Trump picks Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA

President-elect Donald J. Trump is moving full speed ahead to fill his cabinet with allies who embrace his deregulatory agenda. On Nov. 11, less than a week after winning the US election, Trump announced that he will nominate former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) to lead the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Zeldin is a loyal Trump supporter with a legal background who pledged to roll back New York’s ambitious climate laws during an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2022. He is a proponent of fracking and building more natural gas pipelines to boost energy independence in the US, and he has spoken out against a New York law that will ban the sale of gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

Nominating an EPA administrator so early in the transition process signals Trump’s seriousness about energy deregulation. Two of his priorities are to make the US the dominant energy producer in the world and to turn the country into a manufacturing powerhouse.

In a statement on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump called Zeldin “a true fighter for America First policies.” He noted that Zeldin “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.”

On X (formerly Twitter), Zeldin wrote that he is “looking forward to getting straight to work as part of President Trump’s cabinet to unleash US energy dominance, make America the AI capital of the world, bring American auto jobs back home, and so much more.”

While in Congress from 2015 to 2023, Zeldin was a member of the Climate Solutions Caucus and the Conservative Climate Caucus. He also served on the PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) Task Force and supported a bill in 2021 that directed the EPA to set limits for at least two PFAS in drinking water. That bill died in the Senate, but the EPA did set limits for six PFAS in drinking water in April this year.

Many conservative lawmakers welcome Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, saying it is time to promote energy production in the US and stop the EPA’s regulatory overreach.

The American Chemistry Council, a trade association that has raised concerns for years about the EPA’s overregulation of chemicals, also welcomes new leadership at the agency. “Our industry stands ready to help the Administration and Congress support American innovation and supply chain resiliency, all while protecting the environment, human health and the communities where our member companies operate,” Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the association, says in a statement.

But some Democrats are speaking out against Zeldin, saying he will slash regulations that protect the environment.

“Donald Trump has chosen to reward a 2020 election denier, whose only job will be to reward corporate polluters by gutting the EPA and making our air and water dirtier,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote on X. “In Congress and the courts, we’ve got a fight ahead.”