Lee Zeldin speaks differently than other Environmental Protection Agency commissioners in recent history.
The EPA administrator’s job, as stated in the EPA’s founding charter, is to protect human health by protecting “the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land that grows our food,” and most administrators speak of their jobs in such terms.
But Zeldin is talking less about environmental protection and more about supporting industries and exporting fossil fuels.
A New York Times analysis of thousands of public communications by EPA administrators, including news releases, social media posts, television appearances, and podcast interviews dating back three decades, shows that Zeldin has fundamentally changed both the agency’s mission and the language it uses to describe it to reflect President Trump’s desire to maximize economic development and industrial activity while downplaying environmental impacts.
Lee Zeldin’s EPA has its own language
How often these phrases were mentioned in EPA news releases during each presidential administration
If language is a window into policy priorities, Zeldin’s words are eloquent.
Mr. Zeldin is a champion of deregulation, and officials have now repeatedly cited the need to eliminate bureaucracy. Although he regularly mentions the EPA’s core responsibility of ensuring clean air and clean water, he speaks less frequently about protecting the environment than his predecessors.
Mr. Zeldin is the first agency head to talk about the economy over pollution and America’s energy over public health. We rarely talk about protecting children from environmental damage, but we often talk about protecting businesses and consumers from regulation.
Mr. Sellin has spoken more positively about fossil fuels than any other administration official since 1994, routinely describing the “clean, beautiful coal” that Mr. Trump has ordered officials to use.
Mr. Zeldin is being considered to be the next U.S. attorney general, and the president has called him “our secret weapon” and expects his permit to be approved quickly.
EPA spokeswoman Carolyn Horan said in a statement that Zeldin frequently talks about the environmental work he has done, and the agency recently released a list of 500.
“We are delivering results, ensuring America has the cleanest air, land and water in the world, while supporting economic growth,” Horan said.
“EPA’s core mission is to protect human health and the environment, and we are doing just that without burdening American families and businesses with unnecessary regulatory costs that undermine affordability,” she added.
But critics, including a former Republican EPA administrator, said Mr. Zeldin prioritized industry at the expense of public health and community safety and was working to transform the EPA into an organization that could no longer be recognized.
“It’s great to hear him talk about health and the environment,” said William K. Reilly, who served as EPA administrator under the first President George Bush.
“I think language is a gift,” Riley says. “The Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are his charter and should provide him with an energizing vocabulary. But they don’t.”
“Suppression of the oil and gas industry”
Within hours of being confirmed by the Senate last year, Zeldin wrote on social media that he would seek to “make America prosperous again.” His agenda is to “unlock energy, bring back America’s auto jobs, pursue permitting reform, and make America the AI capital of the world.”
He soon announced “the largest and most significant day of deregulation in American history,” a plan to repeal or weaken about two dozen environmental protections, most implemented under the Biden administration. He said these policies have “stifled the oil and gas industry” or “closed opportunities for American manufacturing.”
Zeldin’s words
“The Trump EPA Confirmed single the greatest act of deregulation in history of united states of america. “
“more deregulation than the entire federal government. Across all agencies; Throughout his Presidency, Just at the EPA.”
“I’m happy make the biggest deregulation announcement in the history of the United States. ”
“…doesn’t have an E.P.A. rules hinder you From protecting Your people…”
EPA/YouTube
March 12, 2025
Mr. Zeldin’s actions are consistent with his rhetoric. Zeldin has spent the past 14 months overseeing a systematic unraveling of climate change protections. He allowed coal-fired power plants, steel mills, chemical facilities, and mines to circumvent environmental rules by sending emails requesting exemptions. And it prevented the agency from calculating the value of saving lives when calculating the cost of setting new pollution standards.
The overwhelmingly economic terms he used to discuss the agency’s mission are not how the Republican officials who founded the agency envisioned the agency’s work.
President Richard M. Nixon established the EPA in 1970 in response to public anger over industrial waste that caused catastrophic oil spills, deadly air pollution, and river fires. Its first administrator said the agency “has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce, only an important obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”
Mr. Zeldin’s EPA mentions eliminating “bureaucracy” 199 times as often as his Democratic predecessor, Michael S. Regan, and 38 times as often as Mr. Trump’s first EPA chief, Scott Pruitt. An EPA news release cited Zeldin’s phrase when he vowed to make data center construction easier. He proposed ending requiring major industrial facilities to report their greenhouse gas emissions. He also eliminated permit requirements for burning wood debris, which he said could help prevent wildfires.
Zeldin’s EPA has mentioned the auto industry more often than any agency since the 1990s. Zeldin argues that deregulation will create auto jobs, and the agency has removed greenhouse gas emissions standards for cars. The repeal is expected to save automakers $54 billion, but the industry has lost jobs since Trump took office.
Horan, the EPA spokeswoman, said Zeldin frequently discusses the industry because “it is one of the most important sectors for both the U.S. economy and the environment.”
Zeldin’s supporters argued that the economy should be a top priority for all cabinet members.
“There’s an implication that if he’s not talking about environmental regulation, he must hate the environment, but that’s not a binary thing,” said Drew Bond, co-founder of C3 Solutions, a conservative clean energy think tank.
“I know the environmental left hates him, but it always comes back to the fact that we can’t build things in the United States. So the more red tape and regulations we eliminate, the faster we can build and the cleaner we can build,” Bond said.
“Unleash America’s Energy”
Previous EPA administrators have championed energy efficiency as a way to reduce pollution while saving money. Mr. Zeldin is likely to ignore calls for efficiency and promote fossil fuels, distilled into Mr. Trump’s favorite phrase, “energy primacy.”
Zeldin’s words
“EPA is under president trump is part of presidential Nationwide energy advantage Council. ”
“we have release energy domination In this country. ”
“…we can help release Energy control…”
“…Helping you release it.” Energy control…”
Zeldin proposes many of the EPA’s policies with a view to furthering that goal.
The EPA has delayed standards aimed at limiting the leaching of heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury from coal ash dumps into water supplies. Proposes to eliminate greenhouse gas limits for coal-fired and gas-fired power plants. And he relaxed Biden-era methane standards, which he claimed were designed “to regulate and eliminate the oil and gas industry.”
Zeldin described these actions as an effort to “unleash America’s energy” and insisted they do not conflict with the EPA’s mission to protect the environment.
“The war for beautiful, clean coal is over!” Zeldin wrote in X magazine last year. “America will no longer seek to regulate the presence of coal. This moment demands more energy, more jobs and lower costs for America, and we are ready to meet this moment!”
He has criticized renewable energy as insufficient to meet the intense demand for artificial intelligence data centers.
“Natural gas, nuclear coal, etc. can’t be curtailed, but they shouldn’t be curtailed. The Trump EPA won’t curtail them!” Zeldin wrote.
Zeldin, who visited Japan last month, declared that the U.S. is keen on striking natural gas export deals with Indo-Pacific countries. A few weeks later, at an energy conference in Houston, he noted that Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would likely increase Asia’s appetite for American gas.
“I don’t know what the secretary of energy does, but most of these things are well outside the scope of the EPA administrator’s job,” said Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the EPA under President George W. Bush. She later left the Republican Party.
“It’s amazing how far he’s strayed from the essence of the agency,” Whitman said. “He completely defeats the mission of the EPA.”
Regional pollution related to climate
Republicans and Democrats have always said different things about environmental work.
The EPA enjoyed bipartisan support after its creation, but that support began to erode under President Ronald Reagan, who campaigned against government overreach. His first administrator, Ann B. Gorsuch, rescinded several clean air and water protections. Deregulatory sentiment among Republicans grew even stronger during Trump’s first term, when he put Scott Pruitt, who had been a vocal critic of the EPA’s efforts, in charge.
Democrats have since come to view the EPA as the lead agency for combating the growing threat of climate change. In the absence of specific legislation from Congress to curb greenhouse gases, the Obama and Biden administrations have interpreted the Clean Air Act of 1970 to allow the EPA to increasingly aggressively regulate global warming pollution from car tailpipes and power plant smokestacks.
Emissions from burning fossil fuels are a major driver of climate change, which scientists say is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme heat waves and heavy rains, melting the world’s glaciers and ice sheets, and increasing the risk of severe wildfires. But Republicans and industry leaders say the climate rules are holding back the economy. Trump called climate change a “hoax” and called for an end to it.
Zeldin rarely mentions climate change, other than criticizing climate change “enthusiasts” and touting the repeal of greenhouse gas regulations and the EPA’s authority to combat global warming.
Zeldin took concrete steps to protect air and water. This month, the agency announced it would curb microplastics and pharmaceuticals from the drinking water of millions of Americans. He struck a deal with Mexico to address the Tijuana River’s sewage crisis and led a 28-day hazardous materials cleanup effort after wildfires ripped through Los Angeles last year. His list of 500 “environmental wins” includes the cleanup of industrial sites in Maine, Boston, and Florida.
In interviews, Zeldin tends to focus on local environmental remediation. In March, in a conversation with conservative podcaster John Solomon, who called the Trump administration’s repeal of climate change policies “legendary,” Zeldin discussed the EPA’s efforts to help repair sewers that collapsed when raw waste poured into Maryland’s Potomac River.
He said the Trump administration just wants to get back to basics. And that includes commercial relief, he said.
“For us here at EPA, it’s about protecting human health and the environment, and we know we can do that while growing the economy,” Zeldin said.
Teresa Mondria Terol contributed to this article.
