Nov. 11 (UPI) — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York to run the Environmental Protection Agency.
“I am pleased to announce that the highly respected former congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin, will be appointed to serve as the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,” Trump announced Monday.
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water, on the planet,” Trump added in a statement.
Zeldin confirmed in a post on X, that he had accepted the appointment.
“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA administrator,” Zeldin wrote.
“We will restore U.S. energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs and make the United States the global leader of artificial intelligence. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” Zeldin added.
Zeldin, 44, served in active duty in the U.S. Army and deployed to Iraq in 2006. He served in Congress between 2015 and 2023, and did not seek re-election in 2022 to challenge New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in a race he lost by 6 percentage points in the blue state.
While in Congress, Zeldin served on the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees. He also served on Trump’s legal team during the former president’s first failed impeachment in 2019.
Following the 2020 election, Zeldin was criticized for voting against certification of the presidential election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, over what he claimed was evidence of fraud and interference.
“Today’s debate is necessary especially because of the insistence that everything that President Trump and his supporters say about the 2020 election is ‘evidence-free.’ That’s simply not true,” Zeldin said on the House floor on Jan. 6, 2021, the same day election rioters entered the U.S. Capitol.
In 2022, Zeldin voted against Biden’s climate law, along with every other House Republican. He also voted against the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. Based on his environmental voting record, the League of Conservation Voters has given Zeldin a lifetime score of 14%.
Since leaving office, Zeldin chaired the China policy initiative and has written about national security threats posed by China at the America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit that promotes Trump’s agenda.
By the end of this year, the EPA will be obligated to spend nearly $38.3 billion from Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. While Zeldin — who is subject to Senate confirmation — is expected to roll back a number of Biden environmental regulations during the Trump administration’s first 100 days, he has not specified which regulations could be targeted.