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Project 2025 puts climate in danger
To the Editor:
Project 2025, an over 900-page document prepared by the conservative Heritage Foundation would reshape American life and fracture irretrievably the foundation of our democracy if ever enacted. It will touch our individual freedoms and liberties to our leadership in the world. Executive power, education, immigration, abortion, energy, Social Security and Medicare, taxes, international relations, the justice department, climate change, and more will change in unrecognizable ways.
Even though Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, 140 people in his first administration contributed to the project, and he has personally praised the Heritage Foundation. There is every reason to believe that Trump will try to implement these policies if elected.
In this letter, I would like to focus on climate change. Here are some of the changes that Project 2025 wants Trump to push for:
• It is estimated by the Energy Department, that the Inflation Reduction Act and the bi-partisan Infrastructure law passed during President Biden's first term will drive down US greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by 2030. This was also confirmed in an independent study in the publication Science. Gutting or eliminating these laws which Project 2025 aims to do could greatly decrease our chance of avoiding the worst climate crises.
• It would end restrictions on fossil fuel drilling. Trump has said "drill, baby, drill."
• The EPA and the Department of Interior would be curtailed or eliminated making it impossible to track methane emissions, pollutants, and chemicals and perform climate science research.
• It would strip the EPA from regulating carbon emissions and other pollutants from vehicles and power plants under the Clean Air Act.
• It would eliminate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service. These are the people that warn of hurricanes and other related weather disasters.
• It would end programs, directives, and offices designed to advance the Paris Climate Agreement.
Every day we delay making changes to greatly limit greenhouse gas emissions, and we come closer to a tipping point that we may not be able to come back from. President Kamala Harris would fight to protect our environment. Trump will not. What kind of world we leave to our children and grandchildren may depend on who we vote for in November.
Gary Gill
Lewistown
Game Commission overregulates hunters
To the Editor:
I attended a meeting the other night and the featured speaker was a game commission officer. He spoke at length of the mentor program for youth who want to hunt in Pennsylvania. When he finished I was perplexed! My brain was numb. I felt like I just watched two games of Cricket back to back. I could hardly follow the separation of hunting requirements as to age, tags, weapons, mentor rules, children rules, location rules, and on and on. I looked at my table mates and they were as confounded as I was.
Then came the rules on not feeding deer corn in Pennsylvania. Are you kidding me? You can be fined! I thought to myself every farmer in Mifflin County feeds deer corn. He said that is not the same. Only when you put corn out to feed deer is it illegal! I see said the blind man! Tractor Supply has pallets of corn labeled, deer feed. They must be considered "pushers" of illegal deer food.
This is all too much. We're back to "the king's deer"! It is why I quit hunting years ago. I got up and posed the question, "How much has over-regulation attributed to the decline in the number of hunters?" The short answer was iPhones. I can certainly agree that phones and the internet have affected more than just hunters, but there is much more to that story.
Over-regulation is the forest; the Game Commission can't see in the trees! It's like, take this pill, but it has side effects. Here take this pill for the side effect. More side effects and so on. Soon, you're bankrupt buying pills, or funding unnecessary programs. The Game Commission is needed to manage wildlife. We don't need another police force in the woods protecting " the king's deer." They don't need to micro-manage hunters or their children. They don't need to make hunting so complicated. Life is complicated enough without navigating complicated game laws that take the enjoyment out of what used to be a good time!
I like my corn on the cob with butter and salt. Deer have to eat it off the stalk or it's no good for them. Who knew?
Michael C. Spahr