President Trump has a new vision for the Environmental Protection Agency that significantly rolls back environmental regulations. Kate Linebaugh speaks to the man overseeing that vision— Administrator Lee Zeldin, about his plans and new approach to environmental governance. Further Listening: - The Fight Over Fluoride - Hot, Dry and Booming: A Texas Climate Case Study - Why Microsoft Wants Three Mile Island's Nuclear Power Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did the EPA originate and what is its mission?
The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 by President Richard Nixon.
The great question of the 70s is, shall we surrender to our surroundings or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?
Chapter 2: What changes has the Trump administration made to the EPA?
The EPA has a clear mission, to protect human health and the environment. The agency does this primarily through regulations on issues like air and water pollution. Now, under President Trump, things at the EPA are changing. Climate regulation is being rethought. Staff have been laid off. And billions of dollars in funding to green initiatives have been frozen.
All of it is being directed by the man Trump appointed to lead the EPA.
Lee Zeldin is calling it the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history. The EPA administrator is cutting 31 environmental rules regarding climate change, pollution, electric vehicles, and power plants.
Chapter 3: Who is Lee Zeldin and what are his plans for the EPA?
Lee Zeldin, who has... Lee Zeldin, a Trump loyalist who spent eight years in Congress representing his Long Island congressional district. Last week, I got to ask him some questions. Administrator Zeldin, thanks for joining us today.
Happy to. Thanks for having me.
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Kate Linebaugh. It's Wednesday, April 9th. Coming up on the show, an interview with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. So, the administration has been making tons of changes to the government, including working to shut down government departments like the Department of Education and USAID.
Has there been talk of getting rid of the EPA? No.
No, EPA has important core functions. We have the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act. So these historic landmark laws that have been passed over the course of the last few decades with strong bipartisan support have created statutory obligations on the part of the EPA to ensure that Americans have access to clean air, land, and water.
And our priority right now is to pursue our Powering Our Great American Comeback initiative, And we're not slowing down.
Since taking over as EPA administrator, you've announced plans to pull back a raft of climate regulations. What is your objective?
I think it's very important to understand that protecting the environment is not a binary choice with growing the economy. And too often regulations have strangulated the economy and going after industries wholesale. Some people talk about moving power from some fossil fuel production of base load power to sources like wind.
And they'll talk about wind as if it's not an intermittent source of energy. They'll talk about wind as if it's a replacement for base load power. And when you look at the current grid, the current supply, the current demand, And you kind of play it out in your own mind as to what it looks like if you shut down all these other industries wholesale.
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Chapter 4: What is the impact of the Loper Bright decision on the EPA?
Today, the Supreme Court's conservative majority upended the way our federal government functions by overturning the 40-year-old landmark decision Chevron v. NRDC.
The decision means federal judges can overrule a government agency's interpretation of the law. It's a meaningful rollback of agencies' regulatory power.
So for us, it's very important for us to honor the rule of law, to advance cooperative federalism, to follow our obligations under the law, and to understand, as the Supreme Court outlined in Loperbright, that we should not be as an agency going rogue and strangulating the economy just because we all have a desire to protect the environment.
What do you see as a solution for global warming?
Listen, what our priority here is clean air, land, and water for all Americans. Cleaner, safer, healthier land, air, and water across this country. It's a priority of President Trump. It's a priority of the American public. It has very strong bipartisan support across this country. And ultimately, the EPA should not be legislating what a modification of the Clean Air Act may look like.
We have laws that are on the books. Our job is to implement those laws.
Congress created the Clean Air Act to regulate emissions. The act empowers the EPA to set limits on air pollutants and penalize companies that violate the rules. Would you want to amend the Clean Air Act?
That's a decision for Congress. The EPA is not lobbying Congress for changes to any laws right now. And when Congress changes a law, they could go in one direction or the other. It's our job to follow the law. But if the law gets changed, we stand by, ready to do our job to implement it.
Do you believe greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change?
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Chapter 5: What is the EPA's stance on climate change and greenhouse gases?
How much? That's not defined. They just say that it's above a de minimis amount and that climate change endangers public health. So we will go through that process. And as we get further along in the process, then we start making conclusions and decisions as to how to go forward on this policy.
But this finding has been held up again since 2009. So why do you think things have changed?
Yet this is something that the EPA has not engaged in a reconsideration of at all since 2009. And also, when they were going through the 2009 endangerment finding process, there was not a consideration of the impacts of what they were doing. And there has since been a reduction of emissions since 2009. There's also been advancements in American innovation since then, advancements in science.
And all of these developments since 2009 obviously were not factored in when that decision was made back then.
Do you believe greenhouse gases should be regulated?
This is the rulemaking process that I am not going to be able to prejudge. I do have opinions that I've shared publicly, and some I've just reiterated, actually, in my answer to your last question. But as far as what that decision will be of the agency and of the administrator formally, that's something that I'll have to wait until we get further along in the process before I'm allowed to
reach a conclusion and have a judgment and a decision.
Coming up, we'll talk about the environmental rules that Zeldin is putting in place. Getting back to what you've done at the EPA, you've been pushing through deregulatory actions, including rolling back rules on coal plant pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from cars. How do you square deregulation with the EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment?
You know what's amazing about your great question is that when we made our announcement just over three weeks ago, there were people who were responding to the announcement showing pictures of you know, water quality in 1969 and saying that if you change these rules that, you know, America's land, air, and water are going to go back a half a century.
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