Project 2025 is a policy blueprint put together by the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing organizations to guide a potential Republican administration under Donald Trump. William Perry Pendley, who served as the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management, authored the Interior Department chapter of the manifesto. His vision for federal lands includes turning them into playgrounds for extractive industries, letting the oil and gas industry write sections of the chapter. While public support for protecting public lands is bipartisan, the 2016 Republican Party platform calls for transferring control of federal lands to the states. Pendley argues that states are better resource managers and recommends broadening state-federal cooperation.
In his contribution to Project 2025, Pendley criticizes the Biden administration’s climate agenda and calls for a restoration of so-called Trump-era “energy dominance.” He advocates for robust oil and gas lease sales, boosting drilling in Alaska, cutting royalties for fossil fuel companies, and rescinding environmental protections. The energy section was authored by Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance, Dan Kish of the American Energy Alliance, and Katie Tubb of the Heritage Foundation. Pendley also received assistance from other Trump-era Interior officials in writing his policy recommendations, many of whom have ties to the fossil fuel industry. Project 2025 has been criticized for putting special interests over the interests of everyday Americans.
Pendley has a long history of advocating for the sell-off of federal lands and has compared environmentalists to communists and Nazis. He has led the Mountain States Legal Foundation, which has pushed for the government to sell off millions of federal acres. Pendley’s antipathy for the Antiquities Act is reflected in Project 2025, which calls for repealing the landmark law that presidents have used to designate national monuments. While the Trump administration positioned itself as an opponent of selling federal lands, it proposed public land sell-offs, weakened protections, and shrank national monuments. Pendley argues that Trump didn’t go far enough and that more protected sites should have been on the chopping block.
Project 2025 has been criticized for advocating policies that benefit the fossil fuel industry and for being influenced by special interests. The Koch network, led by billionaire oil tycoon Charles Koch, funneled millions of dollars to organizations involved in creating the blueprint. The project aims to give states more control over federal lands and weaken environmental protections. Pendley’s involvement in crafting the Interior blueprint demonstrates the extreme anti-public lands agenda of Project 2025. The Heritage Foundation, Pendley, and other contributors did not respond to requests for comment on the project. Despite the public’s bipartisan support for protecting public lands, the policies outlined in Project 2025 prioritize industry interests over conservation and public land management.
