WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday confirmed Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, a key role to help President Donald Trump fulfill his pledge to roll back major environmental regulations, including those aimed at slowing climate change and encouraging use of electric vehicles.
The vote was 56-42 in Zeldin’s favor.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, is a longtime Trump ally and served on Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment. He voted against certifying Trump’s 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Zeldin, 44, said during his confirmation hearing that he has a moral responsibility to be a good steward of the environment and pledged to support career staff who have dedicated themselves to the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
Zeldin repeatedly declined to commit to specific policies, however, promising instead not to prejudge outcomes before arriving at EPA. When asked by Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska whether he would roll back programs that promote electric cars — a program Trump has repeatedly criticized — Zeldin stayed vague but acknowledged he has heard Republican complaints.
Trump led efforts to dismantle more than 100 environmental protections during his first term and has promised to do so again, targeting what he falsely labels an electric vehicle “mandate” and “green new scam” approved by Democrats.
Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, has vowed to overturn former President Joe Biden’s biggest climate accomplishments, including tailpipe regulations for vehicles and slashed pollution from power plants fired by coal and natural gas. Trump has already moved to oust career staff at EPA and other agencies, remove scientific advisers and close an office that helps minority communities that disproportionately struggle with polluted air and water.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called Zeldin the wrong man for the job.
“We need an EPA administrator who will take climate change seriously, treat the science honestly and stand up where necessary to the political pressure that will be coming from the White House, where we have a president who actually thinks (climate change) is a hoax, and from the huge fossil fuel forces that propelled him into office with enormous amounts of political money and who now think they own the place,” Whitehouse said in a Senate speech.
Trump is “under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry,” Whitehouse said, adding that the EPA administrator “has to be truthful and factual and support and defend our environment and our safety from climate change.”
He has nothing against Zeldin personally, Whitehouse added, “but the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is essentially zero. And in that context, this is very much the wrong guy.”
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Zeldin will return the EPA to its original mission of protecting America’s air, water and land — without “suffocating the economy.”
Barrasso called Zeldin “a lifelong public servant” and a seasoned lawyer with a sharp legal mind and over 20 years of military service.
Zeldin will continue Trump’s “mission to roll back punishing, political regulations” at the EPA, “cut red tape” and oversee “a new wave of creativity and innovation,” Barrasso said.
“For the last four years, the so-called experts at the Environmental Protection Agency went on a reckless regulatory rampage,” Barrasso said, referring to the Biden administration. “They saddled American families and businesses with higher costs and heavy-handed restrictions. They bowed to climate extremism and ignored common sense.”
Zeldin “will right the ship and restore balance at the EPA,” Barrasso said, citing likely actions to repeal Biden-era rules on tailpipe emissions and power plants, along with eliminating federal subsidies for electric vehicles.
The League of Conservation Voters, a national environmental advocacy group, has panned Zeldin’s lifetime environmental record, giving him a 14% score. Like all Republicans at the time, he voted against the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act aimed at boosting renewable energy and manufacturing and fighting climate change.
Zeldin supported a bill to reduce harmful forever chemicals, called PFAS, that would have required the EPA to set limits on substances in drinking water. He also was a leading proponent of the 2020 Great American Outdoors Act, which used oil and gas royalties to help the National Park Service tackle its massive maintenance backlog. He’s also supported local conservation efforts on Long Island.
Zeldin said at his Jan. 16 hearing that he wants to collaborate with the private sector “to promote common-sense, smart regulation that will allow American innovation to continue to lead the world.”
The EPA under his leadership “will prioritize compliance as much as possible,” Zeldin said. “I believe in the rule of law and I want to work with people to ensure they do their part to protect the environment.”