Suffolk Closeup: Lee Zeldin is no friend of the environment

The views are certainly mixed, to put it mildly, about President-elect Donald Trump announcing last week that he would nominate Lee Zeldin, the former congressman from Suffolk County, to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment based in Farmingdale, told Newsday: “The good news is: he lives here. He understands that climate change is real. He understands the value of protecting coastal waters, estuaries, the marine environment and drinking water … We’re hoping, and we need Lee Zeldin to bring perspective and strength to the Trump administration to do the right thing here and protect us.”

On the other hand, the Sierra Club issued a statement by Ben Jealous, its executive director, saying that Zeldin is “unqualified” and “opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water.”

His nomination, said Jealous, “lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs and future out to corporate polluters. Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future cannot afford Lee Zeldin — or anyone who seeks to carry out a mission antithetical to the EPA’s mission.”

It identified itself as “America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization with millions of members.”

“Congrats to Representative Zeldin on his nomination to be the 17th EPA administrator,” said Andrew Wheeler, an EPA administrator under Trump during his first term as president. Prior to that, Wheeler was a lobbyist for major coal, chemical and uranium companies. Wheeler was further quoted in the National Review as saying: “I know he will do a great job tackling the regulatory overreach while protecting our air and water.”

“Trump Picks New EPA Head Guaranteed to Destroy the Environment,” was the headline in The New Republic magazine. The subhead on its article: “This will be a disaster.” The headline on Inside Climate News was: “Lee Zeldin, Trump’s EPA Pick, Brings a Moderate Face to a Radical Game Plan.”

Its article said, “Trump opted to put his planned radical rollback of climate policy in the hands of a staunch ally who is skilled at projecting an image of a moderate conservative.”

But the piece concluded by stating “the most telling item in Zeldin’s record is his vote against certifying the 2020 election,” which Trump claimed he won, and a quote from Sam Bernhardt, political director of the environmental group Food & Water Action: “He did that because Trump told him to, so I think we can extrapolate that most of Lee Zeldin’s work at EPA will likewise be things that Trump has told him to do.”

“Meet the ‘great deregulator’ Trump chose to lead EPA,” was the headline of the E&E News website of the journal Politico. “A Trump ally with a limited environmental record will have the task of undoing President Joe Biden’s climate legacy,” its article began. It went on:  “Trump opted for a personal ally, fierce defender and frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago.”

It quoted Myron Ebell, head of Trump’s EPA transition team in his first term and a prominent denier of climate change, saying: “I think he [Zeldin] has all the ability and political savvy to be a great deregulator. I think he’s capable of mastering the technical side of it, but he also will be a great advocate in public for what they’re trying to do.”

The headline of the New York Metropolitan Area news website Hellgate was: “Lee Zeldin Appointed to Oversee Climate Collapse” with the subhead: “Trump choosing a Long Island lackey as EPA administrator.”

Zeldin, a Republican from Shirley, has a 14% score from the League of Conservation Voters on its National Environmental Scorecard. In the years during which he was a member of the House of Representatives — 2015 to 2023 — initiatives he voted against, notes the organization, included “cracking down on Big Oil price gouging, against clean water and clean air protections, against methane pollution safeguards.”

The organization’s senior vice president for government affairs, Tiernan Sittenfeld, said after the Trump announcement: “Trump made his anti-climate action, anti-environment agenda very clear during his first term and again during his 2024 campaign. During the confirmation process,” he said his group will “challenge Lee Zeldin to show how he would be better than Trump’s campaign promises or his own failing 14%.”

The nomination of Zeldin will need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Zeldin, an attorney, didn’t seek re-election to the House to make a run for governor against Democrat Kathy Hochul, also a lawyer and former member of the House, a contest he lost. Zeldin represented central Suffolk and the five East End towns, including Shelter Island, in the House. 

As to a key environmental issue in recent decades, global warming or climate change, Zeldin in 2018 said that he didn’t support the 2015 Paris Agreement for a global reduction in carbon emissions citing “other countries that are contributing to very adverse impacts in our climate but not having the level of responsibility that they need to have in stepping up.”

A New York Times article on his nomination said Zeldin “has not spoken at length about whether he accepts the established science of climate change. But in a 2014 interview with the Newsday editorial board, he expressed doubts about the severity of the problem.”

This Times article began with how Trump nominated Zeldin to “a post that is expected to be central to Mr. Trump’s plans to dismantle climate regulations.” It said: “Mr. Trump campaigned on pledges to kill EPA rules to combat global warming by restricting fossil fuel pollution from vehicle tailpipes, power plants and gas wells.”

Trump has repeatedly called global warming or climate change a “hoax.” During his first term, he “rolled back over 100 environmental policies and regulations,” said The Times piece. “President Biden restored many of them and strengthened several.” Now, “Some people on Mr. Trump’s transition team say the agency needs a wholesale makeover and are discussing moving the EPA headquarters and its 7,000 workers out of Washington.

While president, Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement. Biden, on his first day in office as president, had the nation rejoin it. During the 2024 campaign, Trump said he would again have the U.S. leave the Paris Agreement.

And last week, Politico reported: “The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time — only this time, he could move faster and with less restraint … His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit that begins on Monday in Azerbaijan, where the U.S. and other countries will hash out details related to phasing down fossil fuels and providing climate aid to poorer nations.”

It continued: “The United States’ absence from the deal would put other countries on the hook to make bigger reductions to their climate pollution. But it would also raise inevitable questions from some countries about how much more effort they should put in when the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter is walking away.”