Project 2025
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative! Really!
McGill University’s Sustainability Academic Network provides a useful — and potentially crucial — new platform.
About a week ago I got an email from McGill University’s Juan Serpa, asking me to join a new platform — the Sustainability Academic Network (SUSAN) — that contains literally thousands of datasets, academic papers, conferences, jobs, grants, local events, and institutes all devoted to sustainability. Great. Happy to do it (especially since they found …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Happens If EPA Revokes the Endangerment Finding?
The action would mean full-blown warfare against all things climate.
We are likely to learn next week if the Trump Administration will eviscerate the most important climate regulations the Biden Administration issued over the last four years. Under Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” Executive Order, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is supposed to recommend by February 19 whether to reverse the central basis for much of the …
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CONTINUE READINGSix Sleeper Proposals in Project 2025
Project 2025 isnāt just its headline proposals. Itās a thorough, detailed attack on environmental protection.
Project 2025’s proposals involve reduced protection for endangered species, eliminating energy efficiency rules, blocking new transmission lines, changing electricity regulation to favor fossil fuels, weakening air pollution rules, and encouraging sale of gas guzzlers. There’s some pious talk about protecting the environment, but every proposal calls for weakening environmental protections.
CONTINUE READINGāSchedule Fā Would Be BadāEven for Trump
My time in the Biden administration shows that Project 2025ās proposal to purge civil servants would be bad policy for everyone.
Hereās one of the best kept secrets of the federal government:Ā nothing gets done without effective civil servants.Ā I learned this secret firsthand in the three years I just spent at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), first as Chief Counsel, then as Acting Administrator. Political appointees, as I was, help set an agencyās …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Libertarian Critique of Trump’s “Schedule F”
As it turns out, you can hate BOTH government regulation and Trumpās assault on the ādeep state.ā
Installing inexperienced ideologues in the executive branch won’t accomplish anything useful and would only make it harder to implement deregulatory policies. The main effect of Schedule F would be gridlock rather than policy change
CONTINUE READINGRightwing Authoritarianism vs the Environment
In the U.S. and elsewhere, rightwing authoritarians oppose climate action. That’s not a coincidence.
Project 2025 favors authoritarian presidential rule. It also wants to destroy environmental regulation, especially climate law. Thatās not a coincidence.Ā The combination of authoritarianism, extreme conservative ideology, and anti-environmentalism is common globally, not just in U.S. politics. Thereās no logical connection between a belief in authoritarian government, upholding traditional hierarchies, and views about protecting the …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Replacement for Project 2025: The āOtherā MAGA Plan
It’s not Project 2025, but the “America First Agenda” is worse in some ways.
From the perspective of those who believe in environmental protection, the Trump team’s switch from one rightwing think tank to another doesnāt seem to be much of an improvement. They would both set environmental law back by decades.
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