Project 25 and the environment

To the Editor:

I am writing as a Concerned Mainer to elaborate on Project 2025, or simply the transition plan should the Republican presidential candidate win this election. My concern is for the environment we live in as an integrated family on what has become an overused and poisoned planet.

In June of 2023, a bridge in Andover, Maine, washed out with the overflow of Abbott Stream and water from the West Branch of the Ellis River. In December of 2023, Sunday River in Newry overflowed its banks and washed part of the road away. In the same event the Androscoggin River overflowed in Bethel, cutting off the town and flooding local businesses. On the Maine coast, winter storms of 2023/2024 wreaked havoc, washing away infrastructure, homes, and historic buildings. Erosion washed away beach dunes up and down the coast. Cleanup from these storms continued well into spring, and in some hard hit areas restoration is incomplete and may never resume.

Zack Budryk and Rachel Frazin reported for The Hill: “Project 2025, a controversial conservative roadmap that aims to guide the next Republican administration, calls for the elimination of multiple energy- and environment-related offices and rules — moves that would restrict the government’s ability to combat climate change and pollution. Policies promoted under the plan would place political personnel in positions to oversee science at major federal agencies and reduce such agencies’ limitations on polluting industries.”

On the chopping block are the EPA, NOAA, and National Weather Service.

In tracking the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions, The Brookings Institute cited 74 actions the administration has taken to weaken environmental protection. (August 4, 2020)

The New York Times reported the Trump Administration rolled back more than 100 environmental rules, with an added 14 in progress as of 1/20/21.

If that is not enough to give us pause, Project 2025 will revisit the designation of PFAS as a “forever chemical,” will increase fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, and further imperil this country we call home.

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