Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at all levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from a section of the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (Page 674 - 675)
“[The components of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)] form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry, and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. … It should be broken up and downsized.”
Why it Matters: Talking Points
The pejorative reference to “the climate change alarm industry,” speaks volumes about the commercial origins of this proposal. NOAA’s critical roles, in addition to producing scientific studies about climate change, routinely include, among many other functions, timely and accurate information that farmers, fishermen, airlines, firefighters, urban and rural first responders, and others with the information they need to prepare for weather events that occur throughout the year.
Proper preparation for those events is an essential governmental function. But the authors dismiss the need to plan as an exercise in “planning for the unplannable.” That is simply nonsense. What really underlies this proposal is an effort to transfer a critical governmental service and responsibility to private, profit-making organizations. That is not how things are supposed to work in our democratic system.
Moreover, with respect to the dismissal of global climate change as related to an “alarm industry,” the authors again demonstrate how Project 2025 dismisses basic norms and principles of democracy. As recognized by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, “Climate change threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights including those to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development.”
Visit our website for more on our Project 2025 Talking Points Series.
Thank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating to LDAD and by sharing this email with your networks. As always, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
