Project 2025’s Assault on Transportation, Appliance and Building Pollution Solutions

I recently wrote about Project 2025’s plans to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, turn the civil service into the servile service, and undermine U.S. climate work internationally. But the conservative groups behind the presidential transition guide also have plans for putting the pollution back into transportation, appliances, and government buildings. Here’s what I found.

Rolling Back and Undermining National Fuel Economy Standards. Fuel economy standards are the main reason our cars go a lot further on each gallon of gas than they used, saving us money at the pump and reducing harmful air pollution. Despite that, Project 2025 calls for:

• Rolling back fuel economy standards to 35 miles per gallon, which would be a significant setback from the current requirement of 49 miles per gallon (mpg) for passenger cars and light trucks by model year 2026 (Page 628)​​.
• Assigning responsibility for fuel economy standards to the Department of Transportation (DOT) alone, thus cutting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose mandate includes protecting public health from tailpipe pollution, out of the loop (Page 628).

Preventing States from More Aggressive Action to Limit Carbon Pollution from Vehicles. For decades, California has been allowed to set its own more stringent tailpipe standards to combat smog, and other states with serious pollution problems have been allowed to adopt those instead of federal standards. Recently, the Biden administration allowed California to set those standards to combat climate change as well, and using that authority, California will prohibit sales of internal-combustion engines as of 2035.[1] Project 2025 wants to reverse the climate-related authority by:

• Revoking California’s Special Waiver to Set Carbon Standards for Cars and Restoring the position that California’s waiver applies only to California-specific issues like ground-level ozone, not global climate issues (Page 629); and
• Ensuring that other states can adopt California’s standards only for traditional/criteria pollutants, not greenhouse gases (Page 426.)

Blocking Funding for Alternative Transportation Options. Project 2025 has recommendations intended to allow cars and trucks to pollute more and to prevent federal funding of alternative transportation. Funding ways for people to get around other than driving in cars is particularly important for promoting social and economic equity. As the Transportation Equity Caucus puts it, “Federal transportation policy choices — what we build, where we put it, who builds it, how we operate it, what energy powers it — have an enormous impact on our economy, our climate, and our health. We must invest in a manner that builds a nation where all people can participate and prosper.”

Clearly Project 2025 has other ideas, as it calls for:

• Stopping funding transportation alternatives like bicycle lanes, sidewalks, and hiking trails and refocusing the Federal Highway Administration on maintaining and building highways (Page 629).
• Terminating requirements that states consider the climate impacts of their transportation projects (Page 629). Project 2025 attacks federal “obligations on states concerning carbon dioxide emissions from highway traffic” and calls for the next administration to “reform or remove rules that require states to consider alternatives” and to “Reduce the amount of federal involvement in local infrastructure decisions.”
• Ending federal funding of mass transit (Page 636). According to Project 2025, “the best course of action would be to remove federal subsidies for transit spending, allowing states and localities to decide whether mass transit is a good investment for them.”
• Limiting the growth of electric vehicles (previously addressed in the IRA post.)

Pushing Back on Efficient Appliances and Buildings. Project 2025’s plan calls for:

• Eliminating or limiting appliance efficiency standards (Pages 378–379) for “air conditioners, furnaces, water heaters, stoves, clothes washers and dryers, refrigerators, dishwashers, light bulbs, and showerheads.”
• Terminating investments in climate-friendly ways to meet government building and operational needs (Page 369). This targets the Department of Energy’s Federal Energy Management Program, which works with federal agencies to reduce pollution by lowering water and energy consumption.

Have you found other ways Project 2025 attacks these or other money-saving, pro-consumer and pro-equity programs? Let me know in the comments!

I’ll be back soon with (hopefully) the final installment of Project 2025’s plans to increase global temperatures.

[1] https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2022/04/epas-revived-clean-cars-waiver-for-california/#:~:text=On%20March%2014%2C%202022%2C%20the,gas%20emission%20standards%20and%20zero