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In his first term as president, Donald Trump picked to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a virulent anti-EPA figure, Scott Pruitt. As the International Bar Association said back then, Pruit had been “the scourge of the EPA as attorney general of Oklahoma…abolished his office’s environmental unit” and, on a national level “sued the EPA 14 times.”
Moreover, the association which describes itself as the “foremost organization for international legal practitioners, bar associations and law societies,” added: “As a candidate for Oklahoma AG…Pruitt was bankrolled by the fossil fuel and power sectors, and by the Koch family of energy billionaires.”
Succeeding Pruitt as EPA administrator under Trump was Andrew Wheeler, whose background was as a lobbyist for major coal, chemical and uranium companies.
EPA standards were eliminated wholesale under Pruitt and Wheeler.
Now in his second term, Trump has appointed Lee Zeldin, a former congressman from Long Island, as EPA administrator. More of the same is happening—and worse is anticipated, especially regarding climate change.
Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club—which notes that it is “the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States” with 3.8 million members —reported last week that Zeldin “is ready to lead” a “far more radical retreat on climate change” than made in Donald Trump’s first term as president.
And other environmental and health necessities are also threatened.
The Sierra piece said the EPA, “the federal watchdog tasked with safeguarding the environment and human health is facing ‘unprecedented’ attacks under the new Trump administration, putting Americans’ ability to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and healthy lives at risk, experts say.”
“These attacks,” it continued, “from mass terminations of employees to axing programs and funding intended to address pollution and advance clean energy, are part of a sweeping effort….At the EPA, there has been an exodus of employees, a freeze on funding disbursement—including funds already authorized by Congress—as well as a dismissal of scientific advisory boards and a removal of climate change references from the agency’s website. Trump is installing industry lobbyists in key leadership posts, while his pick to head the agency—former New York Republican Congress member Lee Zeldin—has announced a set of five pillars to guide the EPA’s work, most of which deviate from the agency’s core mission to protect human health and the environment.”
The daily newspaper on Long Island, N.Y.—Zeldin is from the hamlet of Shirley on Long Island—covered its front page last week with the headline: “Zeldin’s Push to Shrink EPA.”
The two-page article by Tom Brune began: “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has begun to do what President Donald Trump wanted to do in his first term but couldn’t: Shrink the Environmental Protection Agency and cut its regulations on energy and business.”
It noted that in the previous week “Zeldin announced he would seek to slash EPA spending by 65%, twice the 31% proposed by Trump in his first term, and…recommended the repeal of a 2009 landmark EPA finding that greenhouse gasses endanger the public health and welfare.”
This move to undo what is called the “endangerment finding” was also focused upon in a New Yorker magazine article by Bill McKibben, a leader in challenging climate change. He wrote “the reversal of the long-standing federal position” as Zeldin “recommended….would be truly and deeply disgraceful—not just climate denial but basic-science denial…true ‘1984’ stuff…equivalent of ‘War is peace’ and ‘Freedom is slavery.’” It would be “an explicit repudiation” of the understanding of “the role of carbon in our atmosphere.”
The publication Inside Climate News said that Zeldin “recommended to the White House that the agency [EPA] should rescind its 16-year-old finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and the environment…the foundation of all EPA’s actions on climate change under the Clean Air Act.” This, if done, would eliminate “the agency’s mandate to regulate carbon pollution from power plants, vehicles, landfills and oil and gas infrastructure.”
This article by Marianne Lavelle said: “Scientists and environmentalists say the effort to revoke the endangerment finding flies in the face of reality in the wake of 2024, the hottest year on record,” happening as related “disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion hit the United States.”
The Newsday article concluded with comments by two Long Island figures—Congressman Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, and Adriene Esposito, executive director of the group Citizens Campaign for the Environment—both of them having said they were hopeful when Zeldin was nominated by Trump. Suozzi now says: “Gutting the EPA won’t save money, it will cost Americans their health, safety, clean air, clean water and the future of their children.” And Esposito was quoted as saying: “If the promise by the president and Lee Zeldin was to fight for clean air and safe water, this is really a broken promise. It clearly seems that Mr. Zeldin is carrying water for the president and abandoning his own personal beliefs and his own legacy.”
Their hope for Zeldin was countered by others and also publications including the New Republic magazine which published an article headed “Trump Picks New EPA Head Guaranteed to Destroy the Environment,” its subhead, “This will be a disaster.” The piece said: “Trump opted to put his planned radical rollback of climate policy in the hands of a staunch ally.”
The headline of the New York Metropolitan Area news website Hell Gate said: “Lee
Zeldin Appointed to Oversee Climate Collapse.” The subhead: “Trump choosing a Long Island lackey as EPA administrator.”
Zeldin received a “failing” 14% score from the League of Conservation Voters on its National Environmental Scorecard for his environmental record in Congress.
The New York Times has reported that Trump nominated Zeldin to “a post that is expected to be central to Mr. Trump’s plans to dismantle climate regulations.” Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” It also has said some on the Trump transition team believed “the agency needs a wholesale makeover and are discussing moving the EPA headquarters…out of Washington.”
The Washington Post has published an article headlined, “Lee Zeldin didn’t ask to head EPA. Here’s why Trump picked him.” It told of “Zeldin’s political evolution from a moderate who occasionally collaborated with conservationists to a MAGA loyalist….Zeldin lacks extensive experience in environmental policy, and he did not seek out the position of EPA administrator, according to two people familiar with the matter….Instead, Trump called Zeldin and asked him to implement his agenda at the agency, and Zeldin agreed, the two people said. ‘The president-elect tapped someone who he believes will carry out what he wants at EPA,’ said former [upstate New York Republican] Congressman Thomas M. Reynolds, a friend of Zeldin’s, adding that ‘Lee has been a guy who Trump knows not only because he was a New York congressman, but also because he was an aggressive supporter.’ Zeldin was one of the first Republicans to endorse Trump’s candidacy in 2016, joining his impeachment defense team and supporting Trump’s efforts to deny the results of the 2020 election. During the 2024 campaign, he appeared regularly at Mar-a-Lago and stumped for the former president in battleground states.”
At the end of last week, The New York Times ran a piece about a museum devoted to the EPA “tucked away in a federal building near the White House” and headlined: “As the E.P.A. Withers, Will a Museum Follow?” The subhead: Tucked away is a tribute to the agency. For the time being, anyway.”
The article said: “With the Trump administration threatening potentially huge staff and budget cuts, the museum could soon come to serve as a testament to a hobbled diminished agency.” It noted how “Lee Zeldin, the new E.P.A. administrator, is a close ally of Mr. Trump…and has no evident experience in environmental conservation. Mr. Zeldin has canceled some $60 million in contracts tied to what a news release described as ‘wasteful D.E.I. and environmental justice initiatives,’ using an abbreviation for diversity, equity and inclusion.”
It reported that Zeldin has “celebrated the president’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as ‘the Gulf of America’ by promptly changing the name of the E.P.A.’s division focused on that region.”
“Mr. Zeldin,” it continued, “has expressed eagerness to work with Mr. Musk, praising recent federal dismissals, and has hired industry figures, including a formaldehyde lobbyist, to the top ranks of the E.P.A.”
In the wake of the archly anti-environmental Pruitt and coal, chemical and uranium company lobbyist Wheeler, Trump has again gotten himself with Zeldin someone who “will carry out what he wants at EPA.”
The post The EPA Under Lee Zeldin appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Karl Grossman.