Listen to this articleLee Zeldin, the former Long Island congressman, has been tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin, a Republican, had left Congress in 2023, after challenging Kathy Hochul in a bid for governor of New York State in 2022.
In a statement, Trump said Zeldin would “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses,” and that Zeldin would hold “the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”
In a Tweet, Zeldin said that it is “an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator. We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
In public appearances, Zeldin has supported Trump. He voted against certifying the 2020 election results.
While in Congress, he did not serve on committees with oversight of environmental policy and had a lifetime score of 14% from the League of Conservation Voters during his eight years in Congress.
During his 2022 run for governor, Zeldin pledged to reverse a fracking ban imposed by Democrats.
In 2016 Zeldin pushed to change the designation of about 150 square miles of federal waters in Long Island Sound to state jurisdiction for New York and Rhode Island. He wanted to open the area to striped bass fishing.
Zeldin said at the time that he wanted to restore local control and common sense to fishery management. He later pushed to allow striped bass fishing in an amendment to a federal spending bill. Environmental groups criticized the amendment, which they said risked overfishing in the area.
Yet on the pages of LIBN, Zeldin has championed projects protecting Long Island’s coastal communities and wetland areas to reduce storm damage and safeguard infrastructure. In 2016, Zeldin was part of a bipartisan effort that called on the EPA to reject a proposal to designate a disposal site for dredged materials, from harbors and navigation channels, in the eastern region of the Long Island Sound.
On Monday, New York Republican chair Ed Cox said Zeldin’s appointment was “a testament to President Trump’s commitment to revitalizing the original mission of the EPA — an agency created … under President Richard Nixon to protect our nation’s environment.”
After the announcement of Trump’s selection, Zeldin said, in an interview on Fox News Monday, that he was eager to implement Trump’s economic agenda. “I think the American people are so hungry for it. It’s one of the big reasons why they’re sending him back to the White House,” Zeldin said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.