How the Trump team plans to purge Biden’s climate work

By Scott Waldman | 01/13/2025 06:19 AM EST

One move would replace the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy with a group charged with increasing energy production.

Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, departs a Dec. 9 meeting with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Russell Vought, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, departs a Dec. 9 meeting with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Francis Chung/POLITICO

In just a few days, the work to dismantle President Joe Biden’s climate legacy will begin in earnest.

Gone will be a government determined to cut carbon emissions. In its place will be an administration determined to remove restrictions on the fossil fuel industry.

Russell Vought — Trump’s pick to return as head of the Office of Management and Budget — will be the tip of the spear.

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Vought was an architect of Project 2025, the 900–page conservative policy proposal handbook organized by the Heritage Foundation. He wrote an entire chapter on how to expand the president’s executive authority, and in it, he called for a seismic shift in strategy: from a White House focused on climate policy to one focused on boosting fossil fuels.

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