Senate confirms Lee Zeldin to lead EPA
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Zeldin at his confirmation hearing. Photo: Chen Mengtong/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images
The Senate on Wednesday confirmed former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin to be EPA administrator along mostly partisan lines.
Why it matters: Zeldin, with little experience in environmental policymaking, will spearhead the Trump administration's push to reverse former President Biden's climate regulations.
- President Trump and congressional Republicans have promised to roll back a long list of EPA rules on fossil fuel plants, auto emissions and its $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction fund.
Driving the news: Zeldin cleared the Senate in a 56 to 42 vote, with three Democrats backing him.
- He won support from both Arizona Democrats after promising Sen. Mark Kelly he would work on a Maricopa County air quality issue that has slowed semiconductor and battery manufacturing in the area.
- Zeldin previously advanced out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by an 11-8 vote.
- EPW Chair Shelley Moore Capito said Zeldin "has shown that he understands the importance of striking the right balance to improve the lives of Americans across the country and to protect the environment."
Between the lines: During his confirmation hearing, Zeldin stressed the need to have EPA more closely adhere to recent conservative Supreme Court rulings.
- He said he would "honor" the court's Loper Bright decision putting fresh limitations on Congress' ability to delegate powers to agencies.
- He said he wanted to ensure "that it is in fact Congress' intent that is being implemented and that it is not us as an agency filling in any gaps however we might see fit."
- Zeldin suggested the Biden administration bungled the response to the Supreme Court's "clear and prescriptive" 2023 Sackett decision that reduced the Clean Water Act's scope.
The big picture: Zeldin sought to portray his record as bipartisan, touting his work with Democrats on PFAS chemicals, ocean cleanup, and the Great American Outdoors Act as well as his membership in the Climate Solutions Caucus while in the House.
- But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, EPW's ranking Democrat, said he would be too beholden to Trump.
- Trump is "under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry, and against that will stand the EPA administrator, who has to be truthful, and factual, and support and defend our environment and our safety from climate change," Whitehouse said in a floor speech.
- The likelihood of Zeldin "standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is essentially zero," he said.
- Zeldin told senators he believes climate change is real, but added that Trump is worried about "economic costs" of policies that have been enacted because of it.
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Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional reporting.
