– This is really dangerous, says Collin Rees to TV 2.
He is not only the program director for climate researchers at Oil Change International in Washington D.C.
He is also scared.
Scared by what he reads in “Project 2025”.
– A new presidential term for Donald Trump poses a significant danger. This would be a brutal attack
from the far right on the very idea of a government, Rees believes.
Talked about it in 2022
Trump is trying to distance himself from “Project 2025,” with mixed results.
“I know nothing about Project 2025,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social on July 5.
At the same time, he contradicted his own claim of knowing nothing about “Project 2025” by continuing with “I disagree with some of what they say, and some of what they say is completely ridiculous and disgusting.”
And then he ended with this:
“I wish them luck with everything they do, but I have nothing to do with them.”
The fact is that Trump knows the group behind “Project 2025,” known as The Heritage Foundation, very well.
You have already seen a picture from his speech there in 2017.
With a quick internet search, you can also find video of Trump speaking at a dinner sponsored by The Heritage Foundation in April 2022.
– This is a great group and they are going to lay both the foundation and detailed plans for what our movement and their movement will do when the American people give us a mandate to save the USA, Trump said.
This is what is referred to here in the USA as “a smoking gun”.
Tight connections
The Heritage Foundation has published the entire “Project 2025”. The document is over 900 pages and covers what should be done with every single department.
The Department of Education, for example. It is to be abolished.
That Trump is aware of “Project 2025” and The Heritage Foundation does not necessarily mean he plans to implement everything that is stated there.
But the connection is clear. And he did say in 2022 that this would be the foundation for his policies if he wins in 2024.
Their website emphasizes that they are supported by more than 100 conservative organizations, many of which are led by close allies of Trump.
Stephen Miller, Ben Carson, Christopher Miller, Rick Dearborn, and Russ Vought are all people who had prominent roles in Trump’s first administration.
Vought, who is one of the main authors, is also the head of the political platform of the Republican National Committee, according to NBC News.
– It will be easier
But we are talking to Collin Rees about the climate part of “Project 2025”. He believes Trump’s climate actions will become more effective if he gets a new four-year term in the White House.
– The people he handpicks to lead the departments now will be more competent than they were in the first term, Rees believes.
Myron Ebell, who led the transition at the Environmental Protection Agency from Barack Obama to Donald Trump in 2016, also believes that Trump and his staff will have an easier time this time around.
– They will bring in more competent and experienced people. They will be able to make changes much faster and with greater efficiency, Ebell tells New York Times.
This is the climate policy in “Project 2025”:
- Limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate.
- Cut financial support for the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Downsize the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Delegate authority to political loyalists instead of scientists.
- Move away from everything that supports a transition to clean energy.
- Cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s support for research at universities.
- Attack studies linking air pollution to reduced lifespan.
– There is a lot of scary stuff here. This is largely a wish list from the fossil fuel industry. In my eyes, “Project 2025” is really bad, says Collin Rees to TV 2.
Sees the same in Norway
– The fact that “Project 2025” exists, and that Trump is a real presidential candidate, is for me evidence that the fossil fuel industry still holds a lot of power. That is what I read from this, he adds.
The Oil Change leader also points out that the environmental movement in the USA is by no means satisfied with the Democrats either.
– It is worth noting that this is a problem area for both parties. Donald Trump has not been able to attack Joe Biden, or Kamala Harris now, as hard when it comes to oil and gas drilling. That’s because this has been going on at a significantly larger scale under them than he did, Rees explains.
The climate advocate emphasizes that Norway also chooses money over climate.
– Yes. We see the same thing in Norway, where many of the parties
that actually do something on the climate front still believe that we can extract more
oil.