Washington (AP) – The Senate controlled by the Republican confirmed on Wednesday that Lee Zeldin directed the Environmental Protection Agency, a key role in helping President Donald Trump to make his commitment to ensure that the main environmental regulations aimed to slow down climate change and encourage the use of electric vehicles.
The vote was 56-42 in favor of Zeldin. Three Democrats – Meaning. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly from Arizona and John Fetterman from Pennsylvania – supported Zeldin, as well as the 53 Republicans.
Zeldin, a former member of the New York Republican Congress, is a longtime ally of Trump and sat on Trump’s defense team during his first indictment. He voted against the certification of Trump’s electoral defeat in 2020 against President Joe Biden.
Zeldin, 44, said during Its confirmation audience That it has a moral responsibility to be a good environment of the environment and has committed to supporting the career staff who devoted himself to the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment.
Zeldin has repeatedly refused to engage in specific policies, however, promising not to prejudge results before arriving at EPA. When asked by the Republican senator Pete Ricketts du Nebraska if he would make programs go back to electric cars – a program that Trump criticized several times – Zeldin has remained vague but admitted to hearing republican complaints.
Trump directed efforts to dismantle more than 100 environmental protections During his first term and promised to do it again, targeting what he Label wrongly a “mandate” electric vehicle And “New green scam” Approved by Democrats.
Trump, who called climate change a hoax, promised to overthrow the greatest climatic achievements of former president Joe Bid Exhaust pipe regulations for vehicles and cut Pollution of power plants Pulled by coal and natural gas. Trump has already moved to oust EPA career staff and other agencies, withdraw scientific advisers and Close an office that helps minority communities which fight in a disproportionate way with polluted air and water.
The Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called Zeldin the bad man for work.
“We need an EPA administrator who will take climate change seriously, will honestly treat science and get up if necessary for the political pressure that will come from the White House, where we have a president who really thinks (the climate change) is a hoax, and huge fossil fuels forces that have propelled him into office with huge sums of political money and who now think they have the place, “Whitehouse said in a speech Senate.
Trump is “under the thumb of the fossil fuels industry,” said Whitehouse, adding that the EPA administrator “must be truthful and factual and support and defend our environment and our security against climate change. ”
He has nothing against Zeldin personally, Whitehouse added: “But the probability that he stands against this bulldozer of fossil combustibles which comes to him essentially zero. And in this context, he is the bad guy. »»
Senator John Barrasso, R -Wyo., Said that Zeldin would return the EPA to his initial mission to protect the air, water and land of America – without “stifling the economy”.
Barrasso called Zeldin “a life official” and a experienced lawyer with a lively legal spirit and more than 20 years of military service.
Zeldin will continue the “mission to retreat from Punishing, EPA political regulations”, to “cut administrative formalities” and supervise “a new wave of creativity and innovation”, said Barrasso.
“Over the past four years, the so-called experts from the Environmental Protection Agency have been unleashed reckless,” said Barrasso, referring to the Biden administration. “They got involved with American families and businesses with higher costs and heavy restrictions. They bowed against climate extremism and ignored common sense. »»
Zeldin “will put the ship and restore balance to EPA,” said Barrasso, citing probable actions to repeal the rules of the Biden era on exhaust pipes and electric power plants, as well as the Elimination of federal subsidies for electric vehicles.
The League of Conservation Voters, a national environment for the environment, has shot the environmental record for life of Zeldin, giving it a score of 14%. Like all the Republicans at the time, he voted against the law on the reduction of inflation of 2022 aimed at stimulating renewable energies and the manufacture and the fight against climate change.
Zeldin supported a bill to reduce chemicals forever harmful, called PFAS, which would have forced the EPA to set limits to substances in drinking water. He was also one of the main supporters of 2020 Great American Outdoors Act, which used oil and gas royalties to help the National Park Service to tackle its backwards as a massive maintenance commissioner. He also supported local conservation efforts in Long Island.
Zeldin declared during his audience of January 16 that he wanted to collaborate with the private sector “to promote common sense of common sense regulation which will allow American innovation to continue to direct the world”.
EPA under his direction “will favor compliance as much as possible,” said Zeldin. “I believe in law and I want to work with people to make sure they do their part to protect the environment.”
