world’s cars, planes, factories, farms, and electricity grids. Abandoning confidence in human resilience and creativity in responding to the challenges of the future would raise impediments to the most meaningful human activities. They would stand human affairs on their head, regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.” (These fringe concepts are promoted by the American Stewards of Liberty in their propaganda documents: https://americanstewards.us/issues/conservation-easements/)
Conservation: What does project 2025 say about endangered species and wild & scenic rivers? “The new Administration must seek repeal of the Antiquities Act of 1906, which permitted emergency action by a President long before the statutory authority existed for the protection of special federal lands, such as those with wild and scenic rivers, endangered species, or other unique places.” And “Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas.” And “The new Administration should rescind The Endangered Species Act rules defining Critical Habitat and Critical Habitat Exclusions.”
Conservation: What else does project 2025 say about endangered species? “Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private property, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate actions:”
“Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.”
“Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA.”
“Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse, recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and economic activity.”
Who’s Behind Project 2025? The main team behind Project 2025 includes Heritage Foundation director Paul Gans and former Trump White House personnel leaders Spencer Chretien (who also served as Trump’s special assistant) and Troup Hemenway, according to the project’s website. Other groups listed as participating in the project include ex-Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, the anti-conservation group American Stewards of Liberty, legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty University, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Turning Point USA. The 922-page policy agenda was co-authored by a series of conservative figures (277 are listed), with chapters penned by such Trump allies as former Housing Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, former Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, former HHS Civil Rights Director Roger Severino and former Trump advisor Peter Navarro, who went to prison in March for contempt of Congress.
Adapted in part from a Forbes.com report: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/07/18/project-2025-explained-what-to-know-about-the-controversial-right-wing-policy-map-for-trump-as-he-speaks-at-rnc/
Related sources about project 2025:
6-1/2-hour long Heritage Foundation Policy Fest at RNC in Milwaukee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-RfGoeIwcc