Voters Broadly Reject Key Climate Components of the Conservative ‘Project 2025’
By Kevin Hanley and Grace Adcox
As Republican candidates took the stage last night for their first debate, we have at least one clear roadmap of what a future conservative presidency could look like. A coalition of conservative organizations, led by the Heritage Foundation, recently outlined a plan for the next conservative presidential administration to undo much of the progress achieved by the Biden administration since 2021. This plan, formally called the “2025 Presidential Transition Project” but commonly referred to as Project 2025, takes the position that:
It is not enough for conservatives to win elections. If we are going to rescue the country from the grip of the radical Left, we need both a governing agenda and the right people in place, ready to carry this agenda out on Day One of the next conservative Administration.
New polling from Climate Power and Data for Progress finds that voters not only broadly reject many of the goals laid out in Project 2025, but also disagree with its underlying premise that climate should not be a policy priority. Voters do not agree with the Heritage Foundation’s claim that climate change is “mild and manageable.” On the contrary, the survey reveals that over half (55%) of voters believe that climate change is “serious and urgent,” including 71% of Black voters and 61% of voters under 45.
By wide margins in head-to-head tests, voters reject key aspects of the Project 2025 plan. The least popular provisions include removing protections for national parks and deprioritizing environmental justice:
Voters strongly support maintaining protections that prevent drilling on public lands.
Three-quarters (75%) of voters believe the next president should keep current protections in place for national parks and monuments to preserve them and other public lands from drilling.
Under Project 2025, the next conservative administration would greatly curtail environmental justice efforts. However, not even conservative voters support this action.
We find 69% of voters, including more than half (52%) of Republicans, believe the next president should prioritize environmental justice and take action to clean up pollution and improve public health, rather than eliminating environmental justice mandates.
When it comes to tax credits, both for consumers and companies, voters agree that the next president should protect what was included in the recently passed clean energy plan.
Sixty-six percent of voters support protecting the consumer tax credits and instant rebates meant to lower energy costs for families.
A majority of voters (59%) also want the next president to protect the credits and subsidies for clean energy companies, including 57% of Independents.
Voters broadly oppose efforts to sharply reduce the influence of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by cutting its budget and staff, and limiting its authority to enforce environmental regulations.
Sixty-one percent say that the next president should defend the EPA and uphold its current enforcement ability, including 59% of Independents.
In addition, voters do not support policies that would weaken pollution standards or withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement:
A majority of voters (58%) think the next administration should strengthen regulations on fossil-fuel-fired power plants to further reduce carbon pollution, reaffirming earlier polling that found voters support these new EPA pollution standards.
More than half of respondents (55%) think the next president should remain in the Paris Climate Agreement after reading a description of the treaty, including a majority of Independents (54%).
A majority of voters (59%), including 55% of Independents, believe the next president should strengthen EPA carbon pollution standards for vehicles.
This builds on previous polling showing similar levels of support for the EPA standards for vehicles’ carbon pollution.
Voters are narrowly split about oil and gas drilling, with a plurality (47%) believing the next presidential administration should minimize the amount of new oil and gas drilling approved in favor of expanding clean energy.
A strong majority of Democrats (73%) and a plurality of Independents (45%) prefer that minimal new drilling is approved.
In addition to rejecting the above proposals included within the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, voters are also concerned about other energy and environment provisions of the plan. We find three-quarters of voters are at least “somewhat concerned” about Project 2025’s proposals to end tax credits to support clean energy, while 70% are concerned about the next presidential administration eliminating plans to combat extreme weather and climate change. Seventy percent are at least somewhat concerned about anti-science policies curtailing the authority of the EPA and the federal government. Two-thirds of voters also view with concern proposed efforts to end the Department of Energy’s ability to grant new loans to clean energy technologies.
These results clearly reflect voters' strong support for the measures included in the recently passed clean energy plan, and their opposition to any efforts meant to repeal or otherwise weaken those measures. The tax credits and environmental protections included in the clean energy plan are widely popular across partisanship. As such, Project 2025 presents itself as an unpopular conservative pipe dream.
Kevin Hanley (@kebhanley) is a polling analyst at Data for Progress.
Grace Adcox (@GraceAdcox) is a polling analyst at Data for Progress.