WASHINGTON, DC – A comprehensive policy and personnel plan known as Project 2025, organized by The Heritage Foundation, outlines a detailed blueprint for a potential conservative presidential administration, aiming to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.

• What It Is – A 920-page policy book titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” compiled by over 100 conservative organizations and led by The Heritage Foundation as a guide for the first 180 days of a new administration.
• Centralizing Power – A core theme is the expansion of presidential authority over the executive branch, asserting that federal agencies should be under the direct and complete control of the president.
• Reforming the Civil Service – The plan proposes reviving “Schedule F,” a classification that would convert tens of thousands of career civil servants into political appointees, removing their employment protections to increase accountability to the President.

The plan, developed over several years, represents one of the most ambitious and detailed transition projects ever undertaken by a political movement in advance of an election. Its proposals cover nearly every federal department and agency, with a focus on personnel, policy, and executive power.

The Architecture of Project 2025: What Are Its ‘Four Pillars’?

Project 2025 is structured around what its organizers call “four pillars” designed to prepare a conservative administration to govern from day one. The first pillar is the policy book itself, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” This 920-page document provides chapter-by-chapter recommendations for overhauling each major federal agency.

The second pillar is a “personnel database,” an effort to identify and vet thousands of conservatives to serve in a new administration. The goal is to have ideologically aligned individuals ready to fill appointed positions across the government. The third pillar is an online training program called the “Presidential Administration Academy” to prepare these potential appointees. The final pillar is a “180-day playbook,” which provides a detailed implementation plan for a new president’s first six months in office. The project is a coalition effort, involving over 100 conservative and right-leaning organizations.

How Would ‘Schedule F’ Change the Federal Workforce?

A central component of the personnel strategy is the proposed reinstatement of “Schedule F.” This was a job category created by a Trump administration executive order in October 2020 and rescinded by the Biden administration in January 2021. The classification would apply to career federal employees deemed to be in “confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions.”

Under this plan, employees moved into Schedule F would lose the civil service protections that have been in place since the Pendleton Act of 1883. Those protections make it difficult to fire career staff for political reasons. Proponents of Schedule F argue it is necessary to make the federal bureaucracy more responsive to the president’s agenda and to remove underperforming or obstructionist employees. Estimates from government watchdog groups and unions suggest that at least 50,000 of the approximately 2.2 million federal workers could be reclassified under this proposal, allowing a president to hire and fire them at will.

What Are the Plan’s Major Policy and Agency Proposals?

The “Mandate for Leadership” contains specific, and often drastic, recommendations for federal agencies. The document’s authors propose significant shifts in policy and, in some cases, the elimination of entire departments.

For the Department of Justice (DOJ), the plan recommends ending its tradition of operational independence, asserting it should be an instrument of the president’s agenda. For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), it proposes curtailing its regulatory power and shifting its focus to what it calls “true environmentalism” rather than climate change initiatives. Similarly, it calls for boosting fossil fuel production and dismantling clean energy programs within the Department of Energy. The book also contains a proposal to eliminate the Department of Education, transferring its functions to other agencies and block-granting its funding to states.

The Theory of the Unitary Executive: What Is the Plan’s Constitutional Basis?

The legal and constitutional philosophy that underpins Project 2025 is a strong interpretation of the “unitary executive theory.” This theory posits that Article II of the Constitution grants the President complete command and control over the entire executive branch. From this perspective, independent agencies and a non-partisan civil service are seen as unconstitutional infringements on presidential authority.

This interpretation contrasts with the long-standing tradition of a professional, merit-based civil service designed to ensure continuity and expertise in government, insulated from political purges. The authors of Project 2025 argue that this administrative state has become an unelected “fourth branch of government” that thwarts the will of voters as expressed through the election of the president. The plan’s stated purpose is to “dismantle the administrative state” and return direct control of the government’s machinery to the elected president.