By Dan Bacher

President-Elect Donald Trump recently announced that Lee Zeldin, a former New York Republican Congressman who holds a lifetime League of Conservation Voters score of just 14%, will be his nominee to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA.

Zeldin will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses,’’ Trump claimed in a statement. He added that Zeldin would also maintain “the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

In making news, Trump misidentified the name of the very agency that Zeldin was picked to head, calling it the “Environmental Protective Agency.”

Leaders of environmental groups slammed Trump’s nomination of Zeldin for EPA Administrator, a key environmental post.

“We need a steady, experienced hand at EPA to marshal federal resources to fight climate change and utilize the full power of the law to protect communities from toxic pollution,” Earthjustice President Abigail Dillen said in a statement. “Lee Zeldin is not that person. His loyalty to Donald Trump indicates he will gladly take a sledgehammer to EPA’s most recent lifesaving regulations, putting politics over science and endangering our communities. It is clear President-elect Trump is prioritizing loyalty above actual qualifications to address our current and future environmental concerns.”

The Sierra Club also blasted Trump’s pick, noting that Zeldin “voted against critical environmental protection and clean energy job investments, including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which has already created more than 300,000 American jobs.”

In response to the nomination, Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous released the following statement:

“Naming an unqualified, anti-American worker nominee 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. 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 … We have made too much progress to allow Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin to take us back. We will not give up the clean energy manufacturing jobs rebuilding communities. We will not accept more dangerous air and water. And we will not allow Trump, Zeldin and corporate polluters to steal our future.”

Ken Cook, president and co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, also responded critically to the nomination of Zeldin, stating: “The most important thing to know about Trump’s nominee for the EPA is not his name, or his record, or his views on any particular environmental issue. The most important thing to know is that his mandate from Trump is to destroy the EPA.”

Cook added, “Lee Zeldin seems perfectly fine for the job … His nomination is a bracing contrast with the instincts of the EPA’s first administrator, Republican William Ruckelshaus, who resigned in protest from his subsequent position at the Justice Department, alongside the attorney general, when then-President Richard Nixon sought to fire the special prosecutor investigating his Watergate crimes.”

If Zeldin’s nomination is confirmed, he will replace Michael S. Regan as EPA Administrator. Sworn in as the 16th Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency on March 11, 2021, Regan is the first Black man and second person of color to lead the U.S. EPA.

Background: The stated mission of the EPA is to “protect human health and the environment.”

EPA works to ensure that: Americans have clean air, land and water; National efforts to reduce environmental risks are based on the best available scientific information; Federal laws protecting human health and the environment are administered and enforced fairly, effectively and as Congress intended; Environmental stewardship is integral to U.S. policies concerning natural resources, human health, economic growth, energy, transportation, agriculture, industry, and international trade, and these factors are similarly considered in establishing environmental policy; All parts of society–communities, individuals, businesses, and state, local and tribal governments–have access to accurate information sufficient to effectively participate in managing human health and environmental risks; Contaminated lands and toxic sites are cleaned up by potentially responsible parties and revitalized; and chemicals in the marketplace are reviewed for safety.