Mr. Zeldin, though, speaks more about supporting industry and exporting fossil fuels than about protecting the environment.<\/p>\n
A New York Times analysis of thousands of public communications by E.P.A. administrators, including news releases, social media posts, television appearances and podcast interviews dating back three decades, shows that Mr. Zeldin has fundamentally shifted both the agency\u2019s mission and the words he uses to describe it to reflect President Trump\u2019s desire to maximize economic development and industrial activity while downplaying environmental consequences.<\/p>\n
Lee Zeldin\u2019s E.P.A. has a language of its own <\/p>\n
How often E.P.A. news releases mentioned these phrases in each presidential administration<\/p>\n
If language is a window into policy priorities, Mr. Zeldin\u2019s words speak loudly.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zeldin is a champion of deregulation, and the agency now repeatedly mentions the need to cut red tape. He regularly notes the E.P.A.\u2019s core responsibility to ensure clean air and clean water, but he talks about safeguarding the environment less frequently than his predecessors.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zeldin is the first agency head to talk about the economy more than pollution and American energy more than public health. He rarely mentions protecting children from environmental harms but talks frequently about protecting businesses and consumers from regulations. <\/p>\n
More than any administrator since 1994, Mr. Zelin talks about fossil fuels in a positive light, routinely expounding upon \u201cclean, beautiful coal,\u201d a phrase that Mr. Trump has ordered officials<\/a> to use.<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin is under consideration as the next U.S. attorney general, and the president has called Mr. Zeldin \u201cour secret weapon,\u201d whom he counts on to get permits approved speedily.<\/p>\n Carolyn Holran, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said in a statement that Mr. Zeldin talks frequently about the environmental actions he has undertaken and that the E.P.A. recently released a list of 500 of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are delivering results, ensuring America has the cleanest air, land, and water in the world while simultaneously helping to grow the economy,\u201d Ms. Holran said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe core mission of the EPA is protecting human health and the environment, and we are doing exactly that, without burdening American families and businesses with unnecessary regulatory costs that harm affordability,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n But critics, including former Republican E.P.A. administrators, said Mr. Zeldin is turning the agency into one they no longer recognize, prioritizing industry at the expense of public health and community safety.<\/p>\n \u201cIt would be nice to hear him talk about health and the environment,\u201d said William K. Reilly, who served as administrator of the E.P.A. under the first President George Bush.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the language is a giveaway,\u201d Mr. Reilly said. \u201cThe Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are his charters, and they should provide the vocabulary that animates him. But they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Throttling the oil and gas industry\u2019<\/p>\n Within hours of his Senate confirmation last year, Mr. Zeldin wrote on social media<\/a> that he aimed to help \u201cMake America Prosperous Again.\u201d He laid out an agenda<\/a> to \u201cunleash energy dominance, bring back American auto jobs, pursue permitting reform and make America the AI capital of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n He soon announced the \u201cgreatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history,\u201d a plan to repeal or weaken some two dozen environmental protections, most implemented under the Biden administration. The policies, he said, were \u201cthrottling the oil and gas industry\u201d or had \u201cshut down opportunities for American manufacturing.\u201d<\/p>\n Zeldin\u2019s words <\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump E.P.A. has finalized the single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMore deregulation than entire federal governments, across all agencies, across entire presidencies, just at the E.P.A.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m pleased to make the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201c\u2026not have E.P.A. regulations preventing you from protecting your people\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n EPA\/YouTube<\/p>\n March 12, 2025<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin\u2019s actions have matched his rhetoric: Over the past 14 months, Mr. Zeldin has overseen a systematic unraveling of climate change protections. He has enabled coal plants, steel mills, chemical facilities and mines to bypass environmental rules<\/a> by sending an email requesting an exemption. And he blocked the agency from calculating the value of saving lives<\/a> when calculating the costs of setting new pollution limits.<\/p>\n The overwhelmingly economic terms he has used to discuss the agency\u2019s mission are not how the Republican officials who created the E.P.A. envisioned its work.<\/p>\n President Richard M. Nixon established the E.P.A. in 1970 in response to public outrage over catastrophic oil spills, deadly air pollution and industrial waste setting rivers aflame. Its first administrator said<\/a> that the agency would have \u201cno obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin\u2019s E.P.A. has mentioned cutting \u201cred tape\u201d 199 times more often than that of his Democratic predecessor, Michael S. Regan, and 38 times more often than Mr. Trump\u2019s first E.P.A. chief, Scott Pruitt. E.P.A. news releases invoked the phrase when Mr. Zeldin vowed to make it easier to build data centers; proposed to stop requiring major industrial sites to report greenhouse gas emissions; and eliminated permitting requirements for incineration of woody debris, which he said could help prevent wildfires.<\/p>\n The E.P.A. under Mr. Zeldin also mentions the automobile industry more frequently than any of its predecessors since the 1990s. Mr. Zeldin has argued that deregulation will create auto jobs, and the agency has eliminated greenhouse gas emissions standards for vehicles. That repeal is projected to save automakers $54 billion<\/a>, but the industry has lost jobs<\/a> since Mr. Trump took office.<\/p>\n Ms. Holran, the E.P.A. spokeswoman, said Mr. Zeldin discusses the industry frequently because \u201cit is one of the most consequential sectors for both the American economy and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin\u2019s supporters said the economy should be a top priority for every cabinet secretary.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s almost this insinuation that if he\u2019s not talking about regulating the environment that he must hate the environment, but those are not binary,\u201d said Drew Bond, the co-founder of C3 Solutions, a conservative-leaning clean energy think tank.<\/p>\n \u201cI know the environmental left doesn\u2019t like him, but I just keep coming back to the fact that we can\u2019t build stuff in the United States, so the more we can get red tape and regulations out of the way, we can build faster and we\u2019re going to build cleaner,\u201d Mr. Bond said.<\/p>\n \u2018Unleashing American energy\u2019<\/p>\n Previous E.P.A. administrators have championed energy efficiency as a way to reduce pollution while saving money. Mr. Zeldin is more likely to skip calls for efficiency and promote fossil fuels, encapsulated in Mr. Trump\u2019s favorite phrase: \u201cenergy dominance.\u201d<\/p>\n Zeldin\u2019s words <\/p>\n \u201cThe E.P.A. under President Trump is part of the president\u2019s National Energy Dominance Council.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe have to unleash energy dominance in this country.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201c\u2026we\u2019ll help unleash energy dominance\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n \u201c\u2026helping to unleash energy dominance\u2026\u201d <\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin casts many of E.P.A.\u2019s policies in terms of furthering that goal.<\/p>\n The E.P.A. has delayed standards that aimed to limit leaching of heavy metals like arsenic, lead and mercury into water supplies from coal-ash dump sites; proposed ending greenhouse gas limits on coal and gas-fired power plants; and loosened Biden-era methane standards that he claimed were designed \u201cto regulate the oil and gas industry out of existence.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin described those actions as an effort to \u201cunleash American energy\u201d and maintained they didn\u2019t clash with the E.P.A.\u2019s mission of protecting the environment.<\/p>\n \u201cThe war on beautiful clean coal is OVER!,\u201d Mr. Zeldin wrote on X last year<\/a>. \u201cNo longer will the U.S. be trying to regulate coal out of existence. This moment calls for more U.S. energy more jobs and less cost and we are so ready to meet this moment!\u201d<\/p>\n He has criticized renewable energy as insufficient to meet the intense appetite of artificial intelligence data centers.<\/p>\n \u201cNatural gas nuclear coal etc. can\u2019t be held back shouldn\u2019t be held back and at the Trump EPA WON\u2019T BE HELD BACK!,\u201d Mr. Zeldin wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Visiting Japan last month, Mr. Zeldin declared the United States was eager to ink natural gas export deals with Indo-Pacific nations. A few weeks later at an energy conference in Houston, he noted that Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz would likely increase the desire in Asia for U.S. gas.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what the secretary of Energy is doing, but most of these things are just way outside the E.P.A. administrator\u2019s job description,\u201d said Christine Todd Whitman, the Republican former governor of New Jersey who led the E.P.A. under President George W. Bush.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just staggering how far outside the parameters of what the agency is about he has taken it,\u201d Ms. Whitman said. \u201cHe is completely undoing the mission of the E.P.A.\u201d<\/p>\n Local Pollution over Climate<\/p>\n Republicans and Democrats have always spoken differently about the job of environmental protection.<\/p>\n While the E.P.A. enjoyed bipartisan support after its creation, that began to fracture under President Ronald Regan, who campaigned against government overreach. His first administrator, Anne B. Gorsuch, rolled back several clean air and water protections. Deregulatory sentiment among Republicans was even higher in Mr. Trump\u2019s first term, when he put Scott Pruitt, a fierce critic of the E.P.A.\u2019s work, in charge of it.<\/p>\n Democrats later came to view the E.P.A. as the primary agency for fighting the growing threat of climate change. With no specific laws from Congress to curb greenhouse gases, both the Obama and Biden administrations interpreted the Clean Air Act of 1970 in ways that allowed the E.P.A. to regulate, with increasing aggressiveness, planet-warming pollution from automobile tailpipes and power plant smokestacks.<\/p>\n Emissions from burning fossil fuels are the leading driver of climate change, which scientists say is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme heatwaves and heavy precipitation, melting the world\u2019s glaciers and ice sheets, and heightening the risk of severe wildfires. Republicans and industry leaders, however, have claimed that climate rules stifle the economy. Mr. Trump, who calls climate change a \u201choax,\u201d campaigned on ending them.<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin rarely mentions climate change, other than to criticize<\/a> climate \u201czealots\u201d and to boast of repealing greenhouse gas regulations, as well as E.P.A.\u2019s authority to fight global warming<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Zeldin has taken specific steps to safeguard air and water. This month he announced that the agency would curb microplastics and pharmaceuticals<\/a> in drinking water for millions of Americans. He signed an agreement with Mexico<\/a> to address a sewage crisis in the Tijuana River and led a 28-day cleanup of hazardous material last year after wildfires tore through Los Angeles. His list of 500 \u201cenvironmental wins\u201d<\/a> includes removing contamination at industrial sites in Maine, Boston and Florida.<\/p>\n In interviews, Mr. Zeldin tends to focus on local environmental remediation. Speaking in March with John Solomon, a conservative podcaster who called the Trump administration\u2019s climate repeals \u201clegendary,\u201d Mr. Zeldin described the E.P.A.\u2019s efforts to help repair a sewage line that collapsed, sending raw waste flowing into the Potomac River in Maryland.<\/p>\n He said the Trump administration just wants to get back to basics. And, he said, that includes easing commerce.<\/p>\n \u201cFor us here at E.P.A., it\u2019s protecting human health and the environment, which we know we could do while also growing the economy,\u201d Mr. Zeldin said.<\/p>\n Teresa Mondr\u00eda Terol contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lee Zeldin does not speak like any other Environmental Protection Agency administrator in recent history. The job of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":724663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[227496,34403,746,41834,16478,260180,2128,16857,159,67,132,68,36209],"class_list":["post-724662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-energy-and-power","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-environment","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-global-warming","tag-lee-m","tag-pollution","tag-regulation-and-deregulation-of-industry","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-zeldin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116396674997877361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/reg_cspan_endangerment_square-640w.jpg\")
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