Zeldin Defends EPA Grant Cuts, Says Reorganization in Works (1)

EPA chief Lee Zeldin on Monday firmly defended the agency’s stance on clawing back federal grants, in spite of recent losses in federal court.

“I have a duty to make sure that we don’t light on fire billions of dollars in tax dollars,” Zeldin told reporters during a press briefing. “And I, as administrator of EPA, am not going to stand before any member of the media and get bullied into lighting billions of dollars on fire.”

Zeldin’s press briefing comes days after the US District Court for the District of Columbia found that the Environmental Protection Agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously in failing to explain why it suspended grants that green banks received from Inflation Reduction Act programs under former President Joe Biden.

But the case is still ongoing, and Zeldin said Monday he’s confident the Trump administration has the evidence to prove self-dealing, conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients, and lax oversight.

Broadly, Zeldin said too much money has been secured in the name of environmental justice, but not used on fixing environmental problems.

To illustrate, Zeldin pointed to a $50 million grant the EPA canceled to Climate Justice Alliance, which he said has advocated for a free Palestine. Climate Justice Alliance’s web page states that "[t]he path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.”

“I would argue that if you’re going to spend $50 million in the name of environmental justice, instead of spending $50 million on Climate Justice Alliance, the $50 million should get spent actually remediating environmental issues,” Zeldin said.

Those decisions aren’t driven by partisan politics, he said.

“I don’t stand here saying that I want to take a dollar from a left wing organization and give it to a right wing organization,” he said. “I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that. What I am saying is that if you’re going spend a dollar remediating environmental issues, it should go directly towards dealing with that issue.”

Zeldin also said he doesn’t think the government should strip away the tax-exempt status of environmental groups, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering.

“If you follow the rules, regardless of your entity—you could be a (c)(3), (c)(4), (c)(6)—the lesson to those particular groups is to follow those particular rules for that status and that level of incorporation,” Zeldin said.

“Where an individual group can go awry is if they register with a particular status and they do not follow the rules for having that particular status, or they just don’t follow the rules in general,” he said.

“I’m not saying that across the board, if you get some status as a climate and advocacy group, that you’re immune for this group, and that you’re entitled to do whatever you want, say whatever you want, outside the bounds of the law, outside the balance of what dictates that particular status.”

Reorganization Plans

As other Trump administration departments have launched workforce and organizational overhauls, EPA leaders are still working on their reorganization plans, Zeldin said.

Speculation ran high among staff the week of April 14 that cuts could be announced imminently. But Zeldin and his team are still speaking with political and career staff “to solicit their insight on ways that they think this agency can operate better,” he said.

Zeldin has said in the past he wants to cut the EPA’s budget by 65%. Documents reviewed by House Democrats show the agency is considering wiping out 50% to 75% of its scientific research office.

But Zeldin said his team is looking well beyond the Office of Research and Development, scrutinizing “every single office.”

“We’re just trying to get it right,” he said. “
We’re speaking to political and career staff in all of these different offices.”

He also said he doesn’t want to lose “one good employee,” and that the correct number of staff the EPA needs is “not one more or one less than what we need to fulfill our statutory obligations, to fulfill our core mission, to be able to to power the great American comeback.”

At another point in the press briefing, Zeldin said the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) isn’t involved with the EPA yet, at least in any significant way.

“We don’t have any non-EPA employees here inside of the building,” he said, referring to the agency’s headquarters. “We have a few people who have been working on a mission connected to DOGE, but they work for EPA. The decisions that are made are made by me. They make recommendations.”

He also said most of DOGE’s EPA work has been related to grants, and that he has asked for the team’s ideas on “improvements that we can make as far as use of technology to improve operations here, whether it’s overseeing grant funding, it’s public comments, or more.”

Zeldin expressed his strong support of AI, saying the EPA “should be utilizing” the technology and that he has had conversations about deploying it to review public comments, oversee grants, and reduce backlogs inside the agency’s chemicals office.