Trump Picks Former NY Rep. and “America First” Champion Lee Zeldin as EPA Chief
Zeldin: “Climate goals are little more than political posturing and an embrace of a ‘rules for thee, but not for me’ mindset. “
President Donald Trump continues to fill critical key positions in his new administration quickly.
In a bold move, he has selected former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Zeldin, 44, served four terms as a Republican congressman repping eastern Long Island before losing the 2022 New York governor’s race to Democrat Kathy Hochul by a surprisingly close margin — and will become a key figure in adopting Trump’s deregulatory and pro-energy production policies.
“I am deeply honored to have been asked by President Trump to serve in his Cabinet. As EPA Administrator, we will restore American energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, make the United States the global leader of Artificial Intelligence advancement, and slash the red tape holding back American workers from upward economic mobility,” Zeldin said in a statement to The Post.
“We will accomplish all this while conserving our environment, protecting access to clean air and water, and keeping the American people healthy. I look forward to contributing to President Trump’s agenda to build a more prosperous future for our nation.”
Lee Zeldin is an America First champion. pic.twitter.com/8e8D1hborn
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 12, 2024
Zeldin is truly an America First champion. Prior to being tapped to be the new EPA chief, Zeldin was named the Chair of the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Pathway to 2025 initiative. This initiative focuses on promoting America First principles and preparing policy strategies for the next conservative administration.
The Pathway to 2025 encompasses five pillars to save America and her founding principles. The pillars highlight policy innovation, America First messaging opportunities, coalition building, and the preparation of a battle plan for the next conservative administration.
This extraordinary project has the potential to steer America back to its roots so that by America’s 250th birthday in 2026, Americans will have a better and brighter future ahead.
In the interest of complete disclosure, not everyone is as excited about this appointment as I am.
🚨 Meet Rep. Lee #Zeldin, the new head of the #EPA.
🚨 Lee Zeldin, has a 14% lifetime score on the League of Conservation Voters (a left-biased organization favouring liberal causes organization) environmental scorecard.
🚨 #Trump has made the right choice 👍
Let’s goooo 🔥 pic.twitter.com/oe1ZGP4VWu
— Valentin Erikson (@eriksonvalentin) November 11, 2024
But it seems the right people are unhappy. For example, PBS asserts Zeldin lacks any environmental experience.
While in Congress, he did not serve on committees with oversight of environmental policy.
In 2016 he pushed to change the designation of about 150 square miles of federal waters in Long Island Sound to state jurisdiction for New York and Rhode Island. He wanted to open the area to striped bass fishing, which is allowed in state waters but banned in the federal area.
Zeldin said at the time that he wanted to restore local control and common sense to fishery management. He later pushed to allow striped bass fishing in an amendment to a federal spending bill. Environmental groups criticized the amendment, which they said risked overfishing in the area.
In view of the ongoing environmental issues related to the Biden administration’s support of offshore wind farms, PBS can sit back down.
Zeldin has enough experience with New York’s environmental extremism to offer a very good assessment of the agencies focused on eco-activism. In an opinion piece on the state targeting beef farmers over climate change targets, Zeldin wrote:
New York’s lofty climate goals are little more than political posturing and an embrace of a “rules for thee, but not for me” mindset. Our leaders must make serious course corrections focused on achievable targets, a sincere commitment to sustainable energy practices, and an all-of-the-above approach that strengthens our workers and gives our job creators the best opportunity to succeed.
The New York Times stresses that the EPA is a priority target for the Trump administration.
Perhaps more than many other federal agencies, the E.P.A. has been a particular target for Mr. Trump, who blames environmental regulations for hampering a variety of industries, including construction and oil and gas drilling. During his first term, Mr. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. President Biden restored many of them and strengthened several.
….Michael McKenna, who worked in the first Trump administration on energy issues, said that as two New Yorkers, Mr. Trump and Mr. Zeldin “speak the same language.” He also said Mr. Zeldin’s experience as an Army reservist would make him adept at navigating bureaucracies.
“Lee Zeldin is a great pick,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff at the E.P.A. under the first Trump administration. She wrote a section on the E.P.A. for Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for re-engineering the federal government. In it, she recommends slashing the E.P.A.’s budget, ousting career staff, eliminating scientific advisers that review the agency’s work and closing programs that focus on minority communities with heavily polluted air and water.
I am looking forward to a balanced approach to environmental protection, including protecting the American people’s livelihoods and freedoms.
I also can’t wait for the program rollbacks to begin! It will be Christmas II, starting January 20, 2025.
Christmas II will be January 20, 2025! pic.twitter.com/QOrrMQIAOz
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) November 12, 2024
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Comments
a common sense policy for the EPA
finish destructuring it by 25 February ’25
by Congressional vote, not by EO
along with the Dept of Education
It doesn’t take a lot of smarts to realize Nut Zero will not work. We have two experiments in Europe going on right now that shows how destructive Nut Zero is: they are the UK and Germany. Germany has decommissioned all of its nuclear plants and the UK may have one plant left.. Both have invested heavily in wind and solar, but have also have had to invest in a parallel backup gas fired plants for when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine (which is happening right now in western Europe). The consequence has been very high electric prices and deindustrialization in both countries. All this in an effort to reduce fossil fuel usage because of CO2. Yet there is precious little evidence that CO2 in nature (outside the lab) has much of an effect on climate or more properly on global warming. (Yes, I know that CO2 is somewhat correlated with the current warming, but that does not make it causative.) Also, the amount of warming expected is at best several degrees, to which I say, so what. I wouldn’t mind warmer winters with little or no snow, after all shoveling snow is a killer. For those worried about sea level rises, whose increases seem unaffected by recent warming, adaptation through better levees would be in order. Finally, Nut Zero will impoverish us all and will raise mortality rates because it will reduce farm output and increase transportation costs to the point that we’ll have to be growing food in our backyards. So, knowing all this doesn’t require deep scientific knowledge to realize that phasing out fossil fuels by restricting drilling and fraking is counterproductive and that any such restrictions should be terminated.
I have always supported the protection of our environment but only to a sane extent. To not dump manufacturing waste into our air or waters is a sensible approach, unlike the culling of our cattle industry due to cow farts. The part that worries me is the fact that now that environmental issues is strictly a political stunt, how can an industry trust their investments won’t be curtailed by the next administration — they can’t!
Agreed. Common sense has long been missing in our environmental policies. Mr. Zeldin will do us a service if he returns the EPA to that standard, manages to institutionalize it, and persuades the EPA to do more environmental protection by being less intrusive.
I’m very encouraged by the plethora of appointee announcements coming out from Trump and his team. I recall at least one (D) president elect who was so slow off the mark that jokes were made about it, as it was so slow a reveal at the rate it was coming out they’d be several years into the admin before the last one could even be scheduled for a hearing.
I want those poisonous windmills out of my ocean save our seas.com
We can start burning fossil fuel again by throwing Nancy Pelosi and Bernie Sanders on a pyre.
If late, these “close” races are usually an indicia of election fraud. Perhaps Zeldin’s governor’s race was such.
Shut it down!
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