Democrats and consumer advocates are speaking out against a Republican Federal Communications Commission official’s role in crafting Project 2025, an aggressive right-wing plan to remake the federal government pushed by allies of former President Donald Trump.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr at a House hearing in March 2022. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post, file

The sprawling proposal calls for sweeping changes, including dismantling the Education Department, dramatically reducing the federal workforce and giving the president more control over the civil service, as The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Hannah Knowles reported. The plan has sparked significant backlash from Democrats and President Biden since its April release.

But a less-noted chapter floating major changes to the nation’s top telecommunications regulator is now facing renewed scrutiny from liberals and advocates.

Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, whom Trump appointed to the agency in 2017, wrote a portion of the report calling for a dramatic reimagining of that agency, shifting more of its focus to reining in tech giants like Facebook and Google.

Most notably, Carr’s chapter calls for enlisting the Federal Communications Commission in the Republican battle against Section 230, the law that shields digital platforms from lawsuits over user-generated content. Carr has long advocated for revamping the law on grounds that social media companies are disproportionately “censoring” viewpoints on the right, which many conservatives allege.

Trump launched a similar legally dubious broadside against the legal shield during his administration. Carr’s Project 2025 proposal doubles down on the approach.

Carr also advocated harnessing the FCC’s powers to impose “transparency rules on Big Tech” and suggested the agency could play a role in banning TikTok from the United States.

Together, the moves would mark a major departure from the FCC’s traditional focus on the telecom sector – and a win for giants like Verizon and AT&T, consumer advocates said.

“It’s a reckless compilation of ideological, pro-corporate proposals,” said Robert Weissman, president of the left-leaning advocacy group Public Citizen.

Carr did not respond to a request for comment.

House Democrats expressed dismay over Carr’s involvement in the plan during an FCC budget hearing this week, marking one of the first public airings of the concerns.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Tex., said she was “surprised and very disappointed” to see that Carr helped craft the plan, which she called “a blueprint for dismantling our government and eviscerating agencies like this one and others and fundamentally changing our country.”

In prepared remarks read aloud by a colleague, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said Project 2025 would “destroy agencies like the FCC and the important role it plays on behalf of the public in overseeing critical services like our communication networks,” including by “consolidating power under the president.”

Portions of Project 2025 call for chipping away at the independent nature of agencies like the FCC, which could make them align more directly with Trump’s political agenda.

That could result in giving Trump if elected, more power to fire regulators who are not executing his agenda, said Berin Szóka, president of the libertarian think tank TechFreedom.

“Trump is going to put a loyalist on the commission, and one way or another, if one of the Republican commissioners doesn’t do what he wants them to do, he will fire you,” said Szóka, who suggested Carr was using Project 2025 to “campaign to become the next FCC chief.”

Trump has sought to distance himself from the proposal, saying last week that he knows “nothing about Project 2025.” And the Heritage Foundation, which has spearheaded the initiative, has said it does not speak for Trump or any candidate.

Still, outside observers said Carr’s Project 2025 chapter could foreshadow what a Trump FCC may look like if he is elected.