Senate Confirms Lee Zeldin to Become Next EPA Administrator

The Senate on Wednesday confirmed President Donald Trump‘s nominee to lead the EPA, Lee Zeldin, who will play a key role in the administration’s efforts to boost energy production.

Zeldin takes over an agency charged with revamping various air and water regulations, rethinking the Environmental Protection Agency’s endangerment finding that authorized action on climate change, and reviewing or even withholding agency grant money.

The Senate voted 56-42 mostly along party lines to confirm Zeldin.

“As head of the EPA, Lee [Zeldin] 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 Senate floor Wednesday.

Zeldin will also have to manage an often rocky relationship with a workforce of nearly 16,000 scientists, lawyers, regulators, and enforcement officials that broadly resists much of the Trump agenda. EPA employees have been ordered to return to the office by Feb. 24, and the agency’s Office of Inclusive Excellence, which was focused on equitable outcomes and inclusion, has been disbanded.

One immediate task for Zeldin will be to consider getting rid of the social cost of carbon, a well-established metric used to calculate the costs and benefits of regulations and other agency actions, but one that has also been used to write tough rules clamping down on emissions. Zeldin has until late March to make a call, under a Jan. 20 executive order.

A separate order will require Zeldin to rethink the way the EPA approaches environmental justice. The Trump directive undoes a Clinton-era order that compelled the entire federal government to consider the effects on minority and low-income populations. President Joe Biden went a step further, setting a goal that 40% of the benefits of many federal investments should be steered toward disadvantaged communities.

Many Democrats and environmentalists criticized Zeldin’s voting record and public statements.

He was opposed on the floor by Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who spoke earlier in the day about his concerns over climate change.

“We need an EPA administrator who will take climate change seriously, treat the science honestly, and stand up where necessary to the political pressure that will be coming from the White House, where we have a president who actually thinks it’s a hoax,” Whitehouse said on the Senate floor.

“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.”

“Trump stated that Lee Zeldin would maintain the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet, so we’re going to hold him to that promise,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement Wednesday. “But let’s be clear-eyed that every other person Trump has already deployed to the EPA’s pesticide, water and air divisions has a long track record of putting industry profits and polluters above our health and the environment.”

Zeldin largely avoided controversy during his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, parrying questions about whether he believes in climate science, whether he has taken political contributions from the oil and gas sector, and whether he plans to slash the EPA’s workforce.

In response, Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in a statement that he “appreciated” Zeldin’s commitment to tackle climate change, ensure clean air and water, and improve public health.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she believes Zeldin “understands the importance of striking the right balance to improve the lives of Americans across the country and to protect the environment, while also uplifting communities and cities across the nation.”