Message From the Editor

Project 2025 — as much as former President Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance may want this right-wing presidential playbook to disappear, the revelations and connections to it just keep coming. 

In a recently uncovered training video published by ProPublica and Documented, for instance, Bethany Kozma, a former deputy chief of staff from the Trump administration, said, “If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.”

Unfortunately, erasing references to climate change doesn’t actually erase climate change — or the suffering that worsening heat waves, storms, and other effects Americans and the rest of the world’s inhabitants already are experiencing because of it. This is the modern conservative vision for America, and by proxy, the world.

But thanks to DeSmog’s investigative reporting, we now have a clearer picture than ever of who is responsible for funding the groups behind Project 2025, starting with, of course, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank with deep ties to Trump. 

This week, reporter Joe Fassler tracked more than $120 million from six ultra-wealthy families to the almost 50 groups that created the plan to remake the American government. That’s right, six billionaire fortunes, from familiar names like Charles Koch to the enigmatic but potentially more influential Barre Seid, have been bankrolling Project 2025. Get the full story.

And in a story we co-published with The Guardian, reporter Geoff Dembicki revealed that Shell’s U.S. nonprofit foundation has donated more than half a million dollars to anti-climate and religious right causes. Many of those donations have gone to groups with ties to Project 2025, including $23,321 to the Heritage Foundation and $59,264 to the American Family Association, an organization designated as a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center due in part to its long history of aggressive anti-gay activism.

“Shell has every reason to want to maintain close relationships with organizations that wield outsize political influence and just happen to reliably support the interests of the fossil fuel industry,” Adrian Bardon, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University who has studied the religious right and climate denialism told DeSmog. Read more here.

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Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

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Image credit: DeSmog

Revealed: Shell Oil Nonprofit Donated to Anti-Climate Groups Behind Project 2025

— By Geoff Dembicki (4 min. read) —

A U.S. foundation associated with oil company Shell has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to religious right and conservative organizations, many of which deny that climate change is a crisis, tax records reveal.

Fourteen of those groups are on the advisory board of Project 2025, a conservative blueprint proposing radical changes to the federal government, including severely limiting the Environmental Protection Agency.

6 Billionaire Fortunes Bankrolling Project 2025

— By Joe Fassler (8 min) —

Since 2020, donor networks linked to just six family fortunes have funneled more than $120 million into Project 2025 advisory groups, a DeSmog analysis has found. 

More than 100 nonprofits led by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank that has engaged in climate change denial and obstruction for decades, have signed on as advisors to the Project 2025’s 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” document — a plan to rapidly “reform,” or radically alter, the U.S. government by shuttering bureaus and offices, overturning regulations, and replacing thousands of public sector employees with hand-picked political allies.

BLM to Protect ND Drinking Water, Yet Continues Oil Leasing Under Missouri River

— By Sharon Kelly (5 min. read) —

Last week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced the results of its most recent oil and gas sale on public lands in North Dakota and Montana. The majority of the proceeds for this round come from a $15.1 million winning bid for a 273-acre parcel located entirely underneath the Missouri River, which serves as a major source of drinking water for millions of Americans.

That relatively small lease is a big reminder of the ways shale extraction continues in and around places where people get their drinking water. The sale was made amid continuing battles over just how much public land will be made available to oil and gas drillers, and how much protection will be extended for public lands.

UK Regulator Weighs Greenwashing Allegations Against Latest Shell Ads

— By Ellen Ormesher (3 min. read) —

Britain’s advertising regulator is assessing complaints that a television advertisement for oil major Shell gives a misleading impression of the company’s commitment to clean energy. 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said it had received 25 complaints about the ad, which was created on behalf of Shell by the media company VML, according to DeSmog research. Formerly known as Wunderman Thompson, VML has worked with Shell since 1999.

Project 2025: Tory Candidates Have Ties to Group Drafting ‘Dangerous’ Trump Agenda

— By Adam Barnett (7 min. read) —

Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, and several other senior Conservative figures have close connections to a U.S. think tank that has authored a radical right-wing, anti-climate agenda for a future Donald Trump administration. 

The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is considered so extreme that Trump has tried to distance himself from the manifesto, calling it “ridiculous and abysmal”.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: The Heritage Foundation

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank founded in 1973 by Paul Weyrich to “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” According to Greenpeace, The Heritage Foundation received $6,130,201 from Koch foundations from 1997 to 2017. It has long held considerable influence over Republican politicians, with estimates that two-thirds of the policy recommendations it made in 1981 were adopted by the Reagan Administration. In 2016, Politico reported that the Heritage Foundation emerged as one of the most influential forces behind Donald Trump’s transition team. Heritage is responsible for orchestrating a “government-in-waiting” via its Project 2025, which describes the goal of its 2025 Presidential Transition Project as to “collectively, pave the way for an effective conservative administration: a policy agenda, personnel, training, and a 180-day playbook.”

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database, Ad & PR Database, and Koch Network Database.