Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared on the website of Food & Water Action (our affiliated organization) at an earlier date.

Amidst a perpetually churning news cycle, you may have seen a chilling phrase break through the din: “Project 2025.”

It looms like a bogeyman in everything from TikTok comments to headlines in major news outlets. And it refers to a 900-page wishlist and roadmap for a potential conservative president’s first months in office. The document was crafted by former Trump administration officials working with the Heritage Foundation (a think tank with a history of climate denial and funded by right-wing billionaires). 

So what exactly is in Project 2025 that makes it so startling?

“We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” said Project 2025’s director. That alone clues you in on the gravity of its contents and its intentions. It is nothing less than a plan to completely overhaul the federal government, stripping away its ability to defend families from threats to public health and the environment. 

Its deregulatory agenda will put our water at risk of pollution and contamination for the sake of corporate profits, and its agricultural policies will pull a resilient, affordable food system further from reach. Its plan for our energy system would push our planet even more toward climate chaos.

Moreover, Project 2025 is as meticulous as it is dangerous, detailing exactly how a right-wing president could carry out its plans. And while it details a heinous agenda on a wide range of issues, we’re going to focus on food, water, and climate. 

Here’s what you need to know about Project 2025’s threat to our livable future.

Project 2025 Would Pave the Way for More Corporate Pollution

One key tenet of Project 2025 is dismantling and disempowering federal agencies. Its goal is to shift agencies’ focus from protecting our health and environment to paving more pathways for unchecked corporate abuse. 

Notably, the plan recommends gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). On day one, it would downsize staff at a time when the agency is already severely understaffed and under-resourced. This has led to, for example, absurdly long reviews of chemicals that threaten our water, air, and health.

In other cases, the EPA has rubber-stamped potentially dangerous chemicals to speed up corporations’ path to profits. Project 2025 wants this trend to continue, as it advocates for speeding up reviews “to ensure the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers” — putting companies before public health.

It also aims to strip our waters of protections from polluters. Project 2025 would exclude much of our country’s wetlands and temporary waters from protection and narrow the kinds of water pollution regulated under the Clean Water Act. As communities across the country suffer pollution from factory farms and industrial plants, we need more water protections, not fewer.

Moreover, Project 2025 would have a new administration pause and revisit Biden’s recent Lead and Copper Rule Improvement and PFAS regulations, which are vital first steps in responding to our country’s lead-in-water and PFAS contamination crises. This would put the health of millions of people at continued risk.

It specifically targets a recent Biden rule that designates two PFAS as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA, jeopardizing efforts to force polluters to clean up their toxic mess. Project 2025 could allow corporations to get away with poisoning our water, and leave taxpayers to foot the bill.

Safe, Affordable, and Sustainable Food Is Under Attack

Project 2025 is expressly focused on deregulation and downsizing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It views regulations as “a threat to farmers’ independence and food affordability” and advocates for removing “obstacles imposed on American farmers and individuals across the food supply chain.”

This completely ignores the essential role that regulations play in keeping our food safe and combating Big Ag’s takeover of our food system. Government programs are integral to supporting small and medium-sized farmers and building a food system that will be sustainable for generations of farmers to come.

But Project 2025 wants to cut these — from regulations on pesticide use and genetically modified food to conservation programs that help farmers manage their land sustainably.

It also brushes aside the role that our food system has in fostering a healthy environment, saying “environmental issues” are “ancillary” to agriculture. It would hamstring efforts to transform our food system to save our climate and environment while ensuring affordable, sustainable food for all.

Additionally, Project 2025 cruelly threatens to yank food access from poor and low-income families across the country. Notably, it calls for limiting access to SNAP benefits — formerly known as food stamps — which help feed more than 40 million people in the U.S. It also calls for restricting the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which specifically helps children and families. Cutting these programs will allow more people to go hungry.

Our food system is already in crisis, driven by agricultural corporations cutting corners, playing dirty, raising prices, and crowding out small farmers. The answer is not deregulation that invites Big Ag to get bigger at the expense of the rest of us. Yet that’s exactly what Project 2025 advocates for.

Project 2025 Puts a Livable Climate in Jeopardy

Finally, some of the most disturbing parts of Project 2025 are its fervent promises to let the fossil fuel industry run rampant on our health, climate, and environment. 

We know that ending fossil fuel use and production is key to securing a livable climate and defending our health against pollution. Yet Project 2025 calls for a rapid expansion of drilling, fracking, and gas exports. 

Its authors propose restoring coal mining on public lands and opening more of them to oil and gas leasing. They also recommend speeding up drilling permits, allowing fossil fuel corporations to more easily ravage our shared public lands for profit.

Notably, Project 2025 recommends clearing the way for the planet-wrecking liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry to balloon. Exporting even more LNG could lock in not only the U.S. into decades of more fossil fuels, but also the entire world.

At the same time, the authors of Project 2025 suggest dismantling several offices at the Department of Energy that are key to federal research, development, and deployment of renewable energy. They also push for stopping efforts to grow the country’s power grid to accommodate new solar and wind energy. Instead, they call for focusing on improving grid “reliability” by expanding fossil fuels and slowing clean energy. 

This is a laughable idea. Research shows our grid does not need fossil fuels to be reliable; in fact, in disasters, fossil-fueled energy is more vulnerable to outages.

We know that renewables make our energy more affordable, more resilient, and less dangerous to our health, safety, and climate. Yet Project 2025 has no interest in ensuring these benefits. Instead, it’s fighting for the status quo of dirty energy and corporate power.

Project 2025 Proposes a Dark Future — But We Can Fight It Together

We all want clean water, safe, affordable food, a healthy environment, and a bright future we can share with future generations. But Project 2025 threatens all of these. At a time of so many intertwining crises, it promises to hamstring the federal government’s ability to protect people, sacrificing us for the sake of corporate profits. 

But while Project 2025 represents some of the most poisonous paths our government could go down, we have the antidote. Food & Water Watch has shown again and again that when it comes to making meaningful change and fighting corporate power, the key to winning is two-fold: calling for bold action and organizing people power to fight for it.

By coming together, we can fight for the future we need and deserve. We can protect our food and our water, end fossil fuels, and win a livable future for everyone.