Politics
Lee Zeldin, Trump’s E.P.A. Nominee, Is Short on Environmental Experience
Of all the government agencies that President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened to shrink or eliminate, perhaps none has been a greater target than the Environmental Protection Agency.
During the first Trump administration, the nation’s top regulator of air and water pollution and industrial chemicals saw its budget slashed, leading to an exodus of employees and weakened enforcement of environmental rules.
This time, Mr. Trump could go further.
President Biden rebuilt the E.P.A. and used it to enact two powerful climate regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes and power plants. But Mr. Trump has already promised to “kill” the agency’s climate regulations, and people close to the Trump transition have recommended ousting E.P.A. career staff, eliminating its scientific advisers, and closing an office that helps minority communities that disproportionately struggle with polluted air and water. There is even discussion of moving E.P.A. headquarters and its 7,000 workers out of Washington, possibly to Texas or Florida, as a way to shed employees.
The man who would carry out the dismantling is a former congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin, who is set to appear Thursday morning before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.
The nomination of Mr. Zeldin baffled many, since he has little background in environmental regulation.
But Mr. Zeldin, 44, who ran unsuccessfully for governor of New York in 2022, is a Trump supporter who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election. Friends say he has a long and loyal connection with the president-elect.
“They have a unique bond,” said Chris Berardini, a Republican lobbyist . “Republicans in New York tend to be always close. It’s a very lonely fraternity.”
The two men have something else in common, Mr. Berardini said. Last summer, Mr. Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign event. In 2022, Mr. Zeldin was attacked by a man with a pointed weapon at a campaign event. “Those are the subtle threads that weave into a personal relationship,” Mr. Berardini said.
While Mr. Zeldin is not experienced in environmental regulation, he and his allies point to his years representing his Long Island district, which included miles of coastline and had a bipartisan tradition of environmental conservation.
At the same time, Mr. Zeldin appears to have embraced Mr. Trump’s seemingly contradictory position: he says he wants clean air and water while he plans to erase regulations that ensure both, along with limits on the emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels that are linked to stronger droughts, wildfires, floods.
Upon accepting the nomination to head the E.P.A., Mr. Zeldin wrote on X, “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 by protecting clean air and water.”
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, who chairs the environment committee, said Wednesday on Fox Business News of Mr. Zeldin that “By being the representative from New York, he’s seen all different types of clean air, clean water issues, and the best way to solve those problems.”
But Ms. Capito, whose home state is a major producer of coal and natural gas, also appears confident that Mr. Zeldin will execute Mr. Trump’s plans.
In a Facebook post last month, Ms. Capito wrote, “Congressman Zeldin understands the need to roll back regulatory overreach, unleash American energy, and allow Americans to build again — all while protecting public health and the environment. His skill set is well suited to implement the agenda of President Trump. ”
Mr. Zeldin has not said much about whether he accepts the established science of climate change but he was a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress. However, he voted against the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation’s first major climate law, which pumped at least $370 billion into clean energy programs.
When Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York criticized Mr. Zeldin, he responded on social media, saying, “I just voted NO because the bill sucks.”
During Mr. Zeldin’s tenure in the House, he voted against clean water legislation at least a dozen times and clean air legislation at least half a dozen times, according to a scorecard by the League of Conservation Voters, an environmental group.
However, he has boasted about securing federal funds to improve the health of Long Island Sound, and he voted for a bill that would require the E.P.A. to set limits on PFAS, damaging chemicals that are persistent in the environment and the human body. The E.P.A. under the Biden administration has set strict limits on chemicals in drinking water. In 2020, he voted against legislation to slash E.P.A.’s budget.
Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a senior Democrat on the environment committee, said he met with Mr. Zeldin Tuesday and had “a good, candid conversation.”
Still Mr. Markey questioned his qualifications to run the E.P.A., and expressed skepticism about his commitment to guard the air and water from polluting industries.
“I’m not convinced his top priority is protecting communities and our environment,” Mr. Markey said.
On climate change, Mr. Markey said Mr. Zeldin “said he believed that human activity contributes to climate change.” But he said, “My questions go to what the E.P.A. priorities would be under his leadership.”
Lisa Friedman contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — More than 60 days into his war with Iran, well past public deadlines he had set for its end, President Trump sat through a briefing from U.S. Central Command outlining yet another set of options for a fresh round of strikes.
On offer Thursday were unpalatable choices for a president eager to move on from the conflict he started. Renewed U.S. attacks risk inflaming the war beyond Trump’s control, undermining a fragile ceasefire for which American allies fought hard. But the very need for such a briefing underscored how difficult a position the president has found himself in.
A legal deadline for congressional authorization arrived Friday that threatens to increase pressure on the administration — and underscore lagging support for the most unpopular U.S. war in modern times. Global oil prices remain above $100 a barrel entering the midterm election season. And a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran appears nowhere in sight.
Signs pointed to another U.S. military buildup in the region this week that could portend a fresh round of fighting. A U.S. Defense official familiar with the matter said the U.S. military has used the weeks-long pause to replenish its munitions. So, too, have the Iranians, who have reportedly increased their efforts to dig out stockpiles of missiles and drones buried by U.S. and Israeli strikes.
“Amateurs look at strategy; pros look at logistics,” said Robert Pape, a professor of international relations at the University of Chicago. “I have seen more buildup of force — actual firepower, with the addition of a third aircraft carrier, and logistics — than we’ve seen since the beginning of the war in February. So there’s been a notable change in the past week.”
The logistical surge appears to be a stream of Boeing C-17 military transport aircraft making their way to the region, alongside the addition of a third aircraft carrier. Only two carriers were in place when Trump first launched the war Feb. 28.
“That’s a pretty good sign that they’re mobilizing,” Pape added. “These are strategic and operational indicators. I would imagine they’re looking for a sharp knock.”
More than 10,000 Marines from expeditionary units are now in theater, giving Trump the option to launch limited ground operations, such as seizing a small stretch of coastline or initiating an assault on Kharg Island, the hub of Iran’s oil industry.
Occupying Iranian territory could provide the Trump administration with leverage in negotiations with Tehran. But it would also carry significant domestic political risks. A clear majority of Americans — including many Republicans — oppose a ground war.
More troops would be necessary to hold ground for any substantial period of time, experts said.
“I do have the impression, from some of the briefings that I have received as well as other sources, that an imminent military strike is very much on the table,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told CNN.
Departing Washington for the weekend, Trump told reporters that a “very disjointed” Iranian government, torn internally over whether to agree to a nuclear deal with the Americans, had put his administration “in a bad position,” uncertain whom to negotiate with or whether any agreement it might strike would be enforced.
“Right now we have negotiations going on. They’re not getting there,” Trump said. “They want to make a deal, but I’m not satisfied with it. So we’ll see what happens.”
And yet, the longer talks continue, the more pain Americans can expect to feel as global energy and fertilizer prices continue to skyrocket over disrupted commercial shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, affecting the costs of pocketbook items ranging from food and fuel to airfare.
Trump hopes a brief new round of powerful strikes, potentially targeting Iranian infrastructure, will force Iran’s hard-liners to support a negotiated settlement — a gambit that could backfire, after an inaugural volley of strikes in the war killed off the government’s moderate voices, empowering the militant leadership of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Do we want to go and just blast the hell out of them and finish them forever, or do we want to try and make a deal?” Trump asked, speaking with reporters on the South Lawn. “I mean, those are the options.”
In a letter addressed to Congress, Trump dismissed a 60-day deadline for congressional authorization for the war set forth in the War Powers Act, claiming the ceasefire with Iran had effectively stopped the clock on the administration’s legal responsibilities. Democrats argue that an ongoing U.S. blockade of Iranian ports constitutes an act of war that, absent a formal diplomatic agreement, requires congressional approval.
Speaking with reporters, Trump offered a less nuanced explanation.
“It’s never been used, it’s never been adhered to,” Trump said of the act. “Every other president considered it totally unconstitutional, and we agree with that.”
The internal debate over resuming the war comes after Pentagon officials informed Congress this week that the conflict, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, had cost taxpayers $25 billion thus far.
Pete Hegseth, the president’s secretary of Defense, defended the effort at a congressional hearing Wednesday, telling lawmakers that the United States was “absolutely” winning the war.
“Militarily,” Hegseth said, “on the battlefield, it’s been an astounding military success.”
He declined to say whether he had advised the president to launch the war in the first place.
A National Institutes of Health employee who was put on paid leave after organizing a public letter that criticized the Trump administration said on Friday that she had been reinstated — a move that followed the reinstatement of 14 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees who had signed a critical letter of their own.
The employee, Jenna Norton, was a key organizer of “The Bethesda Declaration,” issued in June 2025 and signed by nearly 500 N.I.H. employees, which deplored the degradation of medical research under Mr. Trump. The document spawned a wave of other public letters, including one known as the Katrina Declaration, signed by the FEMA employees, which warned that the agency risked repeating mistakes it had made during the Hurricane Katrina disaster more than two decades ago.
Dr. Norton, a program director at the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, was sent home with pay in November, when she tried to return to work after a 43-day government shutdown. She subsequently filed a whistle-blower complaint accusing her superiors of retaliating against her. She has emerged as a high-profile critic of the administration, speaking out on social media and in interviews.
This week, she received a four-sentence email telling her to return to work on Monday, she said, but it gave no reason for the reinstatement. A spokesman for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the N.I.H., did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Dr. Norton.
Dr. Norton specializes in research aimed at eliminating disparities in the incidence and treatment of kidney disease. But an executive order Mr. Trump issued on his first day in office, ending government-sponsored “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, led to the cancellation of many of the grants she oversaw.
Some have been reinstated as a result of lawsuits. “I wish I could say I was excited to return to my job,” Dr. Norton said in an interview, “but I’m very worried that that job doesn’t really exist anymore.”
When Dr. Norton was first placed on “nondisciplinary administrative leave,” health department officials gave various reasons. One said she had been put on leave because she had criticized the administration when she was supposed to be working. The N.I.H. director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, told an online publication, Just the News, that the health department was investigating Dr. Norton “for potentially violating the Antideficiency Act,” which bars federal employees from spending money beyond what Congress appropriates.
He also said that Dr. Norton might have violated communications policy, and that she did not have the “academic freedom” to speak out because she is not a full-time research scientist.
That is not true, said Debra S. Katz, the lawyer representing Dr. Norton in her whistle-blower case, which is still pending.
“Her participation as leader of the Bethesda Declaration is legal, First Amendment protected speech,” Ms. Katz said. “They went on a fishing expedition to try to find a reason to suspend and fire her, and there was none. So they have been left with an indefensible position, and forced to take her back.”
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President Donald Trump appeared to joke during remarks at the Forum Club of the Palm Beaches in Florida Friday that the U.S. would be “taking over” Cuba “almost immediately,” while recognizing attendees including former Rep. Dan Mica.
“And he comes from, originally, a place called Cuba, which we will be taking over almost immediately,” Trump said.
“Cuba’s got problems. We’ll finish one first. I like to finish a job.”
TRUMP AIMS TO RESET WAR POWERS CLOCK WITH CONTROVERSIAL BID TO BYPASS CONGRESS
President Donald Trump speaks during an event at The Villages Charter School in Sumterville, Fla., on Friday. (Thomas Simonetti/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Trump then riffed on a hypothetical show of American force.
“On the way back from Iran, we’ll have one of our big — maybe the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier — the biggest in the world,” he said.
“We’ll have that come in, stop about 100 yards offshore, and they’ll say, ‘Thank you very much, we give up.’”
The president did not elaborate further.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for clarification if the remarks were hypothetical or outlining policy plans.
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