A resolution honoring Dr. Jane Goodall and her legacy as an ethologist, conservationist, and activist.
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Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]
ID: C001088
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Bill Summary
Another meaningless resolution from the esteemed members of Congress, because what's more pressing than honoring a renowned ethologist and conservationist? I mean, who needs actual policy changes when you can waste time on feel-good resolutions?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** This resolution is a masterclass in legislative theater. Its sole purpose is to pat itself on the back for recognizing Dr. Jane Goodall's contributions to science and conservation. It's a PR stunt designed to make senators look like they care about the environment and women's empowerment.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** None. Zip. Zilch. This resolution doesn't change a single law or policy. It's a symbolic gesture, a hollow tribute that accomplishes nothing concrete. The "proclamations" and "expressions of gratitude" are as empty as the senators' promises to their constituents.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** Dr. Jane Goodall, who will likely be embarrassed by this shallow recognition. The rest of us? Not affected in the slightest. This resolution won't create jobs, protect endangered species, or address climate change. It's a non-event, a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** Zero. Zilch. Nada. This resolution will have all the impact of a feather on a hurricane. It won't inspire meaningful action, nor will it lead to tangible changes in environmental policy or conservation efforts. It's a Band-Aid on a bullet wound, a token gesture from politicians who are too cowardly to tackle real issues.
In short, this resolution is a legislative placebo – a sugar pill designed to make voters feel good without actually addressing the underlying problems. It's a symptom of a deeper disease: the chronic inability of Congress to prioritize substance over symbolism. So, let's all take a moment to applaud Dr. Goodall's remarkable work... and then promptly forget about this meaningless resolution.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Sen. Coons, Christopher A. [D-DE]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 422 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Resetting science advisory boards to expand opportunities for a diversity of scientific viewpoints free of potential conflicts of interest. l Restoring the guidance portal to ensure that regulatory and subregulatory standards are clear to affected entities. l Working with Assistant Administrators to implement major reforms in media offices. Day One Executive Order. To initiate the review and reorganization, a Day One executive order should be drafted for the incoming President with explicit language requiring reconsideration of the agency’s structure with reference to fulfilling its mission to create a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe water, healthy soil, and thriving communities. The order should set up “pause and review” teams to assess the following: l Major Rules and Guidance Materials. Identify existing rules to be stayed and reproposed and initiate rule development in appropriate media offices. l Pending Petitions. Grant new petitions for rule reconsideration and stays of rules. l Grants. Stop all grants to advocacy groups and review which potential federal investments will lead to tangible environmental improvements. l Legal Settlements. Reassess any “sue and settle” cases and develop a new policy to establish standard review and oversight, including public notification and participation. l Employee Review. Determine the opportunity to downsize by terminating the newest hires in low-value programs and identify relocation opportunities for Senior Executive Service (SES) positions. l Budget Review. Develop a tiered-down approach to cut costs, reduce the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, and eliminate duplicative programs. EPA should not conduct any ongoing or planned activity for which there is not clear and current congressional authorization, and it should communicate this shift in the President’s first budget request. l Risk Management Policy. Revise guidance documents that control regulations such as the social cost of carbon; discount rates; timing of — 423 — Environmental Protection Agency regulatory review (before options are selected); causality of health effects; low-dose risk estimation (linear no-threshold analysis); and employment loss analysis. Personnel The majority of the political appointee team must be assembled, vetted, and ready to deploy before Day One. To the extent provided by the Federal Vacan- cies Reform Act,15 appointees in consideration for Senate-confirmed positions (excluding the Administrator) should be prepared to serve as a Deputy or Principal Deputy to get into the agency on Day One while their nomination and affiliated confirmation processes proceeds. In addition to a deputy slated for the Assistant Administrator role, each office will need a political chief of staff, senior advisers designated to run suboffices, and energized assistants. Teams should be balanced with technical knowledge, legal expertise, and political exposure. Ideally, they should also be geographically diverse. Appointee positions should also extend to all the regional offices and specialty labs. OFFICE OF AIR AND RADIATION (OAR) OAR develops national programs, policies, and regulations to control air pollution and radiation exposure. In recent decades, OAR and its statutory respon- sibilities under the Clean Air Act have been reimagined in an attempt to expand the reach of the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court has stopped and stricken several actions from OAR under liberal Administrations, citing a lack of requisite legal support. A reformed OAR should focus on EPA’s mission of limiting and minimizing criteria and hazardous air pollutants in partnership with the states. Cross-Cutting Reforms. OAR consists of four suboffices with two located in Washington, D.C.; one in Ann Arbor, Michigan; and one at Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The following reforms should be implemented across all OAR offices: l Issue a rule to ensure consistent and transparent consideration of costs. l When doing cost-benefit analysis, use appropriate discount rates, focus on the benefits of reducing the pollutant targeted by Congress, identify “co-benefits” separately, and acknowledge the uncertainties involved in quantifying benefits. l Review and revise Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) cost guidance to ensure that calculations are accurate and reflect the actual regulatory burden, including costs of air rules implementation and compliance.
Introduction
— 422 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Resetting science advisory boards to expand opportunities for a diversity of scientific viewpoints free of potential conflicts of interest. l Restoring the guidance portal to ensure that regulatory and subregulatory standards are clear to affected entities. l Working with Assistant Administrators to implement major reforms in media offices. Day One Executive Order. To initiate the review and reorganization, a Day One executive order should be drafted for the incoming President with explicit language requiring reconsideration of the agency’s structure with reference to fulfilling its mission to create a better environmental tomorrow with clean air, safe water, healthy soil, and thriving communities. The order should set up “pause and review” teams to assess the following: l Major Rules and Guidance Materials. Identify existing rules to be stayed and reproposed and initiate rule development in appropriate media offices. l Pending Petitions. Grant new petitions for rule reconsideration and stays of rules. l Grants. Stop all grants to advocacy groups and review which potential federal investments will lead to tangible environmental improvements. l Legal Settlements. Reassess any “sue and settle” cases and develop a new policy to establish standard review and oversight, including public notification and participation. l Employee Review. Determine the opportunity to downsize by terminating the newest hires in low-value programs and identify relocation opportunities for Senior Executive Service (SES) positions. l Budget Review. Develop a tiered-down approach to cut costs, reduce the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) positions, and eliminate duplicative programs. EPA should not conduct any ongoing or planned activity for which there is not clear and current congressional authorization, and it should communicate this shift in the President’s first budget request. l Risk Management Policy. Revise guidance documents that control regulations such as the social cost of carbon; discount rates; timing of
Introduction
— 533 — Department of the Interior order to fulfill the yet-unaltered congressional mandate contained in federal law, to provide for jobs and well-paying employment opportunities in rural Oregon, and to ameliorate the effects of wildfires, the new Administration must immedi- ately fulfill its responsibilities and manage the O&C lands for “permanent forest production” to ensure that the timber is “sold, cut, and removed.”79 NEPA Reforms. Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act to grow into the tree-killing, project-dooming, decade-spanning mon- strosity that it has become. Instead, in 1970, Congress intended a short, succinct, timely presentation of information regarding major federal action that signifi- cantly affects the quality of the human environment so that decisionmakers can make informed decisions to benefit the American people. The Trump Administration adopted common-sense NEPA reform that must be restored immediately. Meanwhile, DOI should reinstate the secretarial orders adopted by the Trump Administration, such as placing time and page limits on NEPA documents and setting forth—on page one—the costs of the document itself. Meanwhile, the new Administration should call upon Congress to reform NEPA to meet its original goal. Consideration should be given, for example, to eliminat- ing judicial review of the adequacy of NEPA documents or the rectitude of NEPA decisions. This would allow Congress to engage in effective oversight of federal agencies when prudent. Settlement Transparency. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt required DOI to prominently display and provide open access to any and all litigation settlements into which DOI or its agencies entered, and any attorneys’ fees paid for ending the litigation.80 Biden’s DOI, aware that the settlements into which it planned to enter and the attorneys’ fees it was likely to pay would cause controversy, ended this policy.81 A new Administration should reinstate it. The Endangered Species Act. The Endangered Species Act was intended to bring endangered and threatened species back from the brink of extinction and, when appropriate, to restore real habitat critical to the survival of the spe- cies. The act’s success rate, however, is dismal. Its greatest deficiency, according to one renowned expert, is “conflict of interest.”82 Specifically, the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service is the product of “species cartels” afflicted with group- think, confirmation bias, and a common desire to preserve the prestige, power, and appropriations of the agency that pays or employs them. For example, in one highly influential sage-grouse monograph, 41 percent of the authors were federal workers. The editor, a federal bureaucrat, had authored one-third of the paper.83 Meaningful reform of the Endangered Species Act requires that Congress take action to restore its original purpose and end its use to seize private prop- erty, prevent economic development, and interfere with the rights of states over their wildlife populations. In the meantime, a new Administration should take the following immediate action: — 534 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems and defend to the Supreme Court of the United States the agency’s fact-based decision to do so.84 l Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states in light of its full recovery under the ESA.85 l Cede to western states jurisdiction over the greater sage-grouse, recognizing the on-the-ground expertise of states and preventing use of the sage-grouse to interfere with public access to public land and economic activity. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.86 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to design and implement an impartial conservation triage program by prioritizing the allocation of limited resources to maximize conservation returns, relative to the conservation goals, under a constrained budget.87 l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to make all data used in ESA decisions available to the public, with limited or no exceptions, to fulfill the public’s right to know and to prevent the agency’s previous opaque decision-making. l Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey and obtain necessary scientific research about species of concern from universities via competitive requests for proposals. l Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to: (1) design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision- making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas; and (2) ensure conformity with the Information Quality Act.88 Office of Surface Mining. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) was created by the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA)89 to administer programs for controlling the impacts of surface coal mining operations. Although the coal industry is contracting, coal constitutes
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About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.