Project 2025, the sweeping right-wing blueprint for a new kind of U.S.
presidency, would sabotage science-based policies that address climate
change, the environment, abortion, health care access, technology and
education. It would impose religious and conservative ideology on the
federal civil service to such an extent that Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump has, dubiously, tried to distance himself from the
plan. But in 2022 Trump said the Heritage Foundation�the think tank that
authored Project 2025�would �lay the groundwork and detail plans for
exactly what our movement will do.� The project�s main document, a lengthy
policy agenda, was published the following year.

Although Trump is not among its 34 authors, more than half are appointees
and staff from his time as president; the words �Trump� and �Trump
Administration� appear 300 times in its pages. At least 140 former Trump
officials are involved in Project 2025, according to a CNN tally. It�s
reasonable to expect that a second Trump presidency would follow many of
the project�s recommendations.

Project 2025 presents a long-standing conservative vision of a smaller
government and describes specific, detailed steps to achieve this goal. It
would shrink some federal departments and agencies while eliminating
others�dividing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into two
weaker entities, for instance, and abolishing the Department of Education
(ED) entirely.

What is even more unusual, and also mapped out in detail, is a plan to
exert more presidential control over traditionally nonpartisan governmental
workers�those Trump might describe as members of the �deep state,� or
regulatory bureaucracy. For example, Project 2025 claims that the the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other scientific
institutions are �vulnerable to obstructionism� unless appointees at these
agencies are �wholly in sync� with presidential policy. To that end, it
would reclassify tens of thousands of civil service jobs as political
positions that answer to the president.

�The independence of science is being attacked across the board in this
document,� says Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the Climate and Energy
program at the nonpartisan Union of Concerned Scientists. �The importance
of this science is that�s how we can ensure people�s health and the
environment are being safeguarded.� (Cleetus notes that her comments
address the policy agenda�s contents, not the upcoming presidential
election.)

Career scientists who are now employed by the federal government are
�terrified and polishing up their r�sum�s,� says Jacqueline Simon, policy
director of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, a
union that represents workers at the National Institutes of Health, the
Environmental Protection Agency, the CDC and other agencies. If Project
2025 becomes reality, she says, �the very idea of scientific integrity will
be flushed down the toilet.� The Heritage Foundation did not respond to
Scientific American�s request for comment.

The policy handbook is not a light read. It is at turns wonkish, militant
and sneering (and sometimes all three at once, such as when it calls for
transforming federal institutions into �hard targets� for �woke culture
warriors�). It tears down policies to curb climate change, even though a
majority of Americans endorse climate action. And although there is broad
support in the U.S. for laws that protect the relationships and rights of
LGBTQ+ people, Project 2025 advocates for �a biblically based, social
science-reinforced definition of marriage.� The Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS) would become a �Department of Life� that would
explicitly reject abortion and promote the heterosexual nuclear family
structure as �ideal.� Below is a nonexhaustive list�Project 2025 is 922
pages long�of ways the agenda would warp scientific policies and processes
that have long been integral to the country�s functioning.
Curated by Our Editors

Secret service agents carry a wounded Donald Trump off stage
The Psychological Effects of the Trump Assassination Attempt

Tanya Lewis
Supreme Court building with pedestrian street sign signaling "don't
walk" in foreground.
The Supreme Court�s Contempt for Facts Is a Betrayal of Justice

The Editors
Face of Jo Biden with orange background and the word HEAT displaying in
white letters
Biden Pushes to Stop Heat Deaths after Decades of Delay

Ariel Wittenberg & E&E News
Supreme court with shadowed people walking across
How the Supreme Court�s �Chevron Deference� Ruling Could Remake the
Energy Sector

Niina H. Farah, Lesley Clark & E&E News

Abortion

Project 2025 insists abortion should not be considered health care. It
seeks to undo access to medication abortion, falsely stating that the
involved drugs have complication rates four times higher than that of
surgical abortion. In reality, studies have shown that mifepristone, one of
two drugs used in almost all medication abortions in the U.S., is extremely
safe and effective. Project 2025 argues that the Food and Drug
Administration should �reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs
because the politicized approval process was illegal from the start.� But
earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled unanimously to dismiss a case
that challenged the FDA�s approval of mifepristone on these grounds (though
the conservative-majority Court did leave the door open to future
challenges). The Heritage Foundation�s plan seeks to have the FDA �stop
promoting or approving mail-order abortions in violation of long-standing
federal laws,� citing laws enacted as part of the Comstock Act, despite the
fact that the U.S. Department of Justice has said such legislation does not
apply to drugs that can be used to lawfully produce abortions.

Project 2025 also calls for the HHS to pressure each state to submit
detailed reports of every abortion that is carried out within that state.
And it would require the CDC to monitor and report abortion complications.
That would include children being �born alive after an abortion��a
misleading phrase because the vast majority of abortions take place long
before a fetus becomes viable and doctors are required by law to provide
care once an infant is born.
Agriculture

The Department of Agriculture�s current functions are as diverse and wide-
reaching as providing loans for rural development and defending U.S.
livestock from flesh-eating worms. The department has a crucial role in
national nutrition: the USDA has overseen the country�s largest food
assistance initiative, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP), in its various forms since its World War II�era beginnings and
reintroduction in 1961. Project 2025 would cut eligibility for SNAP
benefits while moving the program to the HHS. And even though free school
lunches have consistently been found to improve academic performance, the
Heritage Foundation�s plan would restrict school meals provided through the
USDA and repeal the dietary guidelines that those meals are based on.

Under Project 2025, the USDA�s scope would narrow to the efficient
production of food, undoing the department�s current strategy to promote
renewable energy and protect national forests and agricultural land from
the climate crisis.
Climate Change

Across multiple departments and agencies, including the EPA, the Department
of Energy and NOAA, the project would jettison much of the federal
government�s climate science apparatus; it dismissively refers to such
programs as �climate alarmism.� This move would significantly hinder
researchers� ability to understand climate change�s many impacts on our
daily lives. It would stifle information on how to adapt society and
infrastructure to threats such as increased flooding and more frequent and
extreme heat waves, all of which have been conclusively linked to rising
global temperatures. Cutting DOE research into renewable energy, battery
storage and other technology�while increasing fossil fuel extraction on
federal lands�would make reining in greenhouse gas emissions enough to meet
the goals of the Paris climate accord all but impossible.
Sign Up for Our Daily Newsletter
Email Address
By giving us your email, you are agreeing to receive the Today In Science
newsletter and to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

�Any attempt to reverse policies, any attempt to slow down this transition
to clean energy, is putting us at greater risk� from climate change�s
severe impacts, Cleetus says. She notes that the 2025 scheme targets the
EPA�s 2009 endangerment finding�a bedrock of climate policy that identifies
heat-trapping pollutants as a public health threat. But distorting or
burying science does not change the reality of the climate crisis. �Science
will not bend to political will,� Cleetus adds, �but what will happen is
that people will suffer.�

To oversee and reform research at the EPA, Project 2025 would install a
�science adviser� who would report directly to the presidential
administration, as well as multiple new senior political appointees. �It�s
pretty alarming, and it would be completely new for us,� says Joyce Howell,
a Philadelphia-based EPA attorney speaking in her capacity as executive
vice president of AFGE Council 238, a union of employees of the agency.

The plan would eliminate the National Weather Service�s role as a
forecaster, relegating the agency to only collecting data�which private
companies could use to create their own forecasts. This has been a goal in
some conservative circles for many years; in 2005 then senator Rick
Santorum of Pennsylvania introduced a bill to codify such a change into
law. John Morales, a former NWS meteorologist who now works as a
consultant, expressed his �alarm� at such proposals. �The U.S. economy
grows as a result of our robust research, innovation, forecasts and
warnings� from the NWS and NOAA, he says. These proposals �just make
absolutely no sense.�

A key function of the NWS is to provide ample warnings about tornadoes,
floods, heat waves and other hazardous weather�notifications that, Morales
notes, protect lives and property. As a result, under Project 2025, this
single, authoritative warning system would likely be replaced with a
patchwork of alerts from weather stations and private apps.
Education

In addition to dismantling the ED, Project 2025 would end student loan
forgiveness. It would narrow Title IX protections, which prohibit
discrimination in education, by focusing only on �biological sex recognized
at birth� and removing considerations for gender identity and sexual
orientation.

Project 2025 could also make it harder for U.S. schools to attract
international students and for employers to hire them after their
education. Visa holders make up a significant portion of master�s and Ph.D.
students in the country�s engineering, health and science programs: among
first-time, full-time master�s students, for instance, scholars on
temporary visas exceeded U.S. citizens and permanent residents in 2022,
according to National Science Foundation data. After graduation, many
foreign students remain in the U.S. to work with an H-1B visa. But Project
2025 would eliminate the lowest qualifying wage levels for H-1B workers set
by the Department of Labor�levels that are commonly applied to these
individuals� first jobs. This would effectively mean �excluding most
foreign-born graduates from these job opportunities,� according to an
assessment released by the Niskanen Center, a pro-immigration think tank.
Environment

The EPA�s role beyond climate-change-related programs would be stymied,
too. Project 2025 would increase the extent to which environmental
policymakers have to consider costs to industry. It also argues for
lessening the consideration of �co-benefits��instances when, for example,
regulating one pollutant coincidentally reduces emissions of another. This
calculus flies in the face of the intent behind the Clean Air Act of 1970;
the authors of that law, who wanted to spur industrial innovation,
emphasized that human health was more important than company profits. The
Project 2025 recommendations would also limit what is considered a
pollutant or a hazardous chemical�in particular, they make the call to
�revisit the designation� of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances
(PFASs) as hazardous chemicals. �If anything should be listed as a
hazardous chemical, it should be PFAS,� says Maria Doa, senior director for
chemicals policy at the Environmental Defense Fund and a former EPA
employee, who worked at the agency during the Trump administration. These
compounds, found in many products from firefighting foam to cosmetics, are
prevalent in U.S. drinking water and soils. They can take hundreds, even
thousands, of years to break down in the environment, earning them the
common name �forever chemicals.� And PFASs have been linked to numerous
ailments, including various cancers, hypertension and immune dysfunction.

�Across the board, [the authors of the project are] looking at undermining
things,� Doa says, especially �the expertise to properly characterize the
risk presented by chemicals.� Project 2025 would cease funding for the
Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a database of chemical health
hazards that is considered a gold standard: in addition to the EPA, state
governments use it to set regulations. The plan also seeks to undermine the
agency�s ability to assess people�s cumulative exposure to chemicals under
the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). For example, under Project 2025,
if a given chemical was regulated under the Clean Water Act, its route of
exposure couldn�t also be considered under TSCA�meaning the latter program
would have an incomplete measure of the chemical�s cumulative impact. PFASs
are �a perfect example� of where this becomes a problem, Doa says, because
people are exposed to multiple types of these substances through water,
soil and consumer products. Overall, the project is �trying to give the
industry preeminence in this rather than looking at all of us,� she adds.
Health Care

The project�s restrictions to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would roll back
Medicaid expansions, potentially leaving millions of people without medical
coverage. The ACA currently expands Medicaid eligibility to adults with
incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty line, and it helps
states offset the costs through a matching rate program. But Project 2025
would cap federal grants and leave primary oversight to states. Experts
predict that with less federal funding as an incentive, certain states may
choose to roll back Medicaid and restrict eligibility criteria. And with
fewer people qualifying for Medicaid, gaps in health care access would
grow�as has already been seen in states that have not adopted expanded
Medicaid.

Project 2025 aggressively attacks the federal programs and funding that
increase health care access to LGBTQ+ families and single-parent
households. It criticizes President Joe Biden�s administration for focusing
on �LGBTQ+ equity� and, without evidence, claims these policies are
�subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing
marriage.� The project would also undo the antidiscrimination rules that
are now applied to all federal health care programs, including the ACA and
the Children�s Health Insurance Program. Removing those protections would
greatly restrict access to gender-affirming care for transgender people of
all ages.
Technology

Much of Project 2025 is concerned with eliminations or reductions, such as
cutting federal support for automakers that produce electric vehicles. But
there is at least one thing its authors would like to see enlarged: the
U.S. thermonuclear arsenal. This would be, as nuclear policy analyst Joe
Cirincione wrote recently in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, �the
most dramatic build up of nuclear weapons since the start of the Reagan
administration.�

Project 2025 advocates for a �readiness to test� nuclear weapons at the
Nevada National Security Site, even though detonating an underground nuke
would violate the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which the U.S.
signed in 1996. Physicists in the U.S. still have ways to study nuclear
weapons, however: they do it virtually through supercomputer simulations
that remove the risks to experimenters� health and the environment�and
avoid inflaming geopolitical tensions.
Rights & Permissions

Ben Guarino is an associate technology editor at Scientific American. He
writes and edits stories about artificial intelligence, robotics and our
relationship with our tools. Previously, he worked as a science editor at
Popular Science and a staff writer at the Washington Post, where he covered
the COVID pandemic, science policy and misinformation (and also dinosaur
bones and water bears). He has a degree in bioengineering from the
University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree from New York University's
Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.
More by Ben Guarino

Andrea Thompson is an associate editor covering the environment, energy and
earth sciences. She has been covering these issues for 16 years. Prior to
joining Scientific American, she was a senior writer covering climate
science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where
she primarily covered earth science and the environment. She has moderated
panels, including as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development
Media Zone, and appeared in radio and television interviews on major
networks. She holds a graduate degree in science, health and environmental
reporting from New York University, as well as a B.S. and an M.S. in
atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
More by Andrea Thompson

Tanya Lewis is a senior editor covering health and medicine at Scientific
American. She writes and edits stories for the website and print magazine
on topics ranging from COVID to organ transplants. She also co-hosts Your
Health, Quickly on Scientific American's podcast Science, Quickly and
writes Scientific American's weekly Health & Biology newsletter. She has
held a number of positions over her seven years at Scientific American,
including health editor, assistant news editor and associate editor at
Scientific American Mind. Previously, she has written for outlets that
include Insider, Wired, Science News, and others. She has a degree in
biomedical engineering from Brown University and one in science
communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
More by Tanya Lewis

Lauren J. Young is an associate editor for health and medicine at
Scientific American. She has edited and written stories that tackle a wide
range of subjects, including the COVID pandemic, emerging diseases,
evolutionary biology and health inequities. Young has nearly a decade of
newsroom and science journalism experience. Before joining Scientific
American in 2023, she was an associate editor at Popular Science and a
digital producer at public radio�s Science Friday. She has appeared as a
guest on radio shows, podcasts and stage events. Young has also spoken on
panels for the Asian American Journalists Association, American Library
Association, NOVA Science Studio and the New York Botanical Garden. Her
work has appeared in Scholastic MATH, School Library Journal, IEEE
Spectrum, Atlas Obscura and Smithsonian Magazine. Young studied biology at
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, before pursuing a
master�s at New York University�s Science, Health & Environmental Reporting
Program.