Trump’s EPA pick may be a nail in the coffin of federal climate alarmism
President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday that he will appoint former New York Rep. Lee Zeldin (R) to run the Environmental Protection Agency. With Zeldin at the helm, the EPA will likely drop its climate alarmist outlook, maintain meaningful environmental standards, and get out of the way of American innovation.
“Lee, with a very strong legal background, has been a true fighter for America First policies,” Trump
said in a statement. “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 noted further that Zeldin 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, who came within seven points of winning the 2022 New York gubernatorial race,
noted, “It is 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.”
‘This administration is leaving a truly unprecedented legacy.’
As EPA administrator, Zeldin will be positioned to help execute Trump’s Agenda47, which
calls for the end to “all Joe Biden policies that distort energy markets, limit consumer choice, and drive up costs on consumers, including insane wind subsidies, and DoE and EPA regulations that prevent Americans from buying incandescent lightbulbs, gas stoves, quality dishwashers and shower heads, and much more.”
Trump has vowed to work to ensure America has the lowest energy cost of any industrial nation, to terminate President Joe Biden’s electric vehicle mandate, and to resume focusing on concrete environmental issues as opposed to the abstract threat of anthropogenic climate change.
Zeldin has a record to beat: In Trump’s first term, the Republican administration axed nearly 100 regulations, primarily at the EPA, and dropped climate alarmism like a bad habit, going so far as to scrap the agency’s web page on climate change — enraging climate activists and other leftists.
“This is a very aggressive attempt to rewrite our laws and reinterpret the meaning of environmental protections,” Hana Vizcarra, a staff attorney at Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program,
told the New York times after Trump’s first term. “This administration is leaving a truly unprecedented legacy.”
Zeldin, poised to help Trump undo another Democratic administration’s handiwork,
told Fox News Monday, “One of the biggest issues for so many Americans was the economy, and the president was talking about unleashing economic prosperity. Through the EPA, we have the ability to pursue energy dominance, to be able to make the United States the artificial intelligence capital of the world, to bring back American jobs to the auto industry, and so much more.”
Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, the activist outfit that
launched over 300 lawsuits against the first Trump administration in hopes of preventing it from executing the people’s will, said in a statement Monday, “Naming an unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters.”
Jealous and other alarmists tend to gloss over the former congressman’s long-standing support for various conservation efforts.
Politico
noted that Zeldin has supported geographical watershed programs, including cleanup in the Great Lakes, as well as clamping down on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals.” Zeldin also co-sponsored the Carbon Capture Improvement Act to advance carbon capture technology.
Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team in 2016,
told E&ENews, “I think he has all the ability and political savvy to be a great deregulator.”
“I think he’s capable of mastering the technical side of it, but he also will be a great advocate in public for what they’re trying to do,” added Ebell.
Former Trump EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler congratulated Zeldin,
suggesting, “He will do a great job tackling the regulatory overreach while protecting our air and water.”
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)
tweeted, “Lee Zeldin is a swamp drainer! Perfect choice for EPA.”
In the first 100 days, Zeldin
indicated the EPA will “advance America First policies” and roll back “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.”
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