Trump taps Lee Zeldin to run the EPA : NPR

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to run the U.S. Environmental Safety Company.

The nomination for EPA administrator will want affirmation from the Senate, the place Republicans are poised to carry a majority of seats subsequent time period.

“[Zeldin] will guarantee honest and swift deregulatory choices that will probably be enacted in a strategy to unleash the facility of American companies,” Trump mentioned in an announcement launched Monday afternoon, including that Zeldin will nonetheless keep “the very best environmental requirements.”

Environmental teams decried the nomination as a step backward for environmental coverage.

On the marketing campaign path, Trump repeatedly vowed to extend home manufacturing of oil and pure fuel. He additionally criticized Democratic-led incentives for electrical automobiles and pledged to cut back present local weather spending.

Zeldin pointed to a few of these priorities in a put up on the social media website X, confirming the choose.

“We are going to restore US vitality dominance, revitalize our auto business to carry again American jobs, and make the US the worldwide chief of AI,” Zeldin mentioned. “We are going to achieve this whereas defending entry to scrub air and water.”

The New York Republican joins a rising record of people anticipated to be in Trump’s new administration.

Zeldin, who beforehand represented Lengthy Island, ran an unsuccessful gubernatorial marketing campaign two years in the past in opposition to the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul.

Zeldin opposed a handful of climate-related laws whereas serving in Congress, in line with the environmental advocacy group League of Conservation Voters.

In an announcement from Ben Jealous, who heads the atmosphere group Sierra Membership, he characterised Zeldin as “unqualified.”

“Our lives, our livelihoods, and our collective future can’t afford Lee Zeldin,” he mentioned, “or anybody who seeks to hold out a mission antithetical to the EPA’s mission.”