Trump picks ally Lee Zeldin as environment chief and vows to roll back rules

President-elect says ex-New York congressman will ‘ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions’ as EPA administrator

Donald Trump has picked Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), vowing the appointment will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions” by the regulator.

Trump, who oversaw the rollback of more than 100 environmental rules when he last was US president, said that Zeldin was a “true fighter for America First policies” and that “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”.

Zeldin, a Republican who was in the House of Representatives until last year as a member for a New York district that covers part of Long Island, said the nomination was an “honor” and that he was looking forward to cutting red tape as the EPA administrator.

“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Zeldin, 44, is considered a close Trump ally and ran in a surprisingly close race for New York governor in 2022, before being pipped by Kathy Hochul, a Democrat. During the campaign, Zeldin attacked Hochul’s “far-left climate agenda” and assailed Democrats for allegedly forcing people to drive electric cars.

The EPA nominee, who will have to be confirmed by the US Senate, has rarely spoken out on environmental or climate issues, although he said in 2014 he was “not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are” with global heating, and added in 2018 that he did not support the Paris climate agreement, which Trump is again expected to withdraw the US from.

Zeldin, who has a score of just 14% from the League of Conservation Voters on his votes on environmental issues in his 15 years in Congress, is expected to oversee an overhaul of the EPA that will rival anything seen since its foundation in 1970.

An exodus of staff is expected from the agency, with employees already raising fears they will be subject to political interference and that their work to protect Americans from toxic chemicals and planet-heating emissions from cars, trucks and power plants will be torn up.

“Naming an unqualified, anti-American worker who opposes efforts to safeguard our clean air and water lays bare Donald Trump’s intentions to, once again, sell our health, our communities, our jobs, and our future out to corporate polluters,” Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, said of Zeldin’s nomination.

“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.”

The naming of Zeldin, less than a week after Trump won the presidential election, is far quicker than his previous term in the White House, when he took until December to name Scott Pruitt as his pick for the EPA.

Pruitt resigned in 2018 amid a flurry of ethics scandals, including allegations that he gave staffers improper pay raises, that he constructed an expensive soundproof phone booth in his office, and that he tasked employees with fetching him moisturizer and a favorite mattress.

Cover photo: Lee Zeldin speaks in Concord, New Hampshire, in January. Photograph: Matt Rourke/AP