Emily Birnbaum | Bloomberg News | July 24, 2024
Corporate lobbyists drafted sections of the 900-page plan
Democrats intensify focus on conservative think tank’s agenda
In Kamala Harris’ first public remarks as the leading Democratic presidential candidate, she vowed to defeat two enemies: Donald Trump and “his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”
Harris’ comment thrusts Project 2025, the 900-page conservative manifesto led by the right-leaning Heritage Foundation, even more forcefully into the spotlight as Democrats use it to showcase prospective threats if Trump wins the White House this year.
The former president says his campaign isn’t affiliated with Project 2025 and doesn’t endorse all of its ideas. Still, more than 100 of those leading the effort formerly served in his administration and many of its proposals hew closely to Trump and the Republican party’s platforms.
The plan — which is coming under attack more than a year after it became public — proposes to scrap climate-change rules, lessen worker protections, replace civil servants with Trump loyalists and dismantle the Education, Commerce and Homeland Security Departments, among other initiatives.
Recent polling shows there has been a dramatic uptick in awareness and negative views of Project 2025 since late June, when Democrats began emphasizing the plan as a central plank of their campaign against Trump.
The controversial playbook, shepherded by the Washington-based Heritage think tank, was shaped in part by corporate lobbyists who have done work for such companies as Meta Platforms Inc., Dominion Energy Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.
Chapters were written by contenders to lead federal agencies during a second Trump term, some of whom now lobby on behalf of companies regulated by the federal government.
“This is a widely coordinated operation by the most extreme in the conservative wing of the Republican party to institutionalize Trumpism,” said Jennifer Horn, a political strategist and former New Hampshire GOP chair, who doesn’t support Trump. “They’re doing it in part because of their own extreme beliefs, but they’re also doing it because so many of them are going to benefit financially from it.”
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Many Project 2025 plan contributors have ties to both Trump and the companies they represent. The White House reform section was written by Rick Dearborn, Trump’s one-time deputy chief of staff, who now works for such companies as Shell Plc, Verizon, and Amazon.com Inc. Dustin Carmack, a former Trump administration official and a current Meta public policy director wrote the intelligence community chapter. Carmack joined Meta after he wrote the chapter as a Heritage researcher. Brooks Tucker, author of the Department of Veterans Affairs chapter, is a lobbyist for the Spectrum Group, advising clients how to promote business interests to decision-makers in Congress, the firm’s website says.
Project 2025 Authors Representing Special Interests
Chapter | Author | Clients |
White House | Rick Dearborn | Shell, Verizon, Amazon, Meta, Invesco Ltd., Commercial Metals Co. |
Intelligence Community | Dustin Carmack | Meta |
Department of Veterans Affairs | Brooks Tucker | Businesses promoting interests to Defense Department, Veterans Affairs Department and Congress |
Labor Department | Jonathan Berry | Liberty Energy, Intra-National Home Care |
Energy Department | Bernard McNamee | Dominion Energy, oil and gas clients |
Transportation Department | Diana Furchtgott-Roth | Undisclosed consulting clients |
Environmental Protection Agency | Mandy Gunasekara | “Energy, environmental and bitcoin” companies |
Democrats have increased the focus on Project 2025 after Biden exited the presidential race this weekend. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in her endorsement of Harris said the vice president will “make the case against convicted felon Donald Trump and the Project 2025 agenda to take away our freedoms.”
“Project 2025 has given power to right-wing industry players so that big corporations and special interests can have even more control over our lives,” said Tony Carrk, executive director of progressive nonprofit Accountable.US, which helped research lobbyist ties to Project 2025. “Americans deserve to know who’s pulling the strings behind policy proposals for key agencies.”
A central theme of Project 2025 is deregulation, gutting government efforts to protect the environment, safeguard workers, promote diversity and prevent federal sex discrimination. Many of the proposals align with business interests, envisioning a government that keeps its distance and mainly enacts rules that would benefit corporations.
Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and leader of Project 2025, said the think tank is “fastidious about conflicts of interest.”
“That is extended to Project 2025,” Roberts said. “We love private business, we love the free market. But what we don’t love is when big government and big business collude against everyday Americans.”
Steven Groves, co-editor of the Project 2025 playbook, said the authors of the chapters were “selected based on their deep knowledge of various government agencies and their past service in the Executive Branch.” He added that many people — not only the named authors — contributed to each of the chapters.
Here are some of the Project 2025 proposals and the former Trump officials and corporate lobbyists who helped pen them:
Labor Policy
This section, written by Jonathan Berry, who headed the regulatory office at Trump’s Labor Department, would pare back protections for unions and the power of agencies such as the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. Berry also called for granting waivers to allow some minors to do “inherently dangerous jobs,” providing they have parental consent and training.
Under Berry’s plan, corporations would likely dole out less overtime pay and they would have more control over whether workers form unions. It would also prevent labor unions from lobbying the federal government on behalf of workers.
Among other corporate clients, Berry represented Liberty Energy Inc., a fracking company, in its case over the Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate change reporting rules. He also represents Intra-National Home Care LLC, a home nursing agency accused by the Labor Department of willfully failing to pay overtime wages to nearly 160 workers.
“This plan would lead to an erosion of the power of working people through unions in our economy,” said Karla Walter, a labor policy expert with the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
Berry denied in an email that corporate America backs all of his proposals, pointing out he favors phasing out temporary guestworker visas, eliminating use of forced labor abroad and giving workers time off for Sabbath observance.
‘Extreme’ Green
The Energy Department should eliminate offices that work on net-zero carbon goals after the Biden administration created a new energy crisis through “extreme ‘green’ policies,” according to the Project 2025 section written by Bernard McNamee, a Trump appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
He called for an end to the “war on oil and natural gas,” fighting climate change and promoting environmental, social and governance, or ESG, policies.
McNamee, who faced criticism at FERC for fossil fuels support, is now a partner at McGuireWoods, where he has represented oil and gas companies. Dominion Energy, which supplies electricity and natural gas to customers in 13 states, is one of the law firm’s biggest clients, shelling out $670,000 over the course of the Biden administration.
Groves, the Project 2025 playbook editor, said the calls for deregulation are “consistent with conservative thought going back decades.”
Rapid Shift
The Biden administration has pushed an overly rapid shift to electric vehicles, or EVs, by raising fuel economy standards too high, according to the chapter written by Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a deputy assistant secretary in Trump’s Transportation Department. Biden administration regulators “subsidize EV producers such as Tesla at the expense of legacy automakers,” she wrote.
Furchtgott-Roth frequently publishes op-eds and appears on news shows to tout pro-industry energy positions, such as curbing the spread of Chinese electric vehicles in the US – a stance shared by the trade group for General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co.
Furchtgott-Roth, who heads her own consultancy, doesn’t disclose her clients. She said in an email she does “occasional consulting work,” but has “no transportation clients.” She said she does not accept money from clients for published articles.
Restructure EPA
Mandy Gunasekara, former chief of staff for Trump’s EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, calls for a total restructuring that stays existing rules, shrinks the agency’s staff and halts grants to advocacy groups.
Gunasekara is a principal at consulting firm Section VII Capital, which describes itself as a “boutique energy, environmental, and bitcoin investment firm focused on counseling portfolio companies.” She doesn’t disclose her clients.
But her suggestions have generated criticism. Rachel Cleetus, climate and energy policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said Project 2025 takes “specific aim at the federal government’s ability to address the climate crisis and instead doubles down on actions to worsen it.”
Aggressive Attacks
Dearborn, the former Trump deputy chief of staff, penned the chapter on the White House Office, which is focused on combating “wokeism” in the federal government and “the left’s aggressive attacks on life and religious liberty.”
Dearborn left the White House in 2017 for lobbying firm Mindset and has established himself as a well-connected Republican operative representing companies such as Citigroup and Verizon. His biography lists his expertise in the “trade, agriculture, defense, energy, healthcare, and telecom” sectors.
Dearborn, who would likely play an influential role in a Trump administration, called for “reversing regulatory policies in order to promote energy production,” a priority for corporate clients such as Shell.
— With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron
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