Former New York Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin was confirmed by the Senate Wednesday as President Trump’s Environmental Safety Company administrator — incomes bipartisan assist.
The 56-42 vote featured Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, in addition to John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, giving their approval of Zeldin alongside all 53 Republicans within the higher chamber.
The 44-year-old ex-congressman had flown by way of the Senate Surroundings and Public Works vetting course of and handed a cloture vote on the Senate ground earlier Thursday by the identical margin and with the identical three Democrats supporting him.
In his affirmation listening to, the previous Suffolk County congressman and 2022 Empire State gubernatorial candidate pointed to his file of cracking down on air pollution and cleansing up waterways in his house state as proof that his EPA would deal with “protecting our environment, while also protecting our economy.”
Zeldin criticized Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, for “suffocating the economy” and mentioned the forty seventh president’s administration would “do everything in our power to harness the greatness of American innovation with the greatness of American conservation and environmental stewardship.”
After taking workplace, Trump signed govt orders to extend home oil and gasoline manufacturing — making good on a 2024 marketing campaign promise — and declare a nationwide vitality emergency.
Biden and ex-Vice President Kamala Harris had, in contrast, pursued vitality insurance policies to push the US towards net-zero greenhouse gasoline emissions by 2050 — pausing export permits for liquified pure gasoline, scrapping or stalling new oil and gasoline pipelines and making an attempt to bar new permits for drilling on federal land.
Underneath Biden’s 2022 Inflation Discount Act, billions of {dollars} had been handed out for varied environmental packages.
Zeldin advised members of the Surroundings and Public Works Committee throughout his listening to that he additionally wouldn’t be swayed by the fossil gasoline foyer, whereas creating distance between himself and Trump on the difficulty of local weather change.
“There is no dollar — large or small — that can influence the decisions that I make, who has access to me and how I am ruling in my obligations under the law,” he advised Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
“I believe that climate change is real,” he additionally advised Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.),arguing Trump’s claims of local weather change being a “hoax” peddled by Democrats and media allies was, fairly, an expression of concern “about the economic costs of some policies.”
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) in Zeldin’s affirmation listening to mentioned she appeared ahead to the long run EPA administrator tackling “spiking energy costs and rolling blackouts” posed by an overreliance on renewable vitality alternate options.
The New Yorker advised Capito and different members on the panel that the EPA would pursue each the “cleanest” and “greenest” vitality options with out slapping burdensome laws on producers.
Trump, 78, in nominating the ex-Republican rep touted his “very strong legal background” which he mentioned “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions … while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards.”
