Understanding Project 2025’s blueprint for a more polluted world

Plus, an Ohio GOP congressional candidate downplays abortion’s impact on race. 


As the final stretch of election season gets underway, we’ll be unpacking one of the most urgent storylines from the 2024 Presidential race: Project 2025. Over the next three weeks, The Lede will be analyzing how this comprehensive guidebook to a possible Trump presidency will impact key aspects of American life, from reproductive and labor rights to housing and immigration policy.

At a New York Times Climate Forward event last month, Kevin Roberts, the so-called “architect” of Project 2025, dismissed concerns about the rising temperatures across the globe. 

“It sounds like weather to me, a hot year,” Roberts said.

“In fact,” Roberts added, “there are many good studies from completely objective sources, including my colleagues, scholars at Heritage, to show there’s been a reduction in climate deaths.” 

When it comes to combating the impact of anthropogenic climate change, Project 2025 does not beat around the proverbial bush. Denialism is the name of the game. “The Biden Administration’s climate fanaticism will need a whole-of-government unwinding,” the document declares. 

During Trump’s first term, the administration famously withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. But Project 2025 calls for a future Republican president to go even further and remove the United States from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), one of the preeminent means by which the international community has organized a response to a warming planet. 

Additionally, it suggests that the United States end its funding of the World Bank, of which the U.S. is the most prominent financier of. Disrupting this sponsorship of the World Bank would undermine the institution’s ability to aid developing countries in their green transition. 

“The policy changes it suggests — which include executive orders that Trump could implement single-handedly, regulatory changes by federal agencies, and legislation that would require congressional approval — would make it extremely difficult for the United States to fulfill the climate goals it has committed to under the 2015 Paris Agreement,” according to an assessment of Project 2025 by Yale Climate Connection. 

On the local level, Project 2025 would subvert national environmental protections like the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Clean Air Act. In the former case, the agenda proposes removing gray wolves and Yellowstone grizzlies from the list. In the latter, Project 2025 would limit the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to address air quality standards.

All of this would culminate in a federal government that was dramatically less capable of handling the impending challenges that ecological degradation will cause. Even more foreboding, a second Trump term would likely contribute to further deterioration. A recent study by the investigative climate unit Carbon Brief compared Trump’s environmental policy with that of then-candidate President Joe Biden’s record. 

“A victory for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election could lead to an additional 4 billion tonnes of US emissions by 2030 compared with Joe Biden’s plans,” the analysis revealed

“This extra 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) by 2030 would cause global climate damages worth more than $900 billion, based on the latest U.S. government valuations.”


Ohio GOP congressional candidate Kevin Coughlin calls abortion ‘yesterday’s news’

By Zach Shaw

In audio obtained by Heartland Signal, the Republican candidate for Ohio’s 13th Congressional District Kevin Coughlin dismissed reproductive rights as “yesterday’s news.” 

Speaking at a UAkron College Republicans meeting on Oct. 15 about the status of his campaign, the former state senator said his campaign focused on more pressing issues for Ohioans.

“What we’ve got on our side is the issues. We’ve got the right issues,” Coughlin says in the audio. “[Democrats] have nothing to talk about. They want to talk about abortion, which is yesterday’s news. And they want to talk about $35 insulin and things like that. Okay. I mean, they don’t want to talk about the border. They don’t want to talk about inflation.”

Coughlin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The comments come at a time when voters across the U.S. are markedly supportive of abortion. Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, many states have seen intense public backlash and mobilization around reproductive rights, ultimately resulting in Ohio voters passing a constitutional amendment last year which gives a constitutional right to abortion. Even with this development, voter sentiment suggests that abortion is not a fading issue — it remains a critical factor in many voters’ decision-making processes as they head to the polls.

Coughlin isn’t alone in his boldly dismissive stance on abortion rights, either. GOP candidates across the U.S., but especially those in Ohio, are also expressing extreme views that may alienate crucial voter demographics. Ohio Republican Senate nominee Bernie Moreno  has also echoed hardline views on abortion that have been ripe for attack by his Democratic opponent Sherrod Brown, who has been eager to paint Moreno as untrustworthy and not in line with Ohio values. Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance, has infamously made headlines almost daily for his extreme anti-abortion positions, which seem to resonate only with the party’s fringe base but is pushing away independent voters at an alarming rate. 

As the Republican Party navigates this politically charged landscape, the challenge will be finding common ground that appeals to a broader electorate, especially independents who are essential for winning in swing districts. If GOP candidates like Coughlin and Moreno continue to prioritize extreme rhetoric, they may inadvertently undermine their chances in key races.

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Jamie Larson
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