Shapiro, a freelance journalist, was a newspaper editor for 30 years in California, Illinois and Iowa, including 21 years as executive editor of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's "Cross-Partisan Project 2025" relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025
No matter if you’re a bleeding-heart woke liberal or a conservative anti-vaxxer, you want the water you ingest to do no harm.
The average human is 60 percent water, although men are more waterlogged than women and infants have more, seniors have less. Your heart and lungs are 75 percent to 80 percent H20. But much of that water is contaminated.
Environmental Protection Agency data indicate that at least 56 percent of Americans drink from water systems with lead levels detected.
The EPA contends: “A dose of lead that would have little effect on an adult can have a significant effect on a child. In children, low levels of exposure have been linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and impaired formation and function of blood cells.”
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Then there are the toxic “forever” chemicals known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). According to a study published by the Environmental Working Group, 200 million Americans have been exposed to tap water containing them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites studies linking PFAS to kidney and testicular cancer, lower antibody response to vaccines, changes in liver enzymes, high cholesterol rates, and pregnancy-related problems, including low fertility and decreased birth weights.
Project 2025’s conservative playbook — developed by the Charles Koch-funded Heritage Foundation — pays homage to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Nixon administration and cites the necessity of the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts.
It also acknowledges that the Clean Water Act is underfunded and that “water infrastructure is crumbling” in certain areas. Yet it ignored President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal, which included provisions to replace all lead water pipelines by spending $45 billion. Congressional negotiators reduced it to $15 billion.
Instead, Project 2025 contends “the primary role in making choices about the environment belongs to the people who live it” — state governments.
So let’s consider some initiatives Republicans are taking.
The EPA wants to order the replacement of 9 million lead water lines — mostly found in low-income areas — within 10 years. But 15 Republican state attorneys general are trying to block that effort, claiming it’s an infringement on states’ rights: “It’s unworkable, underfunded, and unnecessary.” Private homeowners, they maintain, would “bear the brunt of the costs.”
Had the GOP not cut the Biden infrastructure allocation, their argument would be moot.
Earlier this month, after a U.S. Geological Survey found PFAS could be contaminating 45 percent of the nation’s tap water, the EPA announced new standards down from 70 parts per trillion to 4 ppt.
PFAS are a part of the Manhattan Project legacy. Scientists creating the atomic bomb made the ultimate coolant — needed to separate uranium — by bonding carbon and fluorine atoms, building on DuPont’s pioneering refrigerant efforts in 1938.
After the war, PFAS synthetic chemicals became ubiquitous — in coolants, fire retardants, repelling grease and grime, waterproofing and carpeting. 3M, which hired Manhattan Project chemists, used them in Scotchgard; DuPont in Teflon.
Internal memos indicate both 3M and DuPont knew about the toxicity of PFAS in the 1960s. The law caught up with them last year.
3M reached a $10.3 billion settlement (without an admission of liability) amid 4,000 lawsuits filed by states and municipalities. DuPont, Chemours (a DuPont spinoff) and Corteva (a DowDuPont spinoff) agreed to pay $1.9 billion.
A 2023 study published in Exposure & Health put the cost of treating PFAS-related diseases at $62.6 billion.
Yet the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature has refused to release $125 million to clean up PFAS in drinking water until 3M and DuPont get immunity.
Environmental Science & Technology reported that Brunswick County, N.C, along the Atlantic coast in the Cape Fear River watershed, has spent $99 million on a reverse osmosis plant and will incur $2.9 million annually in operations because of PFAS discharges upriver from Chemours’ Fayetteville plant.
When Consumer Reports tested drinking water in 120 locales two years ago, the highest PFAS contamination was in a North Carolina church. The state’s drinking water ranks third in the nation in the discharge of 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent.
But the Republican supermajority in the Legislature, which wrested control of the Environmental Management Commission from Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has resisted enacting enforceable water quality standards.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Republicans are “stalling efforts to regulate chemicals that have contaminated North Carolina drinking water supplies, including forever chemicals and an industrial solvent that is a likely human carcinogen.”
Project 2025’s clean water agenda? Recall the admonition of Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell: “Watch what we do, not what we say.”
Shapiro, a freelance journalist, was a newspaper editor for 30 years in California, Illinois and Iowa, including 21 years as executive editor of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier.
This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's "Cross-Partisan Project 2025" relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025
No matter if you’re a bleeding-heart woke liberal or a conservative anti-vaxxer, you want the water you ingest to do no harm.
The average human is 60 percent water, although men are more waterlogged than women and infants have more, seniors have less. Your heart and lungs are 75 percent to 80 percent H20. But much of that water is contaminated.
Environmental Protection Agency data indicate that at least 56 percent of Americans drink from water systems with lead levels detected.
The EPA contends: “A dose of lead that would have little effect on an adult can have a significant effect on a child. In children, low levels of exposure have been linked to damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing, and impaired formation and function of blood cells.”
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter
Then there are the toxic “forever” chemicals known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances). According to a study published by the Environmental Working Group, 200 million Americans have been exposed to tap water containing them.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cites studies linking PFAS to kidney and testicular cancer, lower antibody response to vaccines, changes in liver enzymes, high cholesterol rates, and pregnancy-related problems, including low fertility and decreased birth weights.
Project 2025’s conservative playbook — developed by the Charles Koch-funded Heritage Foundation — pays homage to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Nixon administration and cites the necessity of the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water acts.
It also acknowledges that the Clean Water Act is underfunded and that “water infrastructure is crumbling” in certain areas. Yet it ignored President Joe Biden’s infrastructure proposal, which included provisions to replace all lead water pipelines by spending $45 billion. Congressional negotiators reduced it to $15 billion.
Instead, Project 2025 contends “the primary role in making choices about the environment belongs to the people who live it” — state governments.
So let’s consider some initiatives Republicans are taking.
The EPA wants to order the replacement of 9 million lead water lines — mostly found in low-income areas — within 10 years. But 15 Republican state attorneys general are trying to block that effort, claiming it’s an infringement on states’ rights: “It’s unworkable, underfunded, and unnecessary.” Private homeowners, they maintain, would “bear the brunt of the costs.”
Had the GOP not cut the Biden infrastructure allocation, their argument would be moot.
Earlier this month, after a U.S. Geological Survey found PFAS could be contaminating 45 percent of the nation’s tap water, the EPA announced new standards down from 70 parts per trillion to 4 ppt.
PFAS are a part of the Manhattan Project legacy. Scientists creating the atomic bomb made the ultimate coolant — needed to separate uranium — by bonding carbon and fluorine atoms, building on DuPont’s pioneering refrigerant efforts in 1938.
After the war, PFAS synthetic chemicals became ubiquitous — in coolants, fire retardants, repelling grease and grime, waterproofing and carpeting. 3M, which hired Manhattan Project chemists, used them in Scotchgard; DuPont in Teflon.
Internal memos indicate both 3M and DuPont knew about the toxicity of PFAS in the 1960s. The law caught up with them last year.
3M reached a $10.3 billion settlement (without an admission of liability) amid 4,000 lawsuits filed by states and municipalities. DuPont, Chemours (a DuPont spinoff) and Corteva (a DowDuPont spinoff) agreed to pay $1.9 billion.
A 2023 study published in Exposure & Health put the cost of treating PFAS-related diseases at $62.6 billion.
Yet the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature has refused to release $125 million to clean up PFAS in drinking water until 3M and DuPont get immunity.
Environmental Science & Technology reported that Brunswick County, N.C, along the Atlantic coast in the Cape Fear River watershed, has spent $99 million on a reverse osmosis plant and will incur $2.9 million annually in operations because of PFAS discharges upriver from Chemours’ Fayetteville plant.
When Consumer Reports tested drinking water in 120 locales two years ago, the highest PFAS contamination was in a North Carolina church. The state’s drinking water ranks third in the nation in the discharge of 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent.
But the Republican supermajority in the Legislature, which wrested control of the Environmental Management Commission from Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, has resisted enacting enforceable water quality standards.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, Republicans are “stalling efforts to regulate chemicals that have contaminated North Carolina drinking water supplies, including forever chemicals and an industrial solvent that is a likely human carcinogen.”
Project 2025’s clean water agenda? Recall the admonition of Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell: “Watch what we do, not what we say.”
Radwell is the author of“American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing our Nation” and serves on the Business Council at Business for America.
This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.
There are few better examples of recent generations’ malfeasance, indeed selfishness, than their failure to assume financial responsibilities. For most of my adult life, the federal government has run large deficits, but in recent decades those have ballooned to mind boggling heights — The New York Times reports that we will hit$56 trillion by 2034 given current trends.
Tolerating such as a normal way of doing business masks a simple and uncomfortable truth: We are passing the buck (and bill) to the next generations, who will be forced to pay for our profligacy. (Some call this borrowing from future generations, but I think the term “robbing” is more apropos.)
Yet there is an even more flagrant neglect of our responsibility that became evident in the last 40 years: the reckless, irreparable harm we’ve continued to perpetrate to our planet, long after the indicative data became irrefutable. This often manifests as a denial of the scientific relationship between carbon emissions and a warmer planet. The empirical evidence revealing our careless conduct with respect to the environment has only mounted over this period; yet climate change denialism remains a stubborn reality, especially within the lobbied interests of the fossil fuel sectors.
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It is for this reason that Project 2025’s plan for the Department of Energy was so distressing. (Here’s more on the Heritage Project’s plan for Donald Trump’s return.)
The gist of the 50-page blueprint for the DOE proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy, and calls for the next president to "stop the war on oil and natural gas.” Carbon reduction goals would be replaced by efforts to increase energy production and security. In an absurd twist of logic, the report blames the “new energy crisis … on extreme ‘green’ policies” even as U.S. oil production is at an all-time high. The Project 2025 report states:
The new energy crisis is caused not by a lack of resources, but by extreme “green” policies. Under the rubrics of “combating climate change” and “ESG” (environmental, social, and governance), the Biden Administration, Congress, and various states, as well as Wall Street investors, international corporations, and progressive special-interest groups, are changing America’s energy landscape. These ideologically driven policies are also directing huge amounts of money to favored interests and making America dependent on adversaries like China for energy. In the name of combating climate change, policies have been used to create an artificial energy scarcity that will require trillions of dollars in new investment, supported with taxpayer subsidies, to address a “problem” that government and special interests themselves created.
The irony is that the very capitalist model uniquely capable of stimulating the innovation required to promulgate solutions to the climate crisis is normally championed by Heritage.
As I recently wrote, businesses live by a simple equation: They grow profits (the margin between revenue and costs) to satisfy their shareholders. But these same firms wriggle out of bearing the costs of the carbon they emit, by instead deflecting those costs to society as a whole. Without correction, these externalities or social costs will not be calculated or accounted for in their costs of production.
The good news is that there are many corrective measures available, such as carbon pricing and trading mechanisms, that can ensure the producers assume responsibility for their carbon costs. The capitalist innovation machine can be directed through competitive incentives once the carbon costs are internalized and the profit motive can then be used to produce the same products and services whilst emitting less carbon. With proper regulation (which should not be construed to mean over-regulation), the market winners amongst rivals providing a good or service, ceteris paribus, would be the ones with the lowest carbon emissions.
It is so curious therefore, that Heritage, with a reputation for fostering innovative market solutions, fails to mention any of this in its discussion of the appropriate mandate for the DOE under a second Trump administration. Economists have published reams of research indicating that enforcing a mechanism to price carbon emissions would be a relatively low intrusion mechanism to foster the development of competitive alternate (and greener) energy sources.
At the same time, it is imperative that climate change activists understand the need for gradual introduction of such mechanisms given our current dependence on fossil fuels. It is precisely this balanced thinking that is lacking in Project 2025. Instead of denying that climate change is a problem, smart public policy can drive the fossil fuel industry itself to adapt and shift resources to developing greener energy sources, as the consumption of traditional fossil fuels moderates. (Fossil fuel production is unlikely to decline for some time, given the growth in energy consumption coming from third world countries; however, its growth could be slow).
Consequently, the genuine bipartisan approach here would be to cease climate change denial as a political movement, and agree to correct the externalities in ways that bring the fossil fuel industry onboard.
By completely omitting this pivotal discussion, Project 2025 demonstrates yet again how the partisan orthodoxy in promulgating climate change denialism crowds out rational solution development by more thoughtful and centrist problem-solvers.
Despite its geopolitical complexities both domestically and internationally, combating climate change should be the next generation’s calling. Since the establishment of our Enlightenment inheritance over 200 years ago, we have repeatedly opened up new chapters in which unleashed human potential has raised prosperity to new heights; in this next chapter, the benefit would not only further human prosperity, but the prosperity for all living things.
People demonstrate in support of health care in 2017 in Montana, which expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
This fact brief was originally published by EconoFact. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.
Studies have shown that Medicaid expansion in states does lead to improved health outcomes.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) sought to reduce the number of uninsured Americans through federal government subsidies of Medicaid coverage expansion. This Medicaid expansion was made optional to states, and as of May 2024 there were 10 U.S. states that had not yet implemented it. A study comparing outcomes of expansion vs. non-expansion states found a significant reduction in mortality in states that expanded Medicaid.
Individuals aged 55 to 64 with either less than a high school degree or income under the threshold (138 percent of the federal poverty level) experienced a 9.4 percent drop in mortality after expansion as compared to non-expansion states. Furthermore, research on states that already expanded Medicaid found no clear change in overall spending from state funds due to offsetting savings in health care costs.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
KFF Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map
EconoFact Impact of Medicaid Expansion on State Budgets and Mortality
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Supporters hold signs as Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks during a news conference on the Right to Contraception Act in D.C. on June 5.
This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.
Some 91 percent of registered voters said in a national poll released June 11, 2024, that birth control should be legal (73 percent said they feel strongly, 18 percent said somewhat strongly).
When the question was asked about contraception, support was 84 (percent 69 percent strongly, 15 percent somewhat).
Liberal pollster Navigator did the poll, but other surveys found similar results.
The nonpartisan Pew Research Center reported June 6 that 79 percent of registered voters said widespread access to birth control is good for society.
Gallup reported in June 2023 that 88 percent of Americans said birth control is morally acceptable.
In a 2022 FiveThirtyEight poll, about 90 percent of Americans said condoms and birth control pills should be legal in all or most cases, and 81 percent said the same of intrauterine devices.
The 90 percent claim was made in a June 5 interview by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). She is running for re-election in November against Republican Eric Hovde.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Navigator Abortion and Contraception: A Guide for Advocates
Pew Research Center Gender, family, reproductive issues and the 2024 election
Gallup Fewer in U.S. Say Same-Sex Relations Morally Acceptable
FiveThirtyEight How Americans Feel About Abortion And Contraception
MSNBC 'Trump's friends just blocked the right to contraception': Dems torch GOP over Senate vote
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, worked together to draft the Kids Online Safety Act.
Hatch is board chair at Issue One, a cross-partisan political reform organization.
Fifty years ago, my father served as the Republican minority leader in the deep-blue Massachusetts House of Representatives. But during his time in office, he managed to create jobs, protect reproductive rights and author a landmark environmental bill that protects Massachusetts wetlands to this day. (Did I mention he was Republican?)
That solutions-minded approach was my introduction to politics. Legislators prioritized governing: They looked out for problems, listened to constituents and worked together to write effective policies, even on contentious issues — and often with a good dose of humor.
If you’re imagining the scene I just described as a black-and-white film, I don’t blame you. But over the past two years, Congress has acted it out with the Kids Online Safety Act. It’s a strong bill designed to protect our kids. And as the chair of Issue One, a nonprofit that seeks to strengthen our democracy, it’s been heartening to see such an important bill shaped by the very best of our democratic traditions: deliberation, compromise and bipartisanship. Now, it’s time for legislators to pass it.
Creating sound laws about anything is complicated, but reining in Big Tech is a particular challenge, and not just because of the enormous amount of money the industry is spending on lobbying. New technologies pop up constantly, forcing legislators to balance free speech concerns with public safety. However, the authors of KOSA are doing the work for the nine out of 10 voters who want Congress to regulate social media and wrote a bill that was thoughtful from the start.
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First, a little history: In late 2021, the Wall Street Journal published an investigation called “The Facebook Files,” which revealed that Facebook understood the harms — including cyberbullying, eating disorders and even suicide — that its platforms inflict on teenage girls. In response, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), a Democrat and Republican, held a series of hearings to investigate how Congress could reasonably update America’s outdated and flawed policies to protect kids online. KOSA came out of that effort thanks to a bipartisan approach that encouraged checks and balances.
While drafting, Democrats wanted to hold companies accountable, but Republicans pushed to prevent the bill from becoming a “litigation magnet.” And Republicans wanted kids to see age-appropriate content, but Democrats sought to ensure they’d have access to community groups and information about mental and physical health.
This push and pull resulted in a common-sense bill that, in its current form, requires tech companies to design algorithms that don’t promote eating disorders, sexual exploitation, suicidal behavior or illegal substances to children. It also requires they limit addictive features for young users, set the strongest privacy settings by default, make it easy to submit concerns and delete data, create parental controls to monitor privacy settings, and provide annual reports.
But good policy doesn’t just come from listening to voters and the other party. It also comes from advocates and issue experts. Issue One believes reforming social media is a crucial step towards healthier kids, better-informed voters and a vibrant democracy. Our Council for Responsible Social Media has brought together bipartisan policymakers with experts, parents and each other to figure out how to shape KOSA. Other nonprofit groups have added their expertise to turn the bill into what it is today.
And most importantly, for those who care about free speech, the bill does not force information to be removed from platforms. Rather, KOSA is a bill about regulating addictive, manipulative algorithms — not one that puts a wall between our kids or our citizens and the world.
We have our robust democratic system — from citizens to legislators to advocates — to thank for that. Our federal government is stepping in exactly when it should: When the problem is too complicated for states to manage alone and when there are models to look towards, like the European Union’s and United Kingdom’s similar laws. And it’s stepping in exactly how it should — with input from all sides.
With almost 70 co-sponsors in the Senate, and a bipartisan group of members introducing their own version in the House, there’s nothing left to do with KOSA but pass it. There’s support from both sides of the aisle because, in the words of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), “It is a serious and meaningful step forward.” And as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of the mothers who have been advocating for KOSA, “They’re counting on us to do something … we have to bring this to a vote.”
In the spirit of a bygone minority leader from Massachusetts, pass KOSA with purpose, with compromise and with a dedication to helping the American people. Exactly as our democracy is meant to work.
Migrants walk on a road as they wait to be processed by the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego on June 13.
Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
For more than 20 years, I have held one position constant when it comes to immigration policy: We should have one.
I am less concerned about the number of immigrants we take in every year than I am about the fact that we — voters, policymakers, politicians, what have you — don't pick a number.
I'd be fine with 1 million or 2 million immigrants a year. I'd also be fine with a temporary freeze on most immigration. I think preferences for skilled immigrants are entirely defensible. I also think a generous asylum policy is morally preferable to a narrow one.
But for me, the priority isn't the number or kind of immigrants we take in; it's making a decision about the number and kind and sticking to it.
If the number is too high or low, policymakers can change it. If they don't change it, voters can elect a politician or party who will. But if Congress says the number is 1 million per year, that should be the actual number.
The late Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan of Texas, who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform in the 1990s, put it succinctly: "The credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: People who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in are kept out; and people who are judged deportable are required to leave."
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Credibility is important for any government endeavor, but it's especially so for immigration because few issues share its capacity to sow public discontent. The sense that immigration is "out of control" breeds distrust, incites nativism and fuels panic and conspiracy theories.
It was ever thus. In colonial America, Benjamin Franklin repeatedly warned of the danger posed by unchecked German immigration, worrying that "they will soon so outnumber us, that … we … will not in my opinion be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious." In 1798, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which are remembered for their assault on free speech but were driven by the fear that French and other immigrants (i.e., Aliens) were an enemy within. The Naturalization Act — part of the Alien and Sedition Acts — made it harder for immigrants to become citizens and vote.
Later chapters in this old story include the Know-Nothings, all manner of panic over the Irish, the Yellow Peril and of course "replacement theory." The same sentiments are now driving the surging prospects of far-right parties in Europe and the domestic success of Donald Trump despite — or because of — all his ugly rhetoric about "vermin" and blood "poisoning."
That's why President Biden's ham-fisted mishandling of the border crisis is arguably his greatest liability after his age. Indeed, I would argue that the former informs attitudes about the latter, in that the impression of lawlessness at the border fuels the sense that he is weak and overwhelmed.
As Europe's travails demonstrate, this is not just an American problem. Large-scale immigration roils politics and society everywhere it occurs.
Moreover, despite America's struggles with immigration past and present, this country is not anti-immigrant. As of 2022, the United States had roughly 46 million foreign-born residents, more than half of them citizens, accounting for about 14 percent of the population. (China's immigrants, by contrast, amount to about 0.04 percent of its population.) There is no country in the world better at absorbing and assimilating people, and we should take deep patriotic pride in that.
That's important to bear in mind because the rhetoric on both sides of the debate makes restoring credibility to our immigration system harder. Contrary to Pat Buchanan's dire prophecies, Mexican Americans have not shown much interest in a "Reconquista" of the American Southwest. And notwithstanding the constant shrieks about America's nativism and xenophobia, the melting pot continues to burble along.
As a rule, normal Americans are far more sensible and decent on this issue than our leaders. Increasing numbers of Latinos want stronger enforcement of the border and immigration laws, which is a sign that the loudest voices on both sides are detached from reality. Indeed, if Trump wins this year's election, it will be partly because working-class Latinos have assimilated into the culture and politics of the rest of the American working class.
The editorial stance of the National Review, where I worked for two decades, was always that if responsible politicians don't deal with immigration responsibly, irresponsible ones will exploit the issue to get elected. If the 2016 election wasn't enough to prove that, 2024 might be.
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