Trump picks GOP former congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the EPA

By Alayna Treene, Kit Maher and Ella Nilsen, CNN

West Palm Beach, Florida (CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump has selected former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to serve as his administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Zeldin announced that he has accepted the role.

“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator. We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” Zeldin posted on X Monday.

Zeldin, who lost the 2022 New York governor’s race to Kathy Hochul, has remained close to Trump, regularly appearing at Mar-a-Lago throughout his 2024 campaign.

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.

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.

Zeldin on Monday told Fox News that he will pull back “left-wing” regulations and focus on “unleashing economic prosperity” through the agency.

“President Trump, when he called me up, gosh, he was rattling off 15, 20 different priorities, a clear focus. He wasn’t reading off of some sheet, it’s the top of his head. And if I challenged him to give me 50 more ideas of what to do with this agency to improve the economy, I’m confident he would have done that,” Zeldin said shortly after the announcement was made.

“I have a feeling that we’re on the verge of what could be the greatest four years, we’ve ever seen of any president in the White House,” he continued.

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.

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.

About $103 billion in Biden’s climate law funding – 92% of the law’s total – has been announced as of late October. That money will fund everything from clean energy rebates to helping coastal communities prepare for rising seas and slashing pollution from oil and gas operations. The EPA alone is on track to obligate nearly $38.3 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act by the end of the year, which will make it harder for Trump’s administration to claw back.

Zeldin said Trump cares about ensuring access to clean air and water but wants to use the EPA to pursue “energy dominance.”

“One of the biggest issues for so many Americans was the economy, and the president was talking about unleashing economic prosperity through the EPA. We have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to be able to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world, to bring back American jobs to the auto industry, and so much more. President Trump cares about conserving the environment, as you just mentioned in that statement from him. His desire to ensure access to clean air, clean water, it was a top priority,” Zeldin said.

Asked about day one priorities from the agency, Zeldin said, “So, day one and the first 100 days, we have the opportunity to roll back regulations that are forcing businesses to be able to struggle, they’re forced to cut costs, internally, they are moving overseas all together.”

“There are regulations that the left wing of this country have been advocating through regulatory power that ends up causing businesses to go in the wrong direction,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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