by Mia DiFelice

Amidst a perpetually churning news cycle, you may have seen a chilling phrase break through the din: “Project 2025.”

It looms like a bogeyman in everything from TikTok comments to headlines in major news outlets. And it refers to a 900-page wishlist and roadmap for the early months of a second Trump presidency. The document is helmed by the Heritage Foundation (a think tank with a history of climate denial and funded by right-wing billionaires), and its authors include more than 140 former employees of the Trump administration. 

As it has become more notorious, Trump has tried to distance himself from it — but it includes lots of policy ideas he has enthusiastically supported. It also shares many similarities with the official Republican Party Platform.

So what exactly is in Project 2025 that makes it so startling?

While the recent Republican National Convention showed a Party more focused on rhetoric than substance, Project 2025 is a meticulous policy agenda. It dives into the weeds on exactly how Trump could carry out its plans. And those plans include hobbling the federal government’s ability to govern; clearing the way for more corporate abuses and corporate profits; and putting our food, water, and climate even more at the mercy of polluting industries.

Here’s what you need to know about Project 2025’s threat to our livable future — and why it’s vital we stop Republicans up and down the ballot from carrying out its vision.

Project 2025 Would Pave the Way for More Corporate Pollution

One key tenet of Project 2025 is dismantling and disempowering federal agencies. Its goal is to shift agencies’ focus from protecting our health and environment to paving more pathways for unchecked corporate abuse. 

Notably, the plan recommends gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On day one, it would downsize staff at a time when the agency is already severely understaffed and under-resourced. This has led to, for example, absurdly long reviews of chemicals that threaten our water, air, and health.

In other cases, the EPA has rubber-stamped potentially dangerous chemicals to speed up corporations’ path to profits. Project 2025 wants this trend to continue, as it advocates for speeding up reviews “to ensure the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers” — putting companies before public health.

It also aims to strip our waters of protections from polluters. Project 2025 would exclude much of our country’s wetlands and temporary waters from protection and narrow the kinds of water pollution regulated under the Clean Water Act. As communities across the country suffer pollution from factory farms and industrial plants, we need more water protections, not fewer.

Moreover, Project 2025 would have a new administration pause and revisit Biden’s recent Lead and Copper Rule Improvement and PFAS regulations, which are vital first steps to respond to our country’s lead-in-water and PFAS contamination crises. This would put the health of millions of people at continued risk.

It specifically targets a recent Biden rule that designates two PFAS as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA, jeopardizing efforts to force polluters of these forever chemicals to clean up their toxic mess. Project 2025 could allow corporations to get away with poisoning our water, and leave taxpayers to foot the bill.

Safe, Affordable, and Sustainable Food Is Under Attack

Project 2025 is expressly focused on deregulation and downsizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It views regulations as “a threat to farmers’ independence and food affordability” and advocates for removing “obstacles imposed on American farmers and individuals across the food supply chain.”

This completely ignores the essential role that regulations play in keeping our food safe and combating Big Ag’s takeover of our food system. Government programs are integral to supporting small and medium-sized farmers and building a food system that will be sustainable for generations of farmers to come.

But Project 2025 wants to cut these — from regulations on pesticide use and genetically modified food to conservation programs that help farmers manage their land sustainably.

It also brushes aside the role that our food system has in fostering a healthy environment, saying “environmental issues” are “ancillary” to agriculture. It would hamstring efforts to transform our food system to save our climate and environment while ensuring affordable, sustainable food for all.

Additionally, Project 2025 cruelly threatens to yank food access from poor and low-income families across the country. Notably, it calls to limit access to SNAP benefits — formerly known as food stamps — which help feed more than 40 million people in the U.S. It also calls for restricting the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which specifically helps children and families. Cutting these programs will allow more people to go hungry.

Our food system is already in crisis, driven by agricultural corporations cutting corners, playing dirty, raising prices, and crowding out small farmers. The answer is not deregulation that invites Big Ag to get bigger at the expense of the rest of us. Yet that’s exactly what Project 2025 advocates for.

Project 2025 Puts a Livable Climate in Jeopardy

Finally, some of the most disturbing parts of Project 2025 are its fervent promises to let the fossil fuel industry run rampant on our health, climate, and environment. 

We know that ending fossil fuel use and production is key to securing a livable climate and defending our health against pollution. Yet Project 2025 calls for a rapid expansion of drilling, fracking, and gas exports. 

Its authors propose restoring coal mining on public lands and opening more of them to oil and gas leasing. They also recommend speeding up drilling permits, allowing fossil fuel corporations to more easily ravage our shared public lands for profit.

Notably, Project 2025 recommends clearing the way for the planet-wrecking liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry to balloon. Exporting even more LNG could lock in not only the U.S. into decades of more fossil fuels, but also the entire world.

At the same time, the authors of Project 2025 suggest dismantling several offices at the Department of Energy that are key to federal research, development, and deployment of renewable energy. They also push for stopping efforts to grow the country’s power grid to accommodate new solar and wind energy. Instead, they call for focusing on improving grid “reliability” by expanding fossil fuels and slowing clean energy. 

This is a laughable idea. Research shows our grid does not need fossil fuels to be reliable; in fact, in disasters, fossil-fueled energy is more vulnerable to outages.

We know that renewables make our energy more affordable, more resilient, and less dangerous to our health, safety, and climate. Yet Project 2025 has no interest in ensuring these benefits. Instead, it’s fighting for the status quo of dirty energy and corporate power.

To Defend Our Livable Future, We Must Fight Project 2025 at the Polls

While Project 2025 is not officially affiliated with Trump or the Republican Party, its authors and backers include some of the most influential policy wonks and donors in the GOP. The Heritage Foundation has steered conservative policymaking and policymakers for decades.

Moreover, the plan’s agenda mirrors much of the talking points Trump and Party leaders have been espousing. The official Republican Party Platform literally promises to “drill, baby, drill.” It also promises to “cut costly burdensome regulations” — and while it’s light on the details, we can look to Project 2025 for clues on how that might play out. 

As for the former president, he so reassuringly promised not to be a dictator — “other than day one,” during which he promised to drill, drill, drill. And for a hint of what could happen to our food and water under Trump, we need only look at his track record. That includes deregulating slaughterhouse food safety inspections, rolling back protections for waterways nationwide, and so much more.

If Republican leaders gain control in 2025, we will face some of the most dire threats to our food, water, and climate yet. And Project 2025 raises the stakes of this election even further.

Luckily, Food & Water Action knows what it takes to stop this. We are pouring all our resources and winning strategies into this election season, mobilizing people power to drive folks to the polls. 

Together, we can fend off Project 2025 and Republicans’ catastrophic plans. We can elect leaders who will put us before corporate profits and support a livable future. In spite of the high stakes and the powerful interests stacked against us, we have the power to win the future we need and deserve.