Former New York Republican U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin is president-elect Donald Trump’s choice to take over as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, a move environmental activists fear will lead to the dismantling of the government watchdog.
In a statement announcing the appointment, Trump described Zeldin, a former four-term congressman from Long Island, as “a true fighter for America First policies.”
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”
Zeldin said it was “an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA administrator.”
“We will restore U.S. energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the U.S. the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” he said on X.
Environmentalists were already sounding the alarm about the choice.
Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous called Zeldin “an unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water.”
“Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future cannot afford Lee Zeldin — or anyone who seeks to carry out a mission antithetical to the EPA’s mission,” Jealous said in a statement. “We have made too much progress to allow Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin to take us back.”
Jeremy Symons, a senior advisor for the Environmental Protection Network, which represents hundreds of former EPA officials, told NBC News that Zeldin’s congressional record “is very much in line as a loyalist for Donald Trump’s previous efforts to slash the agency’s budget and dismantle the EPA.”
Symons noted that Trump tried to cut the EPA’s budget by nearly a third when he first took office, adding, “The fight to save the EPA begins now.”
One of Zeldin’s first tasks will likely be starting the process to overturn several of the Biden EPA’s biggest rules on climate, including tailpipe regulations for vehicles and rules aimed at slashing pollution from power plants and oil and gas producers, according to reporting by CNN.
Zeldin most recently chaired the China policy initiative at the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank founded to promote Trump’s agenda, where he had written on national security threats posed by China.
As a congressman from New York, Zeldin received the League of Conservation Voters’ worst score on environmental issues out of the entire New York delegation in 2020, CNN said.
Zeldin has a 14% lifetime score from LCV, a national environmental advocacy group. While in Congress, LCV showed Zeldin voting against several things the EPA is charged with leading on, including replacing lead service lines across the country. However, in 2020, Zeldin voted against a Republican amendment that would have slashed EPA funding.
Zeldin voted against Biden’s 2022 climate law – as did every other House Republican. He was among the majority of House Republicans who also voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which contained EPA funding for clean school buses, cleanup of toxic brownfields sites and funding to replace lead pipes and service lines around the country, according to CNN.
The New York Times reported Trump is exploring relocating the EPA’s headquarters to a location outside of Washington and that Trump transition aides have prepared several executive actions on climate and energy. Orders are expected to include withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement. Trump has also vowed to end Biden’s efforts to expand manufacturing of electric vehicles.
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