President-elect
Donald Trump
selected former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York on Monday to oversee
the Environmental Protection Agency
in his administration.
In a
statement announcing the appointment
, Trump described Zeldin, a former four-term Republican from Long Island, as “a true fighter for America First policies.”
“He 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, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”
Zeldin said it was “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,”
he said
on X
.
The post requires Senate confirmation. Republicans will have a majority in the chamber when the new Congress is sworn in during January.
The EPA’s
2024 fiscal year budget
is $9.1 billion. The agency has 15,130 employees.
After Trump’s announcement, Zeldin said in a Fox News interview that he would prioritize efforts to “roll back regulations” that he said caused American businesses to struggle.
“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.
The New York Post
first reported
Zeldin’s appointment — Trump’s second Cabinet pick for his second term in office.
Trump has made other staffing announcements in recent days. Last week, he said
Susie Wiles
, his campaign manager, would be White House chief of staff. On Sunday, he named immigration hard-liner
Tom Homan
as his “border czar.”
Trump has indicated he plans to
withdraw
from the Paris climate accord, a move
mirroring steps
he took during his first administration. He has also called for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, a signature legislative accomplishment of President Joe Biden. The law commits billions of dollars toward
expanding clean energy
to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
In Congress, Zeldin and fellow Republicans voted against the landmark climate measure.
Environmentalists bashed Trump’s pick Monday.
Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous called Zeldin “an unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water.”
“Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future cannot afford Lee Zeldin — or anyone who seeks to carry out a mission antithetical to the EPA’s mission,”
Jealous said in a statement
. “We have made too much progress to allow Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin to take us back.”
Jeremy Symons, a senior adviser for the Environmental Protection Network, which represents hundreds of former EPA officials, told NBC News that Zeldin’s congressional record “is very much in line as a loyalist for Donald Trump’s previous efforts to slash the agency’s budget and dismantle the EPA.”
Symons noted that Trump tried to cut the EPA’s budget by nearly a third when he first took office, adding, “The fight to save the EPA begins now.”
Zeldin currently chairs the China policy initiative at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank former Trump administration officials
launched in 2021
.
Republicans heralded him for an
unexpectedly close race for
New York
governor
in 2022, when he lost to Democrat Kathy Hochul 53.1% to 46.7%. Some Republicans highlighted Zeldin’s performance as playing a role in helping Republicans flip four House seats in New York that year, in particular that of Sean Patrick Maloney, who chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
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