EPA’s Zeldin Defends Deep Cuts in State Program Funds at Hearing

The EPA’s proposed $1 billion cut in state funding aligns with what agency leaders are hearing from the states themselves, the department’s head said in a Thursday congressional hearing.

“At the moment, we don’t have any requests to give back primacy, and we’re not anticipating them at this particular moment,” Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin told lawmakers. “Right now, the momentum is for states to grab more primacy, not less.”

Shortly after the hearing, the EPA announced a proposal to approve Arizona’s primacy application to oversee underground injection wells. The agency started the process to approve North Dakota’s coal ash program earlier in the week.

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request would wipe out 16 state funding programs, known as categorical grants. They have “become a crutch for states at the expense of taxpayers—many of whom receive no benefit from these grants,” according to the budget document.

The Trump administration has said state and local governments should fund their own programs to comply with the law. During his time at EPA, Zeldin has advocateda shift to “cooperative federalism,” an effort to move more authority and responsibility from the federal government to states.

To Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)—top Democrat on the House Appropriations Interior and Environment Subcommittee—the proposed cut is a dangerous sign that puts state-led work at peril.

States carry out more than 90% of the nation’s federal environmental programs because the EPA can’t handle all the work on its own, Pingree said. If the EPA eliminates categorical grants, states would have to push those responsibilities back to the federal government, she said.

The Environmental Council of the States made the same point in a March letter to Congress, saying appropriators “must provide funding leadership” for the cooperative federalism model to work.

Environmental Justice Grants

At another point in the hearing, Zeldin said at least some environmental justice grants canceled by the Trump EPA were nixed because they had been built into programs that no longer exist, but they could be revived upon further review.

“That’s something that we’re going to be able to work together on,” Zeldin told the lawmakers.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) suggested that some grants had been cut just because the phrase “‘environmental justice’ is in something.”

That echoed a question the previous day from Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who asked Zeldin whether the EPA had cut off funding based on word searches that included the term “biodiversity,” in response to a Trump executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Zeldin told Baldwin he wasn’t sure and “would have to check with the team.”

Broadly, Zeldin told the House lawmakers that if they want the EPA to apportion money to specific projects, Congress should explicitly say so. Otherwise, he said, the agency must focus on its statutory obligations, many of which it has fallen behind on.

That didn’t satisfy Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.), who repeatedly asked why the EPA had canceled a diesel emissions reduction grant program that he said has returned $30 in benefits for every $1 spent.

“I’m not sure I really heard a justification for eliminating this program in all of those words,” Harder said after the agency head explained his focus on fulfilling the EPA’s statutory obligations. “This is an absolute no-brainer.”

Zeldin also said a recent EPA reorganization—which in part creates a new office inside the Office of Air and Radiation that will work on state partnerships—will help the agency address the threats of climate change.

“It’s important that the state has the flexibility to work directly on these issues, because the states also want clean air, land, and water,” he said. “And we don’t want to have a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Pingree said that although Zeldin said during his confirmation hearing that he would take the threat of climate change seriously, he has repeatedly shown he doesn’t.

To illustrate, she noted that the EPA under Zeldin’s leadership is reconsidering the 2009 endangerment finding, has “given free passes to polluters,” and has shut down many agency offices that work on the issue.

Trump’s budget request calls for a 54.5% overall reduction to EPA funding, which would be its lowest level since 1986. Even Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), the subcommittee’s chair, said that much of a reduction “may be a bridge too far,” and sought Zeldin’s commitment that if Congress provides discretionary appropriations, the EPA will spend it.

The Thursday hearing was the second straight day Zeldin defended the EPA’s budget request before congressional lawmakers. On Wednesday, he told Senate appropriators the agency will likely end up restoring some canceled grants after they have been reviewed closely.