Project 2025 could have a significant impact on victims of natural disasters such as hurricanes, during a hypothetical second term for former President Donald Trump.
The 900-page conservative doctrine by The Heritage Foundation proposes changes to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Weather Service, and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The proposals are seen as a road map for a future Republican president, and many of Trump’s allies and advisers are involved. Trump has distanced himself from the project and dismissed some of the policies as “ridiculous and abysmal.”
After Hurricane Helene hit the southeastern U.S, with a major impact on states including Georgia, Florida and North Carolina, experts looked into to proposed Project 2025 legislation and how it would impact national disaster services and the victims they serve.
Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris at a Hurricane Helene briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The agency would be significantly changed under Project 2025, which could impact natural disaster victims.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/Getty Images
“Project 2025 calls for breaking up and privatizing big parts of the National Weather Service (NWS), eliminating small business disaster loans and raising the threshold for disaster declarations,” John Favreau said on the Pod Save America podcast.
Fellow host Tommy Vietor added: “Events like this are why you need a federal government, as the only entity in the world that has enough resources to, like, surge the assets to a place like Asheville in the near term and then rebuild in the long term.”
“It’s appropriate to talk about how Project 2025 wants to take the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration or NOAA and the National Weather Service and fundamentally change them. They want to privatize the weather service and commercialize it,” Vietor added.
They’re not the only ones raising these concerns.
Democratic Representative Jared Moscowitz, a former Florida emergency management director under Republican Governor Ron De Santis, said: “Project 2025 wants to get rid of NOAA, wants to get rid of the National Weather Service—the people that tell you the weather and help you prepare for hurricanes,” he said in a House Oversight meeting on September 19.
Brian Tyler Cohen, a liberal influencer also sounded the alarm in a post on his Instagram, writing: “Project 2025 would eliminate the National Weather Service and NOAA.
So what are the changes that Project 2025 is proposing to NOAA, the NWS and FEMA?
According to the Poynter Institute, of the 900-page document, four pages discuss NOAA and the NWS. This section was written by Thomas F. Gilman, an official under Trump in the Commerce Department.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks with press as he visits Valdosta, Georgia, after Hurricane Helene on September 30, 2024. Project 2025 could impact the handling of similar disasters.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
The document describes NOAA as a primary component of “the climate change alarm industry,” and said that it should be “broken up and downsized.”
NOAA was officially founded in 1970 by merging the agencies of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Society, The Weather Bureau and the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fishers. The eldest of those three organizations, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Society, was founded in 1807 by President Thomas Jefferson as the Survey of the Coast. As a federal agency, NOAA focuses on understanding and managing the Earth’s environment, with an emphasis on oceans weather and the atmosphere.
The NSW is one of six NOAA offices, and the National Hurricane Center is part of the NWS within NOAA.
Project 2025 does not say that it will end the NWS, but it says that the agency, “should focus on its data gathering services,” and “fully commercialize its forecasting operations,” according to the Poynter Institute.
The document also states: “Commercialization of weather technologies should be prioritized to ensure that taxpayer dollars are invested in the most cost-efficient technologies for high quality research and weather data.” It also says that the NWS should become a “performance-based organization.”
Project 2025 also suggests major changes to FEMA, the primary role of which is to help coordinate the federal government’s response to natural and human-made disasters, and help communities prepare for, mitigate, respond to and recover from these kinds of disasters.
Power crews work on the lines after Hurricane Helene passed offshore on September 27, 2024 in Crystal River, Florida. Project 2025 could impact how disasters like Hurricane Helene are handled in government due to changes to NOAA and FEMA.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Two pages of Project 2025 cover FEMA. According to Scientific America, two of the main changes outlined would be ending its flood insurance program and replacing it “with private insurance,” eliminating annual grants to states that began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to improve domestic security and preparedness. Both of these proposals could limit disaster aid and increase insurance costs.
Newsweek has reached out to The Heritage Foundation for comment.
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