One road map of a second term for former President Donald Trump would rip out root and stem President Joe Biden’s climate policy — starting with research. The Heritage Foundation and a dozen other conservative groups that teamed up to draft Project 2025, a 920-page plan for a new Republican administration, are now courting Trump loyalists to ensure he implements the recommendations on day one if Trump is elected in November, writes Scott Waldman. “The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding,” the plan reads. “As with other federal departments and agencies, the Biden Administration’s leveraging of the federal government’s resources to further the woke agenda should be reversed and scrubbed from all policy manuals, guidance documents, and agendas.” The policy recommendations include an executive order to “reshape the U.S. Global Change Research Program and related climate change research program.” Established in 1990, during the George H.W. Bush administration, the program coordinates federal research and spending to understand climate change. It brings together hundreds of experts across the government to produce the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, due out in 2026 or early 2027. Under Project 2025, an executive order signed by Trump would require his appointees to reevaluate how the government puts together the National Climate Assessment. That would start by rejecting any work on climate science prepared during the Biden administration. Legal experts say a newly scrubbed assessment that significantly underplays the effect of rising temperatures on public health could underpin regulatory rewrites and court challenges to Biden rules targeting climate pollution from burning fossil fuels. “Environmental regulations rely on a scientific foundation,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “Efforts to undermine that foundation could have serious negative effects on climate laws.” Project 2025 also calls for Trump to reshape the job of White House climate adviser. The new title would be “energy/environment coordinator,” a demotion for climate policy inside the confines of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. And that likely means policy decisions that benefit fossil fuel interests — some of whom have already sent multimillion-dollar checks to super political action committees supporting Trump’s bid. On the campaign trail, Trump has already indicated he wants to unwind Biden’s climate policies. He’s repeatedly promised to be “dictator for a day” to increase oil and natural gas drilling. Still, it may be difficult for Trump to reverse incentives and spending in the Inflation Reduction Act, signed by Biden in 2022 with at least $370 billion for clean energy. It bolstered private sector pledges to build out domestic manufacturing of wind turbines and solar panels, advanced batteries, electric vehicles, and efforts to scale up hydrogen power. Many of those projects are planned for Republican-led states.
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