Image by Koushik Chowdavarapu.

"Without reservation," declared Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous on President-elect Trump’s nomination of Lee Zeldin to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

This nomination, Jealous said, “lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to sell out, once again, our health, our communities, our jobs and our future to polluting corporations. Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future cannot afford Lee Zeldin – or anyone else seeking to carry out a mission antithetical to that of the EPA.

In its statement, the Sierra Club noted that it “is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members.”

What Zeldin is leading the EPA about was summed up well in the first two paragraphs of the underreported article on page 14 of New York Times about November 10^th appointment. Trump, he said, “announced…that he would nominate former Rep. Lee Zeldin, Republican of New York, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a position expected to be central to plans for Mr. Trump aims to dismantle historic climate regulations.”

“Mr. Trump campaigned on promises to ‘kill’ and ‘roll back’ EPA rules and regulations aimed at combating global warming by limiting fossil fuel pollution from vehicle exhausts , power plant smokestacks, and oil and gas wells.”

There were also cheers for the nomination. “Congratulations to Rep. Zeldin on his appointment as EPA’s 17th Administrator. » said Andrew Wheeler, EPA administrator under Trump during his first term as president. Before that, he was a lobbyist for large coal, chemical and uranium companies. Walk further said on Elon Musk’s X in a quote also quoted speak National review: “I know it will do an excellent job combating regulatory excesses while protecting our air and water.”

Meanwhile, Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment based in Farmingdale, Long Island said The Long Island Daily, News day: “The good news is: he lives here. He understands that climate change is real. He understands the importance of protecting coastal waters, estuaries, the marine environment, and clean water… We hope, and need, that Lee Zeldin will bring perspective and strength to the Trump administration to do what it wants. ‘he must here and protect us.

“Trump chooses new EPA director guaranteed to destroy the environment,” headlines the newspaper. The New Republic review. The subtitle on its article: “It will be a disaster.”

“Meet the ‘Great Deregulator’ Trump Picked to Lead the EPA,” the paper headlined. EE website of Policy. “A Trump ally with a limited environmental record will have the task of undoing President Joe Biden’s climate legacy.” It is article quoted prominent climate change denier Myron Ebell, who led Trump’s EPA transition team eight years ago, as saying: “I think he (Zeldin) has all the ability and sense policy to be a great deregulator. I think he’s capable of mastering the technical side, but he’ll also be a big advocate in public for what they’re trying to do.

THE title from the New York metropolitan area news site Hell’s Gate said: “Lee

Zeldin appointed to oversee climate collapse. The caption: “Trump chooses Long Island stooge as EPA administrator.” »

As for Zeldin’s environmental file, he has a score of 14% from the League of Conservation Voters on its National Environmental Scorecard. During the years he was a member of the House of Representatives, from 2015 to 2023, the initiatives he voted against, Remarks the organization, included “the fight against price gouging by big oil companies, against the protection of drinking water and clean air, against protective measures against methane pollution”. The organization’s senior vice president for government affairs, Tiernan Sittenfeld, said after Trump announced Zeldin’s nomination: “Trump made his anti-climate and anti-environment agenda very clear during his first term and again during his 2024 campaign. During the confirmation process, We would challenge Lee Zeldin to show that he would be better than Trump’s campaign promises or his own failed 14%.”

Zeldin has been a very, very close ally of Trump over the years.

In 2021, he was among the Republican members of the House who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election as Trump insisted he won. And that includes being a leader in Trump’s defense during Trump’s early impeachment hearings.

Zeldin did not seek re-election to the House in order to run for governor against Democrat Kathy Hochul, a contest he lost. In the House he represented the eastern two-thirds of Suffolk County on Long Island. He grew up and still lives in the suburban Long Island community of Shirley. He is a lawyer.

On global warming or climate change, The New York Times the article on his appointment said that in a 2014 interview with the editorial board of News day, Zeldin “expressed doubts about the seriousness of the problem”, saying: “I am not yet convinced by the argument that we have as serious a problem as others.”

Trump has repeatedly called global warming or climate change a “hoax.”

The title on Inside climate news was: “Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick for EPA, brings a moderate face to a radical game plan. ” It is article said: “Trump has chosen to entrust his plan for a radical rollback of climate policy to a loyal ally who is good at projecting the image of a moderate conservative. The article concluded by stating that “the most telling part of Zeldin’s record is his vote against certifying the 2020 election,” and a quote from Sam Bernhardt, political director of the environmental group Food & Water Action: “He “So I think we can extrapolate that most of Lee Zeldin’s work at the EPA will also be what Trump asked him to do.”

The New York Times An article about Zeldin’s nomination said that Trump “rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations” during his first term. “President Biden has restored many and strengthened several. » Today, “Some people on Mr. Trump’s transition team say the agency needs a complete overhaul and are considering moving EPA headquarters and its 7,000 employees out of Washington. »

During his first term, Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Paris agreement on a global reduction in carbon emissions. Biden, on his first day in office as president, brought the nation back. During the 2024 campaign, Trump said he would again ask the United States to leave the Paris Agreement.

Policy reported: “The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement for a second time – but this time he may act more quickly and with less restraint. Trump’s pledge to withdraw would once again leave the United States as one of the only countries not party to the 2015 agreement, in which nearly 200 governments pledged to reduce their pollution that contributes to global warming. His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit… where the United States and other countries will discuss details related to phasing out fossil fuels and providing climate aid to the world’s most vulnerable countries. poor.”

He continues: “The absence of the United States from the agreement would force other countries to further reduce their climate pollution. But it would also raise inevitable questions from some countries about what extra efforts they would need to make as the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter departs.”

Zeldin’s nomination will need to be confirmed by the Senate.

A newspaper from Zeldin’s old House district, The East Hampton Star, published an editorial last week titled “Lee Zeldin: Long Island’s Pollution Export.” He declared: “It is hardly surprising that Donald Trump’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency is a man resolutely on the side of the polluters, a man who has called on the United States to exit the agreements Paris on the climate. Anyone who has been paying even remotely close attention might expect Mr. Trump to base his nomination on loyalty rather than environmental expertise. But the choice of Lee Zeldin, our former congressman here in the First Congressional District, still came as a horrible shock.

He continued: “Emptying the EPA is a top priority for the new administration. A key goal is to increase domestic production of fossil fuels, but climate regulations stand in the way. The first step is to undo Biden-era guardrails on power plants, oil and gas companies, and vehicles. The new president and the new head of the EPA…see green energy and environmental protection as the enemy of business development, rather than the industries of the future. This retrospective reflection is very bad news, not only for Earth but for Long Island. »

“The district that Mr. Zeldin represented for eight years, our district, is at the forefront of climate impact, vulnerable as we are to sea level rise. Long Island, with its strong population density, is also largely affected by modern environmental ills from which the government should protect its citizens, including so-called everlasting chemicals and lead. There are reasons why Long Island has such high cancer rates.

“The last Trump administration took a very hard line on the EPA. The whistleblowers were punished; scientists were encouraged to suppress findings that certain substances caused cancer or miscarriages. During Trump’s second term, we can expect this attack on science and common sense to worsen.”

“Zeldin’s elevation is, obviously, a reward for ring kissing,” the editorial said. “He was one of the first members of Congress to support Mr. Trump’s 2016 bid (for president) and he has been a loyal surrogate on Fox News. Mr. Zeldin was an election denier who rose in Congress even after the Jan. 6 insurrection to claim that “rogue election officials” had tainted the results. Mr. Zeldin excels at bootlicking.

He concluded: “In the best case scenario, the EPA would lose four years in the fight for the planet. The worst case scenario should make you shudder.