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.
Opposition to Dietary Guidelines and Hostility to Climate Change Considerations (Page 309)
“The USDA [United States Department of Agriculture], in collaboration with HHS [the Department of Health and Human Services] publishes the Dietary Guidelines every five years. … In the 2015 Dietary Guidelines process, the influential Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee veered off mission and attempted to persuade the USDA and HHS to adopt nutritional advice that focused not just on human health, but the health of the planet. Issues such as climate change and sustainability infiltrated the process. …
There is no shortage of private sector dietary advice for the public, and nutrition and dietary choices are best left to individuals to address their personal needs. This includes working with their own health professionals. . . .
The dietary guidelines have a major impact because they not only can influence how private health providers offer nutritional advice, but they also inform federal programs. School meals are required to be consistent with the guidelines. The next Administration should:
Work with lawmakers to repeal the Dietary Guidelines. The USDA should help lead an effort to repeal the Dietary Guidelines.”
Why it Matters: Talking Points
This proposal is yet another example of the corrosive anti-democratic focus that pervades Project 2025. The premise is that thinking about nutrition in a way that takes climate change into account is bad, so the federal government should not only stop thinking about climate change as it considers nutritional choices, but it should stop thinking about nutritional choices entirely.
No harm will come from that, the authors suggest, because “[t]here is no shortage of private sector dietary advice for the public.” But the authors then describe the wide influence of the guidelines, including in the advice that private health providers offer and in the content of school meals, prepared for millions of young people throughout the country. This suggests that the Project 2025 proposal arises from those who seek opportunities for individual gain above efforts to enhance the general welfare.
The Dietary Guidelines focus on nutrition, health, and disease prevention; they do not dictate what Americans must eat and drink but are simply a tool to help Americans make healthy food choices - hardly a threat that warrants elimination by a future president.
The recommendation to eliminate these Guidelines also connects to Project 2025’s antipathy towards the science of climate change. Yet there is a science-based relationship between providing beneficial nutritional advice and understanding how our food supply is impacted by or is otherwise impacting global climate change.
A thriving democracy requires the ability to make fact-based decision-making. Future administrations should have the freedom to continue adapting the new Guidelines in accordance with the latest science findings, helping to serve as the basis for all Americans to make their own informed choices.
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
