Continuing with The General Welfare in Project 2025. Summary and takeaway format again, so we can all survive this.
Chapter 12: Department of Energy (DOE) and Related Commissions (p. 363). Introductory essay begins with some braying about “American Energy Dominance,” as if we’re fighting with other countries for access to power sources. And I suppose that’s one way to look at it, if your entire worldview is Us vs. Them.
“[I]deologically driven government policies have thrust the United States into a new energy crisis … (p. 363).” What energy crisis? Are there lines at gas stations again? Are cities suffering recurring brown-outs? No, they are not. We are fine.
Claiming we’re in a crisis is simply an excuse to claim that sustainable power sources are unpatriotic, that climate change doesn’t exist, and that “green” energy initiatives are raising energy costs.
Reality: they are not, it does, and they don’t. What raises energy costs on the micro scale is inefficient building practices and power grids, wasteful use of vehicles, etc. What raises costs on the macro scale: billionaires who own energy companies and run them for maximum shareholder returns.
Summary: drill baby drill; cut all renewables research and funding; more nuclear weapons and reactors; facilitate private-sector nuclear innovation; improve energy security; eliminate special-interest funding programs (what, like for-profit nuclear reactors?); facilitate exports of liquefied natural gas (I thought we had an energy crisis. Don’t we need to keep all our LNG?); refocus the 17 National Laboratories to limit duplication and mission creep; clean up radioactive waste (while building more nukes?); oh yes, build more nukes!; improve grid reliability and security; eliminate grants for applied energy programs and commercial technology; eliminate carbon capture programs; “eliminate energy efficiency standards for appliances (p. 378 and p. 379);” defund most Grid Deployment Office programs; eliminate the Office of Clean Energy Demonstration; eliminate the Loan Program Office (this was created to foster investment in transitioning away from fossil fuels and to promote union jobs and domestic supply chains); eliminate the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy; eliminate the Clean Energy Corps; keep the Energy Information Administration; expand the Office of International Affairs and improve integration with the Dept of State’s Bureau of Energy Resources; expand the Arctic Energy Office; improve integration of DOE’s Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence with the rest of the intelligence community; more nukes; reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; build a grid that can run on all fossil fuels because renewables don’t make a profit (p. 401); consider getting rid of regional transmission organizations (RTOs); give more power to the states in siting and permitting electrical transmission lines; build more pipelines and remove consideration of upstream / downstream effects (p. 407); build more reactors.
Takeaway: P25 doesn’t want environmental concerns to be considered at all in federal energy policy. An “all of the above” energy policy (i.e. one that includes renewable resources) is not a terrible place to start, but the fact that they explicitly call for defunding renewables research and deployment while demanding more funding for fossil fuels and nuclear power shows that “all” really doesn’t mean “all.”
At least this chapter gave them no excuse to beat the abortion-ban drum.
Chapter 13: Environmental Protection Agency (p. 417). The introductory essay stresses developing local and state efforts, sharing federal resources and expertise, and transparency. “[T]he EPA needs to be realigned away from attempts to make it an all-powerful energy and land use policymaker … .”
Summary: focus on renewables bad; regulations bad; agency costs rising too sharply; globally focused agenda to blame for Flint, Michigan water crisis (2014) and Gold King Mine spill (2015); climate change doesn’t exist; antipollution legislation from 1970 to 1988 grudgingly applauded, should’ve stopped there; agency reorganization, restructuring, and relocation of services and offices needed; stop grants to advocacy groups pending review; downsize and reassign staff; enforce compliance to statutes, not regulations; review and revise “Mobile Source Regulation” (p. 426; this is about vehicle emissions standards); “Institute automatic withdrawal of any proposed rule that is not finalized within the statutorily prescribed one-year period.” (p 427; this means Congress can kill a proposed rule simply by stalling it for a year); operate offices under political appointees; prohibit retroactive or preemptive permits in water use; “Increased targeted funding would greatly benefit water systems across the country … leaving fewer communities with significant water service challenges.” (p. 430; this is specific to drinking water infrastructure); emphasize productivity rather than process and policy in Office of Land and Emergency Management; “Find opportunities to transfer work and funding to states and tribes.” (p. 431); expand and support abandoned mine clean-up; develop a 10-year plan to address lead contamination; change to a 100% electronic waste management data, manifest, and filing system (p. 432); eliminate redundancies in waste management and emergency response across offices or agencies; eliminate scope creep; improve data standards for pesticide testing; trim EPA research programs to those defined by statute; appoint no fewer than 8 new people to oversee and reform “EPA research and science activities (p. 436);” suspend EPA advisory bodies (there are 21 advisory committees); “Several ORD (Office of Research and Development), many of which constitute unaccountable efforts to use scientific determinations to drive regulatory, enforcement, and legal decisions, should be eliminated (p. 437).” Remove environmental activists from the EPA; reject funds for programs and activities not authorized by Congress; elevate the American Indian Office of the EPA, move its headquarters out of Washington, and appoint a new administrator; get all EPA lawyers on the same page, reduce staff, and limit public communications from the EPA Office of General Counsel; “Put a political appointee in charge of the grants office … (p. 444).”
Takeaway: there are quite a few rational, actionable suggestions in this chapter, and once again they made it through without mentioning abortion. I was expecting them to call for zeroing out the EPA altogether.
Unfortunately, the refusal to accept climate change and the insistence on political appointees at the head of everything would pretty much guarantee that whatever economic benefits may flow from deregulation would be balanced out by new disasters. Because if there’s one thing we have good scientific data for, it’s the fact that unregulated industry has always taken the cheapest possible action, and in industry, cheap means dirty.
“Streamlining” a government agency only has value if the agency can still function. Based on the appointments DJT has made so far, I suspect all the proposals in Project 2025 are simply smoke covering up the intention to let incompetence produce such chaos that tame legislators can push through privatization measures.
Do you want resource extraction companies regulating themselves, for-profit investment companies running Social Security, or for-profit insurance companies running Medicare?
Stay tuned: next up is the Department of Health and Human Services, where much of our budget deficit resides. I predict P25 takes a hatchet to it.