Lee Zeldin’s nomination to head the EPA came up on January 29. There was some chitter chatter that Zeldin wasn’t really that extreme. Having lived in Suffolk County for 4 years and subsequently followed his career closely, I knew what claptrap that was. None-the-less, 3 right-of-center Democrats, John Fetterman (PA), Mark Kelly (AZ) and Ruben Gallego (AZ), joined every Republican in supporting him. If any of them happens to be one of your senators and has a town hall, feel free to ask him if he’s ready to take credit for Zeldin’s accomplishments.
“In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday,” reported Lisa Friedman and Hiroko Tabuchi, “the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the EPA In a two-minute-and-18-second video posted to Twitter, Zeldin boasted about the changes and said his agency’s mission is to ‘lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business. From the campaign trail to Day 1 and beyond, President Trump has delivered on his promise to unleash energy dominance and lower the cost of living,’ Zeldin said. ‘We at EPA will do our part to power the great American comeback.’ Nowhere in the video did he refer to protecting the environment or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.”
The EPA has “no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment,” the first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, said as he explained its mission to the country weeks after the EPA was created by Nixon. He said the agency would be focused on research, standards and enforcement in five areas: air pollution, water pollution, waste disposal, radiation and pesticides.
Zeldin said the EPA would unwind more than two dozen protections against air and water pollution. It would overturn limits on soot from smokestacks that have been linked to respiratory problems in humans and premature deaths as well as restrictions on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin. It would get rid of the “good neighbor rule” that requires states to address their own pollution when it’s carried by winds into neighboring states. And it would eliminate enforcement efforts that prioritize the protection of poor and minority communities.
In addition, when the agency creates environmental policy, it would no longer consider the costs to society from wildfires, droughts, storms and other disasters that might be made worse by pollution connected to that policy, Zeldin said.
In perhaps its most consequential act, the agency said it would work to erase the EPA’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by reconsidering decades of science that show global warming is endangering humanity. In his video, Zeldin derisively referred to that legal underpinning as “the holy grail of the climate change religion.”
Zeldin called Wednesday’s actions “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.” He added, “today the green new scam ends, as the EPA does its part to usher in a golden age of American success.”
…Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, campaigned on a promise to “drill, baby, drill” and ease regulations on fossil fuel companies. Since returning to the White House, he has degraded the government’s capacity to fight global warming by freezing funds for climate programs authorized by Congress, firing scientists working on weather and climate forecasts, and cutting federal support for the transition away from fossil fuels.
The United States is the world’s largest historic emitter of carbon dioxide, a planet-warming greenhouse gas that scientists agree is driving climate change and intensifying hurricanes, floods, wildfires and droughts, as well as species extinction. Last year was the hottest in recorded history, and the United States experienced 27 disasters that each cost at least $1 billion, compared to three in 1980, adjusted for inflation.
Democrats and environmental activists decried Zeldin’s moves and accused him of abandoning the EPA’s responsibility to protect human health and the environment.
“Today is the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, said. He called the EPA moves a series of attacks on clean air, clean water and affordable energy. “Administrator Zeldin clearly lied when he told us that he would respect the science and listen to the experts,” Whitehouse said, referring to Zeldin’s confirmation hearing.
Gina McCarthy, who served as EPA administrator in the Obama administration, said it was “the most disastrous day in EPA history. Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and well being.”
Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate change and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said repealing or weakening regulations on automobiles, power plants and more would lead to increases in asthma, heart attacks and other health problems. “At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” said Wong, whose organization successfully sued the first Trump administration repeatedly over environmental rollbacks.
… The top lobbying groups for the automobile, oil, gas and chemical industries, among others, applauded Mr. Zeldin’s plans.
Anne Bradbury, the chief executive of the American Exploration & Production Council, a lobbying group representing oil and gas companies, called the announcements “common sense.” John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, the auto lobby, said the changes would keep the industry “globally competitive.”
Marty Durbin, a senior vice president at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said, “American businesses were crippled with an unprecedented regulatory onslaught during the previous Administration that contributed to higher costs felt by families around the country.” He said “The Chamber supports a more balanced regulatory approach that will protect the environment and support greater economic growth.”
Groups that deny the established science of climate change also cheered Zeldin’s actions.
“The Biden EPA ignored the will of Congress, infringed on individual freedom, trampled on property rights and tried to force the country to use unreliable sources of electricity, such as wind and solar,” said Daren Bakst, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that promotes climate denial, in a statement.
Some of the most significant policy changes Zeldin said he planned include:
Rolling back restrictions carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Currently the EPA requires existing coal-burning power plants and new gas plants built in the United States to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 90 percent by 2039.
Rewriting tailpipe pollution standards that were designed to ensure that the majority of new passenger cars and light trucks sold in the United States are all-electric or hybrids by 2032.
Easing limits on murcury emissions from power plants, as well as restrictions on soot and haze from burning coal. A Biden-era rule had aimed to slash by 70 percent emissions from coal-burning power plants of mercury, which has been linked to developmental damage in children.
Greatly reducing the “social cost” of carbon, an economic estimate of the damage caused by each additional ton of carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere. That figure plays a significant role in weighing the costs and benefits of regulating industries.
Perhaps the most significant move, though, is an effort to revise a 2009 legal opinion known as the EPA “endangerment finding” which concluded that rising greenhouse gas emissions are a danger to public health. The finding gives the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Eliminating it would make it virtually impossible for the EPA to curb climate pollution from automobiles, factories, power plants or oil and gas wells.
Reversing the rule has long been the white whale for climate deniers. But doing so would require Trump’s EPA to make and substantiate the argument that greenhouse gas emissions pose no foreseeable threats to public health, when decades of science says otherwise.
Jonathan Adler, a conservative legal expert and professor of environmental law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said he did not believe the Trump administration would succeed. “You’ve got to explain away decades of statements by every administration that there are negative consequences of climate change that can be reasonably anticipated,” Adler said.
He called the effort to unravel the endangerment finding “a good way to waste years of time and effort and accomplish nothing.
The sheer audacity of Zeldin’s agenda— gutting the EPA’s authority, unleashing unchecked pollution, and openly celebrating the erosion of environmental protections— may thrill the fossil fuel lobby, but it’s bound to provoke a political reckoning. Voters in 2026 will be contending with the real-world consequences of these policies: dirtier air, poisoned water, and an escalating climate crisis marked by increasingly destructive wildfires, hurricanes and floods. While Republican donors may cheer, the suburban swing voters who have repeatedly decided the last several election cycles will not. They expect their children to breathe clean air and drink safe water, and they aren’t likely to forgive a party that prioritized corporate profits over their families’ health and safety.
The Republican Party has already alienated voters on abortion, gun violence, and threats to democracy. Now, with this radical dismantling of environmental protections, they are adding yet another liability to their list. In states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and even deep-red Texas— where climate disasters are no longer hypothetical— Republican senators and representatives who backed Zeldin’s confirmation will have to answer for the devastation his policies unleash. A party that scoffs at science and caters to polluters may find that short-term profits come at the cost of long-term political survival. The 2026 midterms will be a referendum not just on Zeldin’s EPA, but on the GOP’s broader embrace of corporate greed over public welfare. If Democrats effectively channel the outrage of voters sick of paying the price for Republican recklessness, they could turn this environmental disaster into an electoral one for the GOP. I can’t wait to hear how Zeldin’s successor in Suffolk County, Nick LaLota, explains this away— not to mention Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Monica De La Cruz in Texas, Rob Bresnahan, Brian Fitzpatrick, Scott Perry and Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania, David Schweikert and Juan Ciscomani in Arizona, Mike Lawler in New York, Tom Kean in New Jersey, Gabe Evans in Colorado, Tom Barrett, John James and Huizenga in Michigan, Bryan Steil and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin, Jen Kiggans and Ron Wittman in Virginia, Don Bacon in Omaha, David Valadao, Kevin Kiley, Ken Calvert and Young Kim in California, even Maria Salazar, Laurel Lee, Anna Paulina Luna, Aaron Bean, Cory Mills and Carlos Gimenez in Florida.
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