EPA Nominee Heads for Approval, Despite Inexperience

EJ TransitionWatch: EPA Nominee Heads for Approval, Despite Inexperience

By Joseph A. Davis

Update: The Senate confirmed Lee Zeldin to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Jan. 29.

Lee Zeldin, the Trump administration’s pick to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, appears to be headed for approval after a Jan. 16 confirmation hearing. It was almost a lovefest.

Rep. Lee Zeldin, at left, with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office during Trump’s first administration in 2018. Photo: Official White House Photo/Shealeah Craighead via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Many welcomes were made at this first meeting in the 119th Congress of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, presided over by incoming Chair Shelley Moore Capito, the Republican from West Virginia.

New senators on the committee included Democrats Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Adam Schiff of California, along with Republicans John Curtis of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, now serving as ranking minority member, set a bipartisan mood by giving a special gavel to Capito.

And nobody on the committee said they would not vote for Zeldin — a contrast with some of President Donald Trump’s other nominees. There was little or no “culture war” rhetoric, even as archprogressive Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat, was oppositional in his questioning.

 

‘Climate change is real’

Zeldin, who served as a House member from Long Island, N.Y., from 2015 to 2023, supported coastline conservation and restoration for his Long Island district. But he has a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of just 14%. And he ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York in 2022 — on a pledge to unban fracking.

Yet Zeldin disarmed Democrats by agreeing “climate change is real.” That put him at odds with Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax.” Zeldin also said he was unaware (may require subscription) of any plans to move EPA headquarters out of Washington, D.C. — rumored by some after the election.

 

Zeldin may not have much

experience in environmental affairs.

But he was also a Trump loyalist.

 

Zeldin may not have much experience in environmental affairs. But he was also a Trump loyalist. In Congress, he opposed the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s big climate bill. He voted against certifying the 2020 election. He defended Trump during his first impeachment.

There’s more. In April 2018, he said he did not support the Paris Climate Agreement in its present form. And he is on the board of America First Works, a group which supports Trump and his nominees. In a Fox News interview, he said Trump had rattled off a list of regulations he wanted repealed.

 

No ‘special influence’

Environmental groups such as the Sierra Club have opposed his confirmation. But before the Senate hearing, Zeldin met with most or all committee members, setting a pattern for most during the hearing.

In their short turns to question Zeldin, senators would often bring up some issue important to their state, which they had raised during the private meetings. Then they would ask Zeldin whether he would commit to fixing that issue, or at least “working with” the senator to resolve it.

And when Sen. Whitehouse asked him whether past fees or donations from regulated industries would affect his decisions, Zeldin said they would not. “There is no person who has ever provided any level of support to me who has any special influence with me,” Zeldin said. “There is no dollar large or small that can influence the decision that I make.“

At the end of the hearing Capito (who ought to know) said, “I expect your confirmation will be very positive.”

A week later on Jan. 23, the panel voted 11-8 to send Zeldin’s nomination to the full Senate, where it’s expected to pass.

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 4. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.