Lee Zeldin, the former Republican congressmember who leveraged his full-throated defense of President Donald Trump into a position in his inner circle and ultimately his Cabinet, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to be the 17th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency by a 56-42 vote.
Zeldin has a mandate from Trump to carry out an aggressive deregulatory agenda aimed at boosting domestic energy production and bolstering the increasingly power-hungry data center and artificial intelligence sectors.
“We must ensure we are protecting the environment while also protecting our economy,” Zeldin said at his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing.
But he arrives at a moment when lawmakers and state officials on both sides of the aisle are panicked over potential cuts to popular EPA funding programs following the Trump administration’s Monday night memo to freeze federal grant and loan spending. Among the programs the Office of Management and Budget wants reviewed are EPA’s water infrastructure revolving funds, watershed cleanup programs that Zeldin strongly supported while in Congress, and Superfund and brownfields programs.
The Trump administration rescinded the freeze memo on Wednesday afternoon, though uncertainty about federal spending still swirls around Washington.
Republicans said Zeldin will pull back Biden-era policies they opposed and refocus the agency.
“As head of the EPA, Lee will return the agency to its original mission of protecting America’s air, water, and land — without, as he puts it, ‘suffocating the economy,’” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on the floor.
Pro-biofuels Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), specifically praised Zeldin’s commitments to issue biofuels blending rules on time and expand sales of the E15 blend of ethanol year round.
Three Democrats joined all Republicans in supporting Zeldin: Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
Kelly, who previously supported Zeldin in committee, said in a brief interview on Wednesday that he was persuaded by Zeldin’s vows to uphold the law and spend appropriated money.
But most Democrats ultimately opposed Zeldin.
“I think, clearly, everybody likes clean air and clean water. My opposition to Lee Zeldin is founded on where he’s likely to be on a different issue: climate change,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top EPW Democrat, said on the floor on Wednesday.
He pointed to harm occurring now from disasters like the California wildfires and “the home insurance meltdown” in coastal areas, phenomena many scientists say have broadly been exacerbated by climate change. Whitehouse also cited Zeldin’s connections to fossil fuel interests.
“In that context, I have nothing against Lee Zeldin personally, but the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is essentially zero,” Whitehouse said.
Appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month, Zeldin positioned himself as a moderate, acknowledging the science underlying climate change and agreeing to provide aid and support to wildfire-ravaged California, a top target of Trump’s.
But he arrives at the agency with an ambitious to-do list ranging from deregulation and clawing back spending opposed by Republicans to broader administration goals such as ferreting out gender- and equity-oriented programs and workers.
“I commit to fully following the law,” Zeldin said in response to questions about spending appropriated funds and regulating pollutants, including greenhouse gases.
Zeldin also has some presidentially assigned tasks with looming deadlines.
An order signed on Trump’s first day in office directs EPA to report by Feb. 19 “on the legality and continuing applicability” of the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. Undoing that finding would undermine the legal footing of many key EPA climate regulations. But the strong scientific case for how greenhouse gases cause climate change and the increasing certainty about its future effects could make defending such a decision in court extremely difficult.
Zeldin also has until March 21 to issue guidance pulling back on the social cost of carbon, the metric used to estimate the future benefits of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Trump’s order directed EPA to consider eliminating the social cost altogether, a step beyond Trump’s first term when his administration greatly reduced its value but still used it to study rulemakings.
Several of Zeldin’s longtime aides have already landed at the agency.
Eric Amidon, Zeldin’s chief of staff on the Hill and later his gubernatorial campaign manager, is serving as his chief of staff once again. His spokesperson Daniel Gall has landed in the public affairs office, while his former legislative assistant Jaide Barja works on congressional relations.
Trump has already announced plans to nominate David Fotouhi to be Zeldin’s deputy administrator. Currently a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Fotouhi served in the Office of General Counsel during Trump’s first term, eventually rising to be EPA’s acting general counsel.
Trump is also expected to nominate Aaron Szabo, another attorney and veteran of the first Trump administration, to run EPA’s air office. That nomination has not yet been announced.
Zeldin is the seventh member of Trump’s Cabinet to be confirmed this term, with Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright lined up for votes in the coming days.
Annie Snider and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
