After President-elect Donald Trump announced Lee Zeldin as his nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, the former Republican representative from Long Island, New York, called into Fox News from Mar-a-Lago.
“You know, the EPA was in some ways an enemy to a lot of these businesses across America because they had a long arm,” the Fox News host said after congratulating Zeldin on his nomination. “What do you plan to do at the EPA?”
Zeldin went on to talk vaguely about reversing a series of regulations that “force businesses to struggle” and send American jobs overseas. “We have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world,” he said. “President Trump cares about preserving the environment,” Zeldin added. “It’s a top priority.”
And then he returned to what appeared to be his main point: “So I’m excited to get to work implementing President Trump’s economic agenda.”
The second half of the six-minute interview was spent discussing other matters — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s recent phone call with Trump, the indictment against the former president still moving through New York’s Supreme Court.
The whole conversation gave an indication of what to reasonably expect from the EPA over the next four years: Regulatory rollbacks for fossil fuel industries justified as boosting the economy, and platitudes about the importance of clean air and water, without any mention of how these things will be achieved simultaneously. In a similar rhetorical tact, Trump himself said that Zeldin would “ensure fair and swift deregulation decisions enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses while simultaneously maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”
Without saying so directly, Zeldin signaled a difficult path forward for the thousands of community advocates who have pushed for years for stronger regulations in the nation’s “sacrifice zones” — towns like Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, where a concentration of fossil fuel infrastructure and petrochemical plants dump cancer-causing pollutants into the air and water.
Zeldin, a 44-year-old lawyer and former Army lieutenant, does not have a background in environmental policy. He made his foray into politics through the New York State Senate in 2011, serving until 2014. That year, he was elected to be the U.S. Representative for the state’s first congressional district, which encompasses much of Long Island.
As a congressman, Zeldin did not serve on any subcommittees that oversaw environmental policy. He has frequently voted against progressive climate and environmental policies, earning him a lifetime score of only 14 percent from the League of Conservation Voters, an advocacy group that tracks congressmen’s positions on environmental legislation. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, he voted against an amendment to block the EPA from finalizing a Trump-era soot standard that would expose communities of color to additional air pollution under study. connected to increased COVID deaths. The amendment eventually passed.
In 2021, Zeldin voted against a bill which would require public companies to disclose information about the climate risks of their business models. That bill also passed. The following year he supported a failed account which would have revoked US participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a process that encourages international coordination on climate policy and participation in the annual UN climate conference.
Especially Zeldin voted in favor of a bill that would require the EPA to set a drinking water standard for PFAS and PFOA, the so-called “forever chemicals” that accumulate in the environment and are linked to a range of cancers and other serious health issues. Last year, a local news station found that 33 of Long Island’s 48 water districts have traces of these chemicals in their drinking water.
In 2022, Zeldin ran for governor of New York and lost to Kathy Hochul.
Zeldin’s appointment marks a departure from current EPA Administrator Michael Regan, whose term will expire when Trump takes office in January. Unlike Zeldin, Regan has a background in environmental science, and before being nominated for administrator, he served as secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality and worked as an air quality specialist in the EPA. As EPA administrator, he oversaw the Biden administration’s historic push for environmental justice, which included community engagement sessions, strengthening national standards for particulate matter and overhauling regulations for many chemical plants.
It remains to be seen whether and to what extent Regan’s initiatives and regulations will continue over the years of a second Trump administration. Zeldin’s nomination will have to be confirmed by a vote of the Senate, which won a Republican majority in the elections earlier this month.
If confirmed, Zeldin would have significant power to shape the national direction of climate and environmental policy. In addition to overseeing the enforcement of current environmental laws and regulations, he will be instructed preparing the EPA’s annual budget, which determines how much funding will be allocated for efforts such as state oversight and air monitoring. A more fossil fuel-leaning administrator could choose to suppress these parts of the agency, allowing industry-friendly state agencies like the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality or the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to regulate in the dark.
Trump ran on a platform that prioritized regulatory oversight and maximizing fossil fuel production. Zeldin’s appointment would be key to seeing it through.
