The Environment is an Afterthought for Trump's EPA Head

Lee Zeldin prioritized energy, cars, and AI over the environment in statement accepting role as EPA Administrator

Trump has named former congressman Lee Zeldin as his choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. A NY Post article broke the news, and a short appearance on Fox was paired with the announcement. Details on what Zeldin plans for the agency are sparse, but he had this to say when accepting the position:

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.

While most of the above is boilerplate political rah-rah’ing, save for the somewhat odd inclusion of AI, it is striking that Zeldin focused his statement accepting to lead the Environmental Protection Agency on everything but the environment and its protection.

The rest of his statement went on to say: “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.”

So, we get some inclusion of the environment and ostensibly protecting it, but even here the central focus still avoids the protecting. This reads as a viewing of the environment as a headachey, secondary concern; “yeah, yeah, we’ll keep water clean, but more importantly let’s get this Trump agenda GOING!”

Energy dominance, domestic auto jobs, AI(?), and red tape-slashing all take precedence over environmental concerns in Zeldin’s statement, and it concerns me that this may betray what will take precedent under his leadership.

In Zeldin’s political past, he has taken action to protect local, New York environments, specifically around fish and water, and the NY Post claims that “he’s likely to be greeted with less horror by Democrats than some other potential nominees for the post,” which, haha, is a fair use of the word “horror.”

Trump’s previous EPA heads were Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler. Scott Pruitt had sued the EPA numerous times before becoming its Administrator, and he resigned admist a thunderstorm of scandals and congressional investigations. Andrew Wheeler was a former coal lobbyist who mainly tried to rollback Obama-era safegaurds. Both did little to strengthen environmental protections and at many times weakened them.

So, yes, if Zeldin seems bad but not actively denying climate change-bad, then he would be not the worst possible outcome. But “not the worst” is still terrible if it means no progress on climate regulations or carbon emissions. We should be actively moving to reduce climate change-causing emissions, and the seeming landscape for action under Zeldin currently looks like it ranges from do nothing (likely) to increase emissions/loosen protections (less likely than Pruitt/Wheeler). The range of options leave out actual, positive change.

If this ends up being the case, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise given that the head of the entire administration is still calling climate change a hoax and saying that the sea level is rising drastically slower than it actually is (and then saying that such sea level rise will “make more beachfront property;” it won’t, it will destroy our beaches and coasts, along with their aqueous ecosystems).

Zeldin could surprise me, but his first step out the gate marks his priorities as political goals unrelated to the environment (goals that have also been largely achieved under Biden already). I want more environment-focus out of my head of environment protection, personally.