It is hardly surprising that Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency is a man staunchly on the side of polluters, a man who has called for the U.S. to exit the Paris climate accords. Anyone who has been paying remote attention could expect Mr. Trump to base his appointment on fealty, rather than expertise in the environmental field. But the choice of Lee Zeldin, our former congressman here in the First Congressional District, still came as an ugly shock.
Since Mr. Zeldin first emerged on the scene as a fresh-faced 27-year-old Army veteran, The Star has kept a close eye on his political evolution. Mr. Zeldin, who lives in Shirley, has come a long way from his youthful days campaigning for Congress as an Obamacare antagonist. Now, at 44, he is poised to lead what could be the largest anti-regulation effort ever in the United States.
Gutting the E.P.A. is a top priority for the incoming administration. A primary aim is to increase domestic fossil-fuel production, and climate regulations stand in the way. The first step is to undo Biden-era guardrails on power plants, oil and gas companies, and vehicles.
Both the incoming president and the incoming E.P.A. chief maintain an antiquated, 20th-century mind-set about the environment: They see green energy and environmental protections as the enemy of business-boosting, rather than the industries of the future. This backward thinking is very bad news, not just for the Earth but for Long Island.
The district Mr. Zeldin represented for eight years, our district, is at the vanguard of climate impact, vulnerable as we are to sea level rise. Long Island, with its high population density, is also widely affected by the modern environmental ills that government should protect its citizens from, including so-called forever chemicals and lead.
There are reasons why Long Island has such high rates of cancer.
Since its creation in 1970, the E.P.A.’s basic job has been to assure Americans have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. This should not be political. It was during the first term of President Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, that the agency was created. Since then, the Republican Party has turned its back on the environment, throwing it into the maelstrom of the culture wars.
Mr. Zeldin is not a fool when it comes to political expediency, and perhaps this is why he has not been among the most-fervent climate deniers, and why he has been a supporter of land conservation and the preservation of Plum Island. Still, he has hardly been an advocate for greener policies. In debates, he likes to point to his membership in the House Climate Solutions Caucus, but that caucus has been derided by activists and experts as a low-stakes means for members of Congress to “greenwash” their records without taking meaningful action. The climate caucus went silent after the 2018 election, at any rate.
The last Trump administration took a very hard line at the E.P.A. Whistleblowers were punished; scientists were encouraged to delete findings that certain substances caused cancer or miscarriages. In the second Trump term, we can expect this attack on science and common sense to get worse. Project 2025, the ultraconservative policy guideline prepared by former Trump officials, calls for entire sections of the E.P.A. to be disbanded, including those dealing with environmental justice and pollution enforcement. It also calls for speeding up the approvals for new chemicals.
Mr. Zeldin has never managed a large government agency or a large staff of any kind. His elevation is, obviously, a reward for his ring-kissing. He was one of the first members of Congress to back Mr. Trump’s 2016 bid and he has been a steadfast surrogate on Fox News. Mr. Zeldin was an election denier who stood up in Congress even after the Jan. 6 insurrection to claim “rogue election officials” had tainted the results. Mr. Zeldin excels at bootlicking.
The best-case scenario is that the E.P.A. will lose four years in the fight for the planet. The worst-case scenario should send a shudder down your spine.