How Project 2025 plans to destroy consumer and environmental protections beginning Day One

  

How  Project 2025 plans to sabotage and destroy environmental and consumer protections. They do it by replacing the administrative state with their ideological loyalists.; They are poison pills, time releasing for years after Trump is long gone.  The part of the administrative state Project 2025 document contains a plan to dismantle the government mechanism that protects consumers and the environment from unfair, dangerous, fraudulent practices in whatever they buy, the air they breathe, the truth of the advertising they see and hear, the water they drink, the media you access, the financial credit they use, and even access to abortion and birth control..  The mother of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, is already taking applicants to replace civil servants and appointees. Lists are prepared to begin on Day One of the second Trump administration. Invoking Schedule F or similar acts will permit 50K civil servants to be replaced by ideological fellow travelers. 

If you breach the New York Times paywall, you will see how the Heritage Foundation screens for ideological purity to their cause and the questions they ask of applicants.  It is similar to how the Supreme Court became the Trump Court by engineering the appointees. Like the Supreme Court, those ideologues will be in power for years after Trump leaves office.  . Look at the job application to stack federal agencies with those ideologically pure to the Project agenda:  It also reveals what plans the Heritage Foundation has for each and every part of the  Federal government. .https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/01/us/politics/project2025-heritage-foundation-administration-application-questionnaire.html 

Even if Congress does not revise laws or courts get involved, they still can reach their goal of removing or sabotaging consumer and environmental protections. This is why big businesses love Trump; they resent and detest having to comply. By appointing MAGA loyal flunkies to these regulatory agencies, the proverbial foxes at the hen house door, what we have taken for granted for 50 years, will be crippled if they even survive as agencies. Judgment calls about compliance with existing laws and rules or impact on citizens vs. business interests will not motivate ideologues but whether they support the goals of the one in control, the president, when federal agencies are the designated administrators.  The Constitution requires the executive branch to faithfully carry out the legislation passed by Congress. That means that the priority changes to compliance with the law to comply with their ideology and the demands of the president, Trump, and desire to keep their jobs, which will be in jeopardy if they do not. Project 2025 is designed to take away consumer and environmental protections and influence decisions even on abortion and birth control. by replacing technical experts in these agencies with those pledging loyalty to Trump and the Project ideology rather than abiding by the intent and purpose of the agencies, making judgment calls, ignoring consumer complaints, and sabotaging the enforcement of the laws. If the agencies are open, the result is to stack the cards against the rest of us, normal, common, regular people. The only tool left is to sue on a case-by-case basis...and we know what that means with the Supreme Court firmly in the hands of MAGA and the cost of any litigation.  Like Roe vs Wade, we consumers have had these protections on the books for 50 years. We just take it for granted until we get screwed when they are sabotaged or removed, and then it is too late to fix it until enough get screwed by the thousands of unkind cuts over many years.

A note:. the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity protects the president from being prosecuted for crimes if they commit them as part of their official duties.  It may or may not extend to those with "executive privilege".  That is subject to definitions and judgment calls and left mostly undetermined..  However, it does not protect all the federal ministers in the executive branch who may commit crimes. "I just was following orders" is not always a sure defense for those not protected by the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decisions by the  Trump-aligned super majority.  

The recent Chevron decision by Trump's dominated Supreme Court further kneecaps the power of agencies that issue rules and regulations now after extensive hearings and public input to interpret the laws Congress passes. Project 2025 throws very technical issues at the courts, where judges are ill-equipped to grasp the arguments' concepts or validity.  This damaging delegation was approved under the banner of laws interpreted and enforced by unelected officials.  Likewise, with Chevron, un-elected judges will be calling the shots. Still, they are not educated or equipped with the technical or scientific knowledge the decisions may require and cannot sort out the BS from the actual situation.

 https://apnews.com/article/election-2024-conservatives-trump-heritage-857eb794e505f1c6710eb03fd5b58981  

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/29/opinion/project-2025-trump-administration.html

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Google summary:"Under Project 2025, agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education would be “eliminated,” and others, like the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and Justice Department, would be put under the president's control.2 days ago

Does Project 2025 propose eliminating overtime pay? - The Hill

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What departments are already  under control of the federal executive branch

What departments are under the executive branch?

The Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 executive departments — the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the ...

The Cabinet | whitehouse.gov - Obama White House Archives

National Archives (.gov)

The Hill

Consumers beware: the Trump Supreme Court just crippled 40 years of consumer and environmental protections

https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/28/politics/chevron-precedent-supreme-court

 June, 2024. The Trump Court has overturned Chevron,  upending years of consumer and environmental protections. Buyers, beware: drinking water, product safety, the air you breathe, the cars you drive, the food you eat, and the medicine and drugs you take will now be impacted, and your safety will be at risk. If Chevron was decided because of the argument that regulatory agencies were decided by unelected panels (while technically informed and educated), these complex science and technology questions would now be managed by both unelected and technically ignorant judges.   Decisions based on science and evidence will be replaced by ill-equipped, uneducated, unelected, tenure-protected,  and more partisan judges. The final word on these technical and scientific issues will end up in the Supreme Court's lap of uneducated or ignorant in any field except legal theory.    (The Chevron decision text is a case in point. The Justice who wrote it did not know or catch the difference between laughing gas and air-polluting gas elements in the edit.)With the corruption, obvious extreme ideological bias, and ignorance of science and technology of a super majority infecting the current Court, reform and expansion are the only antidotes. This was a power grab by the Supreme Court that cannot go unanswered. Both consumers and the environment are being screwed.  

 The reason? Chevron's decision is what for-profit businesses have wished for for forty years.  They can now play the system for their benefit using their financial resources, while consumers and environmentalists must rely on donations.  So far as citizens and consumers are concerned? Our interests will be damaged by thousands of small, unkind cuts as case-by-case decisions and ignored. Our water, air, product safety, and protection from exploitation by financial services and banks will be lost in the gears of unelected, biased, and ignorant judges, ill-equipped to sort out technical issues. US contribution to global warming will increase.  

While the ruling impacts clean air, this Chevron ruling can hobble any other agency like the Federal Trade Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Safety Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Financial Consumer Protection Agency, and any other federal agency from issuing regulations to fill in the blanks left unaddressed in legislation after hearings and open processes. Instead, like abortion, it will fall into states and case by case lower court cases when clearly the issues cross state boundaries, leaving confusion and chaos. Most states have laws conforming to current federal consumer and environmental consumer laws, so enforcement and interpretation based on regulatory law at the federal level will be chaotic and subject to court challenges. It will also result in years and years of Congress writing legislation to revise or clarify current legislation.  The final word on these technical and scientific issues will end up in the Supreme Court's lap: uneducated or experts.  The reason? This is what for-profit businesses have wished for for forty years.  They can now play the system for their benefit using their resources, while consumers and environmentalists must rely on donations.  So far as citizens and consumers are concerned? Our interests will be screwed, and our water, air, product safety, and protection from exploitation by financial services and banks, will be lost in the gears of biased and ignorant judges, ill-equipped to sort out technical issues. US contribution to global warming will increase in the coming years. It is time to expand the court to permit one that reflects the interests of all citizens and is more balanced, not the decisions that favor one segment of the economy that goes unchecked. There should be staggered term limits so that they better reflect the more current public interest and concerns and advancements in technology and science. 

There will now be a constant increase in cases brought by consumers, environmentalists, and businesses so that the court can handle these cases. Otherwise, the lower courts will be inundated by law suit remanded to them by a Supreme Court does not have the time or the capacity to handle given the increased volume.  Even less educated justices in the lower courts will now handle technical decisions with more decisions based on ideological and partisan concerns. 

It is also imperative that the ethical standards and enforcement of the Supreme Court of its members be implemented to protect us, the citizens, from the kind of hidden bribery we have witnessed and the overt partisan and ideological bent of the Court members, be exposed.   The ability of regulatory agencies to make decisions based on science and expertise must be restored and that will only happen with a balanced Supreme Court,

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-chevron-deference-power-of-federal-agencies/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme-court-corrects-epa-opinion-after-gorsuch-confuses-laughing-gas-with-air-pollutant/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/06/28/supreme-court-strips-power-from-federal-agencies-overturning-decades-old-precedent

A personal note: I have a history in Colorado advocating for consumers and clean air, from the NY Times May 13, 1979.  I served as the director of the Denver District Attorneys section prosecuting consumer fraud and white-collar crime, and before that, active in grassroots organizations battling Denver's brown cloud.  My interest in the ability of the federal government to deliver protection for consumers and the environment dates back to the birth of the legislation.  I wrote a book, the Colorado Consumer Handbook, which focused on the new remedies these laws provided and solutions traditionally available to individuals.  The key was the new empowerment of consumers and citizens whose health had been impacted by polluted water and air. These laws allowed them to get remedies in the face of well-funded, profit-oriented business interests. Now, the ability for any citizen to rely on these new laws has been crippled, tied up in knots in courts resolved only by those with deep pockets able to hire the army of lawyers and left to the decisions of judges not elected and uneducated in the science and technology involved. Facts and evidence will take a back seat to the judgment of the unelected, incapable of sorting out fact and technical arguments from fiction and spin.   Four years after the mayor's race, I joined the administration of Federico Pena, a new, young mayor with views and goals similar to mine, and was able to put into action much of what I had proposed and supported. I served in his administration as both sub-cabinet and staff for his two terms.

DENVER, May 13 — Denver, still thought of as the mile‐high city with pristine air and mountain spring water, is sitting through a nonpartisan mayoral race that is largely focused on its “brown cloud” and its water supply, along with transportation and housing problems.

William J. McNichols, who says he is of the “realist” school of Democrats, has been Mayor for the past decade and is president of the United States Conference of Mayors. He is opposed in the Tuesday balloting by Felicia Muftic, executive director of the District Attorney's Consumer Protection Agency and an aggressive critic of City Hall on the questions of pollution and housing; Garry Mitchell, chairman of Gov. Richard D. Lamm's Tourism Council and president of Ski Country U.S.A., who brought to public attention in March a study that suggested a startling future fiscal stress for Denver; and Harold Sudmeyer, Denver coordinator for the United States Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners, who advocates the closing of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant.

Pollution is the No. 1 issue in the mayoral race. With construction booming, new energy companies moving in and others expanding, Denver's smog is second only to that of Los Angeles, according to a rating by the Environmental Protection Agency, and there is concern about the growth's depleting the water supply.

Mayor McNichols notes that the construction in downtown Denver will generate $5 million in property taxes for the city. Stapleton Airport's passenger traffic is soaring; $4 million has been spent on the mass transit system. There is a new sports arena named for the Mayor, new fire department and police headquarters, new and modernized branch libraries, public parks and a lavish new Denver Center for the Performing Arts. Denver's unemployment rate in March was only 2.9 percent.   

Note: I lost with about 43% of the vote, not enough to trigger a runoff.  However, five years later, I joined the new Denver mayor Federico Pena's administration  serving as Clerk and Recorder, and Mayor's liaison to City Council 

Author: Colorado Consumer Handbook, author Felicia Muftic (Only known copy: Library of Congress; search Felicia Muftic  

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