What to Know About Project 2025, Trump’s Second-Term Blueprint

By Andrea González-Ramírez, a senior writer for the Cut who covers systems of power.

 2024 election Updated Aug. 19, 2024

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: AP, Getty Images

What’ll happen if Donald Trump wins the presidency in November? His administration will likely follow the road map of Project 2025, a transition plan that includes a laundry list of far-right policies and has been called “authoritarian,” “dystopian,” and a “blueprint for destroying our democracy.”

The plan focuses on obvious conservative priorities ranging from gutting abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights to ending efforts to combat climate change and income inequality. But it also outlines several insidious policies that would change the country as we know it, including what amounts to the most dramatic transformation of the federal-government workforce since the 19th century.

During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the party dedicated time to outlining what Project 2025 entails. “They went ahead and wrote down all the extreme things that Donald Trump wants to do in the next four years,” Michigan state Senator Mallory McMorrow said on Monday. “And then they just tweeted it out, putting it out on the internet for everybody to read. “

Below, you’ll find a breakdown of who is behind the transition plan, what they are proposing, and Trump’s disingenuous efforts to distance himself from Project 2025.

What is Project 2025, exactly?

Project 2025 is a transition plan that conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation and other right-wing organizations have put together to serve as a road map for the next Republican administration. The playbook, titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, comprises 900 pages detailing policy proposals for major federal agencies. Though the document does not mention Trump by name, key players involved in the plan’s conception have worked with his administration in the past or have close connections to his team.

Who is behind the Project 2025 plans?

The plan was conceived by the Heritage Foundation in collaboration with more than 100 right-wing organizations, including the anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ legal-advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, which overturned Roe v. Wade; the NRA; Moms for Liberty, which has spearheaded attacks on education across the country; and America First Legal, which is led by anti-immigration hawk and former Trump adviser Stephen Miller. The groups have been explicit in their call to completely remake the federal government and the country in their image. In a recent interview with Steve Bannon, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

What does Project 2025 say about reproductive rights?

Project 2025 would have major repercussions for access to reproductive health care, including abortion care and contraception. Some of the transition plan’s proposals include:

• Enforcing the Comstock Act, which would allow the prosecution of people who send abortion pills through the mail. The law isn’t referred to by name in the document, but the footnotes use its code number, 18 U.S.C. § 1461. (Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has pulled this trick, too, during oral arguments in recent abortion cases.)
• Rescinding the FDA’s two-decade-old approval of mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medication abortion.
• Tracking abortion seekers through the Health and Human Services Department by using “every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”
• Rescinding the Biden administration’s guidance on EMTALA, which currently requires hospitals receiving federal funding to provide emergency, life-saving abortions.
• Codifying the Hyde Amendment, which bans the use of federal funds for abortion care, and prohibiting organizations that perform abortions from receiving family-planning grants that help low-income patients access birth control.
• Excluding emergency contraception from the Affordable Care Act’s no-cost coverage mandate.

And education?

The most dramatic proposal related to education would eliminate the Department of Education entirely. The plan also calls for ending Head Start, which has served more than 39 million low-income children since it was implemented nearly 60 years ago. Another proposal would restore the Trump administration’s Title IX regulations, which advocates say place nearly impossible barriers in front of survivors of sexual violence who seek recourse in their schools and universities. Project 2025 would also impact those with student-loan debt, as the authors propose limiting or ending student debt-forgiveness programs, as well as phasing out income-driven repayment plans.

What about LGBTQ+ rights?

The document calls for the federal government to follow a “biblically based” definition of marriage and family, which the group clarifies means “heterosexual, intact marriage.” Other proposals include:

• Requiring that the Health and Human Services Department promote “a family agenda,” explicitly stating that “men and women are biological realities” and that “married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure.”
• Reinstating Trump’s policy banning transgender people from serving in the military, including expelling current service members with “gender dysphoria.”
• Prohibiting public teachers from using a student’s preferred name and pronouns without their parent or guardian’s consent if it doesn’t correspond to their “biological sex.”
• Rescinding federal anti-discrimination protections “on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.”

And climate change?

The transition plan calls for a “whole-of-government unwinding” of the Biden administration’s efforts to fight climate change. The proposals include ending subsidies for wind and solar power, eliminating energy-efficiency standards for appliances, and prioritizing the use of fossil gas and oil. Others would dismantle the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); get rid of the Clean Energy Corps, which is tasked with researching, developing, and deploying solutions to climate change; and prohibiting that greenhouse-gas emissions be taken into consideration when authorizing gas pipelines and liquefied natural-gas export facilities.

How about immigration?

The plan goes much further than Trump’s attacks on immigration during his last term. The proposals include:

• Increasing the standard of credible fear for asylum seekers.
• Limiting which immigrants can qualify for employment authorization.
• Eliminating T and U visas, which are available for victims of certain crimes, including human trafficking.
• Blocking Dreamers — people who were brought to the U.S. as children without authorization, and who are protected from deportation under DACA — from having access to federal student-loan programs.
• Making it harder for Dreamers to renew their DACA permit by having immigration agencies deprioritize those cases.
• Pushing Congress to end the Flores Settlement Agreement, which limits how long migrant children can stay in detention and requires them to be in the “least restrictive conditions” possible while in custody.

Is there more?

Yes. The most dramatic proposal in Project 2025 calls for the reclassification of tens of thousands of federal workers, which would allow Trump to fire career public servants and replace them with political appointees who side with his administration. “Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State,” the authors of the document say in the foreword. It’d be the most dramatic change in the federal workforce since the 1880s. The implications can’t be overstated: Imagine a pandemic happens again. Many workers at key federal agencies would be Trump loyalists, rather than high-skilled experts who’ve remained in their positions from administration to administration regardless of their political affiliation.

Project 2025 also calls for ending the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI; slashing Medicaid funding; accelerating the production of nuclear weapons; changing the tax code to favor high-earning individuals in a way that’d hurt low-income people; and making it harder for Americans to unionize.

What has Trump said about Project 2025?

Trump has tried to distanced himself from the transition plan, posting on Truth Social on July 5: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”

That is demonstrably false. Not only do the policies outlined in the Trump campaign’s Agenda 47 mirror most of Project 2025’s main proposals, but the top directors of the transition plan — Paul Dans, Spencer Chretien, and Troup Hemenway — worked in the Trump administration. Many of Mandate’s authors are also Trump alumni. The list includes Housing secretary Ben Carson, Trump’s deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn, director of the Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights Roger Severino, acting secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, Homeland Security official Gene Hamilton, assistant to the president Peter Navarro, and Office of Management and Budget director Russ Vought.

In a secretly-recorded video, published on August 15 by the non-profit Centre for Climate Reporting, Vought admitted that not only had he been in contact with Trump in recent months, but the former president has also “been at our organization, he’s raised money for our organization, he’s blessed it.” He added: “He’s very supportive of what we do.” He went on to say that Trump’s denials were just a “very, very conscious distancing himself from a brand. It’s interesting, he’s in fact not even opposing himself to a particular policy.”

And despite Trump’s half-hearted attempt to disavow the Heritage Foundation, the organization itself boasts in Project 2025’s website that “the Trump administration relied heavily” on its previous Mandate document, “embracing nearly two-thirds of Heritage’s proposals within just one year in office.” So there’s plenty of reason to believe a second Trump administration would do the same.

S

NORTHERN IRELAND

Government outlines terms of reference for independent probe into Omagh bombing


Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris ordered the statutory inquiry into the Omagh bombing (Paul Mcerlane/PA)

By David Young and Jonathan McCambridge, 

PAToday 

An independent inquiry into the Omagh bombing will examine alleged security failings that led a High Court judge to conclude the outrage could plausibly have been prevented.

The UK Government has outlined its terms of reference for the independent probe, which will be chaired by Lord Turnbull.

The dissident republican bomb exploded in the Co Tyrone town on August 15 1998, killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris ordered the statutory inquiry into the attack last year in response to a court judgment that directed the Government to establish some form of investigation.

It was a cruel atrocity carried out, not just on the people of Omagh, but on all those in Northern Ireland who supported the peace processChris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland Secretary

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden died in the Real IRA bombing, took the legal challenge that resulted in the Belfast High Court judge directing the state to act.

Mr Heaton-Harris outlined the terms of reference by way of a written parliamentary statement on Wednesday.

In his 2021 judgment, Mr Justice Horner directly recommended that the UK Government carry out an investigation into alleged security failings in the lead-up to the atrocity.

While having no jurisdiction to order the Irish government to act on the matter, the judge urged authorities there to establish their own probe in light of his findings.

A number of families of Omagh victims have repeatedly called for an inquiry to also be carried out into the bombing in the Republic of Ireland. Mr Heaton-Harris has also pressed the Irish government to act.

On a visit to Belfast on Wednesday, Ireland’s deputy premier, Micheal Martin, pledged to co-operate with the UK inquiry but said he did not think it made sense to have two inquiries into Omagh on both sides of the Irish border.



Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris outlined the terms of reference by way of a written parliamentary statement (PA)

The inquiry will be established under the Inquiries Act 2005 with full powers, including the power to compel the production of documents and to summon witnesses to give evidence on oath.

In his statement, Mr Heaton-Harris said: “I want to first again express my deepest sympathy for all of those affected by the Omagh bombing in August 1998. It was a cruel atrocity carried out, not just on the people of Omagh, but on all those in Northern Ireland who supported the peace process.

“Following the announcement of the inquiry in February 2023, and the appointment of Lord Turnbull as chair in June 2023, I have now agreed with Lord Turnbull the terms of reference for the inquiry. These are focused on the four grounds identified by the Northern Ireland High Court as giving rise to plausible arguments that the bombing could have been prevented.

“With the terms of reference now agreed, the inquiry can press ahead with its work to comply with the judgment of the High Court, demonstrating the UK Government’s ongoing commitment to taking proper action on legacy-related matters.

“The inquiry chairman will now undertake a setting-up exercise to design the inquiry as he sees fit, and he will announce further detail about the inquiry in due course.”

The inquiry will examine the adequacy of the measures taken by UK state authorities, including the police, security forces and intelligence and security agencies, to disrupt dissident republicans who had been involved in attacks from December 1997 up to and including the Omagh bombing.

It will assess whether that approach changed following the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998.

The first thing to stress is that the inquiry is an entirely independent body

Lord Turnbull, inquiry chairman

It will also probe alleged intelligence-sharing failures between the UK and Irish authorities in the year-and-a-half leading up to the bombing.

It will further test an allegation made by former senior police officer Norman Baxter that detectives investigating previous dissident attacks were not given access to full intelligence information on suspects.

It will also examine claims around information allegedly passed to the security forces by a state agent known as Kevin Fulton in the months prior to the Omagh attack.

The inquiry will also look at intelligence said to have been obtained by the UK Government’s Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) from alleged vehicle and telephone monitoring of dissident republicans involved in the planning, preparation and conduct of the Omagh bombing and other earlier attacks.

The subsequent analysis and handling of the GCHQ intelligence by the state authorities will also be investigated.

The inquiry will also examine the extent and adequacy of steps taken by UK state authorities to track and analyse the mobile telephone usage by those suspected to be involved in dissident republican terror attacks before the Omagh bombing and whether that data may have aided efforts to disrupt the atrocity in Omagh.

Inquiry chair Lord Turnbull said he was confident the terms of reference would allow him to conduct a “thorough and robust investigation”.

“The first thing to stress is that the inquiry is an entirely independent body,” he said.

In our view, one inquiry is optimal, two separate inquiries to me doesn't make senseMicheal Martin, Ireland's deputy premier

“I and my team will decide which are the relevant and important issues to explore and which witnesses will be called. We will do so in a manner which is entirely free of influence from the Government, or any of the United Kingdom authorities and agencies.

“The inquiry is established under the provisions of the Inquiries Act of 2005 which means that I will have the power to require the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses. I shall make use of those powers to any extent necessary.”

Lord Turnbull said the voice of the victims would be heard.

“Whilst I have not yet defined the exact procedure the inquiry will follow, it is my intention to invite families and survivors to commemorative hearings in Omagh at some point this year, so I can hear directly from those most affected by the bombing,” he said.

“I recognise that for some, however, revisiting events of the past would be too traumatic and that they may have no wish to return to such a difficult time in their lives and the lives of their own loved ones. I will fully respect that view, and the inquiry will recognise your privacy if this is your wish.”

The first phase of the inquiry will involve gathering information and materials.

The second phase will be the evidential hearings and Lord Turnbull said he intended for those to be held in public and broadcast live, unless it was necessary in the public interest for reasons of national security that they are held in private.

The chairman acknowledged it could take some time before he was in a position to produce a final report and said he would consider whether to issue an interim report ahead of the inquiry’s conclusion.


Tanaiste Micheal Martin during a visit to Ulster University in Belfast (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Heaton-Harris reiterated his call for the Irish government to set up its own inquiry.

“I urge the Irish Government to now explain what consideration it has given to the setting up of an investigation in Ireland to discharge its obligations under article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in line with the clear direction of the High Court,” he said.

However, speaking during his visit to Ulster University in Belfast, Mr Martin questioned the merit of having two separate inquiries.

He also denied that his government had not done enough to pursue those responsible for Troubles crimes.

“There is no amnesty in the Republic and there never has been an amnesty given in the Republic,” he said in clear reference to the UK’s contentious legacy laws.

“The Gardai and the Director of Public Prosecutions are independent of government.

“No direction has ever been given to either not to pursue cases that arose from the Troubles and not to prosecute, those are the facts.

“In respect of in and around Omagh, people were convicted in the Republic and imprisoned.

“More broadly speaking, in terms of the inquiry, I haven’t seen the terms of reference, we have been seeking the terms of reference for quite some time so that we could then respond.

“We have made it very clear that we would be fully co-operative with any such inquiry.

I have always supported a public inquiry when it comes to Omagh

First Minister Michelle O'Neill

“In our view, one inquiry is optimal, two separate inquiries to me doesn’t make sense because there would be clear overlap and duplication and maybe crossing each other.

“We have mechanisms, we have changed the law in the Republic on a number of occasions to facilitate the provision of information that the Republic may have in respect of certain crimes.”

Mr Martin added: “Our view is, we’ll see the terms of reference and then we’ll work to ensure that we contribute to that inquiry.”

Stormont’s leaders were also asked about the probe on a visit to Limavady on Wednesday morning.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill said: “I have always supported a public inquiry when it comes to Omagh.

“I think that is really important that we allow those families to get to the truth, that they get to the truth that they have been campaigning for many, many years.”

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said: “We have discussed with the Irish government issues related to legacy.

“The Taoiseach (Leo Varadkar) was in Northern Ireland just a couple of weeks ago and I took the opportunity to urge full co-operation and collaboration with all public inquiries and investigations.”

Past to Present: 100 Years Since the United States’ First Lethal Gas Execution, a Recently Renewed Practice

FIRST VICTIM OF STATE MURDER WAS A

CHINESE MIGRANT


Posted on Feb 08, 2024



Today, February 8, marks the 100-year anniversary of the first lethal gas execution in the United States, exactly two weeks after Alabama carried out the first execution using nitrogen gas.

On February 8, 1924, Nevada executed Gee Jon, a Chinese immigrant convicted of killing the owner of a laundromat, using cyanide gas. A fellow prisoner, Thomas Russell, was also scheduled to be executed the same day but was resentenced to life by the Board of Pardons and Parole the previous evening. The gas chamber, which was built by prisoners, was first tested on two kittens, who died within 15 seconds of the gas’ release. During the test, a small leak was identified and subsequently fixed so it would not pose any danger to witnesses, 30 of whom attended Mr. Gee’s execution. According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, four Carson City prison guards resigned two days prior to the execution to avoid taking part. Four physicians, at the request of the prison warden, were present for the execution and, from outside the gas chamber, determined that Mr. Gee had no signs of life after six minutes. Due to the level of gas present in the chamber, prison staff waited two and a half hours before opening the chamber; an autopsy was not permitted.

The execution, which was Nevada’s first execution since 1916, was widely reported as a success by Prison Warden D. S. Dickerson and supported by physicians as painless and humane. “The execution was a success, but the method of application is dangerous,” said Prison Warden Dickerson, who preferred another method, like firing squad, that was safer for witnesses and staff. When the body of Mr. Gee was removed from the gas chamber, one of the physicians present, medical reserve officer for the U.S. Army Maj D. A. Turner, claimed to be able to resuscitate him, though his request was denied; a month later, the Nevada State Journal reported that Dr. Turner repeated these claims when addressing the Reno Lions Club, adding that “Gee Jon died of cold and exposure.”

After the execution, reporter Arthur Brisbane wrote, “If government insists on killing it should kill as savages usually do, choking with a rope, cutting off the head, or in some other savage fashion. Science and scientists should not be disgraced in the operation.” His article, published in the Nevada State Journal, continued “While ‘civilization’ was killing” Mr. Gee, five others were electrocuted in Texas, resulting in one warden’s resignation and another stating: “‘Pulling the switch of an electric chair means nothing to me.’” Countering this apathy, Mr. Brisbane wrote, “It means something to civilization. Ten thousand years hence this will be spoken of as an age that used to hang, shoot, asphyxiate, kill with electricity, and then foolishly expect criminals, with the undeveloped mind of children, NOT to imitate a murderous example set by government itself.”

 


On January 25, 2024, Alabama executed Kenneth Eugene Smith using the experimental method of nitrogen hypoxia. Mr. Smith inhaled the nitrogen gas through a mask, rather than a gas chamber, and witnesses reported he initially “shook and writhed.” Witnesses were not allowed to take phones or watches with them and had to rely on a clock with no second hand, resulting in a complicated execution timeline. Although it took 32 minutes from the curtains being opened to Mr. Smith being declared dead, the execution was deemed a “success” by state officials.

Since 1976, there have been 12 lethal gas executions conducted by six states (Alabama (1), Arizona (2), California (2), Mississippi (4), Nevada (1), and North Carolina (2)). Mr. Smith’s execution was the first lethal gas execution since 1999. Execution witnesses of previous lethal gas executions have similarly observed signs of distress to lengthy executions. Attorney Jim Belanger wrote of his client Donald Harding’s 1992 execution in Arizona: “It took 10 minutes and 31 seconds for Don Harding to die. For at least eight of those minutes, he was writhing in agony.” Dan Morain, one of 18 journalists among a total of 48 official witnesses, described the 1992 execution of Robert Alton Harris as a “macabre and surreal scene” and concluded that he would never attend another execution. The international community has criticized past executions as they did with Mr. Smith’s: the German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, called the 1999 execution of German national Walter LaGrande, which took 18 minutes, “barbaric.”

Currently two other states, Mississippi and Oklahoma, have authorized nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative execution method. The head of Oklahoma’s prison system, Steven Harpe, and his chief of staff, Justin Farris, have said they’re also exploring using the method as an option. But Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has stated that his opposition to switching to nitrogen gas. “I know exactly how it works. I know exactly what they’re doing. I don’t want to change a process that’s working,” he said. Legislation to introduce nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method is under review in the Nebraska and Ohio legislatures, both states that have allegedly had difficulty obtaining the chemicals required for lethal injection executions. Airgas, a private industrial gas distributor, has already announced its opposition to supplying nitrogen gas for executions.


SOURCES

JULIE CARR SMYTH, Could Ohio be the next state to use nitro­gen gas in exe­cu­tions? A new method would end a 5‑year halt, Associated Press, January 30, 2024; 

SEAN MURPHY, Oklahoma gov­er­nor says he’s not inter­est­ed in chang­ing from lethal injec­tion to nitro­gen exe­cu­tions, 

Associated Press, January 30, 2024, Randy Dotinga, Execution by gas has a bru­tal 100-year his­to­ry. Now it’s back., 

The Washington Post, January 24, 2024; Arthur Brisbane, Today they killed Gee Jon, 

Nevada State Journal, February 9, 1924; Gee Jon is Declared Victim of Cold Exposure Instead of Gas, Nevada State Journal, March 7, 1924; Could Have Revived Gee Jon Doctor Says, 

Reno Gazette Journal, March 6, 1924; Chinese Slayer Pays Penalty for Mina Crime When Poison Spray is Released at Prison, 

Reno Gazette Journal, February 8, 1924; Gee Jon Nods, Dies In Vapor, Nevada State Journal, February 9, 1924

NASA opposes lithium mining at tabletop flat Nevada desert site used to calibrate satellites


In this undated photo provided by NASA, a satellite captures the Railroad Valley (RRV), a dry lakebed in Nevada, for conducting ground-based calibration of Earth-observing satellite instruments. At the request of NASA, U.S. land managers have withdrawn about 36 square miles of federal land otherwise open to mineral exploration and mining at the site 250 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Nevada Republican Rep. Mark Amodei has introduced legislation that would rescind the land withdrawal and potentially reopen it to mining. (NASA via AP) 

SCOTT SONNER
Thu, June 22, 2023 

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Environmentalists, ranchers and others have fought for years against lithium mining ventures in Nevada. Yet opposition to mining one particular desert tract for the silvery white metal used in electric car batteries is coming from unusual quarters: space.

An ancient Nevada lakebed beckons as a vast source of the coveted metal needed to produce cleaner electric energy and fight global warming. But NASA says the same site — flat as a tabletop and undisturbed like none other in the Western Hemisphere — is indispensable for calibrating the razor-sharp measurements of hundreds of satellites orbiting overhead.

At the space agency's request, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has agreed to withdraw 36 square miles (92 square kilometers) of the eastern Nevada terrain from its inventory of federal lands open to potential mineral exploration and mining.

NASA says the long, flat piece of land above the untapped lithium deposit in Nevada's Railroad Valley has been used for nearly three decades to get measurements just right to keep satellites and their applications functioning properly.

“No other location in the United States is suitable for this purpose,” the Bureau of Land Management concluded in April after receiving NASA's input on the tract 250 miles (400 kilometers) northeast of Las Vegas.

The bureau has spent nearly three years fighting mining challenges of all sorts from environmentalists, tribal leaders, ranchers and others who want to overturn approval of a huge lithium mine in the works in northwest Nevada near the Oregon line.

In December, the bureau initiated a review of plans for another lithium mine conservationists oppose near the California line where an endangered desert wildflower grows, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) southeast of Reno.

In Railroad Valley, satellite calculations are critical to gathering information beamed from space with widespread applications from weather forecasting to national security, agricultural outlooks and natural disasters, according to NASA, which said the satellites “provide vital and often time-critical information touching every aspect of life on Earth."

That increasingly includes certifying measurements related to climate change.

Thus the Nevada desert paradox, critics say. While lithium is the main ingredient in batteries for electric vehicles key to reducing greenhouse gases, in this case the metal is buried beneath land NASA says must remain undisturbed to certify the accuracy of satellites monitoring Earth's warming atmosphere.

“As our nation becomes ever more impacted by an evolving and changing environment, it is critical to have reliable and accurate data and imagery of our planet,” said Mark Moneza of Planet Labs, a San Francisco-based satellite imaging company that has relied on NASA's site to calibrate more than 250 of its satellites since 2016.

A Nevada congressman introduced legislation earlier this month seeking to revoke the bureau’s decision to withdraw the land from potential mining use. Republican Rep. Mark Amodei told a House subcommittee last week that the decision underscores the “hypocrisy” of President Joe Biden's administration.

“It is supposedly a goal of the Biden Administration to boost the development of renewable energy technology and reduce carbon in our atmosphere,” Amodei said. “Yet they support blocking a project to develop the lithium necessary for their clean energy objectives.”

The Carson City, Nevada, company holding most of the mining claims, 3 Proton Lithium Inc., had not submitted any formal project plans in 2021 when NASA requested the land withdrawal. But the firm claimed to have done extensive research in anticipation of future plans to extract the brine-based lithium resource it said is one of the 10 largest deposits in the world.

Chairman Kevin Moore said the tract's withdrawal likely will prevent his energy company from pumping the “super brine” from about one-third of its claims there, including the deepest, richest deposits holding about 60% of the site's value. He joined Amodei in testifying last week before the House Resources Subcommittee on Mining and Mineral Resources.

“This project is a vital part of transitioning to a green economy, creating good-paying American jobs, combating climate change, ending America’s over-reliance on foreign adversaries and securing a domestic supply chain for critical and rare earth minerals,” Moore said.

Other opponents of BLM's move include James Ingraffia, founder of the energy exploration company Lithium Arrow LLC. He told the bureau in earlier public comments that by establishing obstacles to Railroad Valley lithium mining, it was undermining efforts to combat climate change.

“Essentially, your actions are boiling down to, ‘There’s a problem that we want to keep worrying about but NOT allow to be solved,' " he said. "It’s self-contradictory.”

3 Proton Lithium insists its brine pumping operations would cause little if any disturbance to the land's surface. But NASA doesn't believe the risk is worthwhile.

The area's unchanged nature has allowed NASA to establish a long record of images of the undisturbed topography to assist precise measurement of distances using the travel time of radio signals and assure “absolute radiometric calibration” of sensors on board satellites.

“Activities that stand to disrupt the surface integrity of Railroad Valley would risk making the site unusable," Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, told The Associated Press.

"The ultimate decision was to protect Railroad Valley, which in turn protects the critical scientific data that multiple economic sectors rely on,” he said in an email Thursday.

‘Lifesaving’: US family flees Texas to transgender 'refuge' Minnesota

Issued on: 28/04/2023 

03:16

‘Lifesaving’: US family flees Texas to transgender 'refuge' Minnesota 

(2023) © AFP / France 24

Video by: Juliette MONTILLY

Jasper, 16, relocated from Texas to Minnesota with their parents to escape from the alarming increase in bills targeting transgender youth. "I feel like this is much, much safer," says Mary, the mother of Jasper. Like them, many US families with transgender children are fleeing to this northern state bordering Canada. Minnesota recently passed a "trans refuge" law that would guarantee legal protection for trans people coming from elsewhere to access medical care.

Washington, Minnesota protect access to abortion, gender-affirming care

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed five bills on Thursday from the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care. 

Image courtesy of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee/Release


April 27 (UPI) -- The Democratic governors of Washington and Minnesota on Thursday signed legislation to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care in their states as their Republican counterparts the nation over seek to restrict and ban the medical procedures.

The move comes as both medical treatments have come under attack by Republican-led states, resulting in more than a dozen to ban abortion following last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision to repeal federal protections for the procedure.

More than 15 states have also banned gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, despite most major medical associations supporting such treatment while calling on politicians to leave medical decisions to patients and their doctors.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1469 to prohibit compliance with out-of-state subpoenas related to abortion and gender-affirming-care services and abortion- and gender-affirming care-related extradition requests as well as prevent cooperation with related out-of-state investigations while protecting providers in-state from harassment.

RELATED Polling reveals views on abortion vary by age, race, geography

He also signed House Bill 1340, which protects healthcare providers from disciplinary actions, and the so-called My Health, My Data Act, which state Democrats call a "historic and first-in-the-nation solution" to protect the personal health information collected by websites, smartphone apps and health tracking devices, with intent to protect those who visit the state for abortion or gender-affirming care.

Senate Bill 5242, which increases access to abortion care by eliminating cost-sharing abortions, and Senate Bill 5768, which protects access to abortion-inducting medication mifepristone amid Republican-led litigation to end its use, were also signed Thursday.

"The right of choice is an issue of freedom," Inslee said in a statement. "Healthcare must remain the providence of individual Washingtonians. These laws will keep the tentacles of oppressive and overreaching states out of Washington."

RELATED Justice Department challenges Tennessee's law banning youth transgender care

The signings were met with cheers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which described the state as demonstrating that it's a leader in protecting and improving access to both reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare.

"These bills are important steps toward defending and expanding abortion and gender-affirming care access, here and through their example, across the country," Leah Rutman, healthcare and liberty policy counsel at the ACLU of Washington, said in a statement.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz signed a pair of bills that protect people traveling from out-of-state for abortion and gender-affirming care with a third measure signed to ban conversion therapy, making the Midwestern state the 21st to do so, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

RELATED Missouri judge delays emergency rule restricting gender-affirming healthcare

"In Minnesota, we're protecting rights -- not taking them away," he tweeted.

State Rep. Leigh Rinke, Minnesota's first transgender lawmaker, called Thursday "an amazing, celebratory day in the movement for a more just future."

 

Cosmetic to critical: Blue states help trans health coverage

By CLAIRE RUSH

April 26, 2023

Blue states bolster trans health coverage

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — For most of her life in New Mexico, Christina Wood felt like she had to hide her identity as a transgender woman. So six years ago she moved to Oregon, where she had readier access to the gender-affirming health care she needed to live as her authentic self.

Once there, Wood, 49, was able to receive certain surgeries that helped her transition, but electrolysis, or permanent hair removal, wasn’t fully covered under the state’s Medicaid plan for low-income residents. Paying out-of-pocket ate up nearly half her monthly income, but it was critical for Wood’s mental health.

“Having this facial hair or this body hair, it doesn’t make me feel feminine. I still look in the mirror and I see that masculine person,” she said. “It’s stressful. It causes anxiety and PTSD when you’re having to live in this body that you don’t feel like you should be in.”

Christina Wood shaves before work in her home. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

That is likely about to change. Oregon lawmakers are expected to pass a bill that would further expand insurance coverage for gender-affirming care to include things like facial hair removal and Adam’s apple reduction surgery, procedures currently considered cosmetic by insurers but seen as critical to the mental health of transitioning women.

The wide-ranging bill is part of a wave of legislation this year in Democratic-led states intended to carve out safe havens amid a conservative movement that seeks to ban or limit gender-affirming care elsewhere, eliminate some rights and protections for transgender people and even bar discussion of their existence in settings such as classrooms.

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More than a half-dozen states, from New Jersey to Vermont to Colorado, have passed or are considering bills or executive orders around transgender health care, civil rights and other legal protections. In Michigan, for example, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last month signed a bill outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation for the first time in her state.

“Trans people are just being used as a political punching bag,” said Rose Saxe, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project. “Denying this health care doesn’t make them not trans. It just makes their lives much harder.”

Gender-affirming care includes a wide range of social and medical interventions, such as hormone treatments, counseling, puberty blockers and surgery.

Oregon’s bill would bar insurers and the state’s Medicaid plan from defining procedures like electrolysis as cosmetic when they are prescribed as medically necessary for treating gender dysphoria. It also would shield providers and patients from lawsuits originating in states where such procedures are restricted.

“We’re actually very committed to accessibility of coverage. Because you can say something is legal, but if it’s not truly affordable or accessible, that is not a full promise,” said Democratic state Rep. Andrea Valderrama, the bill’s chief sponsor.

Access to procedures such as electrolysis is also necessary as a matter of public safety, said Blair Stenvick, communications manager for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon.

“Facial hair can be a trigger for harassment,” Stenvick said, and being able to present as a woman “helps folks to not get targeted and identified as a trans person and then attacked.”

The bill has sparked fervent debate, with hundreds of people submitting written testimony both for and against it and an emotionally charged public hearing at the Capitol in Salem last month that went on for several hours. The Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote on the bill Monday over Republican opposition before it heads to the Senate, which is also dominated by Democrats.

Oregon’s measure mirrors a nationwide trend in Democratic-led states.

Shield protections similar to what is being proposed in Oregon have been enacted this year in Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico, and other bills are awaiting the signatures of Govs. Jay Inslee in Washington and Tim Walz in Minnesota. California, Massachusetts and Connecticut passed their own measures last year. They largely bar authorities from complying with subpoenas, arrest warrants or extradition requests from states that have banned gender-affirming treatments.

Meanwhile a measure passed last month by lawmakers in Maryland would expand the list of procedures covered by Medicaid, and Democratic Gov. Wes Moore has said he plans to sign it.

And lawmakers in Nevada’s Democratic-held Legislature are also pushing to expand gender-affirming health care and develop policies regarding the treatment of transgender prisoners, among other things.

The series of bills face an uncertain fate under Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has shied away from the anti-transgender rhetoric and policy proposals that fellow GOP officeholders and candidates across the country have embraced. Lawmakers have just over a month to vote on them before the legislative session ends in June. But regardless of their outcome, an open debate over transgender health care protections in the important swing state promises to further heighten national attention on the issue.

“They know that this is not a political stunt,” state Sen. Melanie Scheible, the bill’s sponsor and member of Nevada’s newly formed LGBTQ+ Caucus, said of the governor’s office. “I’m not trying to give them a bill to veto just so I can complain about it later.”

Some opponents of gender-affirming health care say they’re concerned that young people may undergo certain physical transition procedures that are irreversible or transition socially in settings such as schools without their parents’ knowledge.

Christina Wood applies makeup and gets ready before going to work in her home in Salem, Ore.

 (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Advocates for gender-affirming health procedures counter that they can be, literally, a matter of life or death.

Kevin Wang, medical director for the LGBTQI+ Program at Swedish Health Services in Seattle, said such care alleviates the depression, anxiety and self-harm seen in patients with gender dysphoria. Studies show that transgender people, particularly youth, consider and attempt suicide at higher rates than the general population.

“These are not aesthetic procedures,” Wang said. “Accessing these services can be absolutely life-saving because we’re preventing future harm.”

Some legal experts, however, warn that laws that protect gender-affirming care but lack strong enforcement mechanisms or funding to investigate violations may not result in meaningful change.

For example, Oregon already bars insurance companies from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And the state agency overseeing health insurance rules already requires companies to cover procedures deemed medically necessary by a doctor to treat gender dysphoria and bars them from defining them as cosmetic.

But insurers have rarely faced major consequences for violations, said Ezra Young, a civil rights attorney and visiting assistant professor of law at Cornell Law School.

“Where’s the task force that’s going to enforce the law?” Young said. “Where are the lawyers that are going to do this? Where is the funding to educate insurance adjusters that they can’t do this?”

“If you’re leaving it to relatively poor transgender people to litigate a case in court … that’s not a meaningful remedy.”

Christina Wood stands on the porch of her home in Salem, Ore. 

(AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Christina Wood, the transplant to Oregon, said she was lucky to have had the resources and ability to move to a state where she could more easily complete her transition, compared with other states that have fewer protections.

“It’s scary to live in this world right now. But ... I’m not going to back down, and I’m going to advocate for people in my situation,” Wood said.

“I never had a voice when I was younger. Christopher never had a voice. Christina has a voice. And so that’s what I plan to do.”

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Associated Press writers Gabe Stern in Carson City, Nevada, Joey Cappellitti in Lansing, Michigan, and Brian Witte in Baltimore contributed to this report.

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Rush and Stern are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.