Sweeping Deregulation at the Environmental Protection Agency

EPA head Zeldin has called for the “largest deregulatory action in the history of America.”

In January, Lee Zeldin was confirmed as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA serves to protect the public health and safety of Americans through environmental regulation, grants, and research. Zeldin is a Republican politician who served in the New York State Senate in 2011-2014 and the U.S. House of Representatives in 2015-2023. According to the League of Conservation Voters, he voted against roughly 86% of the environmental legislation called to a vote while he was in the House. For example, in 2017 he voted to cut the EPA budget by 25%.

Environmental advocates opposed his appointment to lead the agency, with groups like Earthjustice and Sierra Club issuing statements calling him unqualified and a Trump loyalist. Shortly after his appointment, he announced a plan to roll back at least 31 environmental regulations including several rules and reporting requirements around greenhouse gas emissions and wastewater. So far, Zeldin’s leadership of the EPA lines up with his Congressional voting record and the Trump Administration’s priorities of deregulation, undermining research, and silencing critics.

Sweeping Deregulation

Zeldin has called for the “largest deregulatory action in the history of America” in revoking the endangerment finding, which states that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are a danger to public health and safety. It’s the foundational premise for environmental regulations around air pollution over the last 15 years. Even some lawyers in the oil and gas industry are opposed to the change, citing legal defenses that regulations provide for companies. It comes at the direction of President Trump’s day-one Executive Order Unleashing American Energy and follows a Department of Energy report written by five scientists known for being climate skeptics. The report challenges the endangerment finding, and has been widely criticized by the scientific community as being full of falsehoods. The Environmental Defense Fund and Union of Concerned Scientists have filed a lawsuit alleging that the report violated rules of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The suit requests to block the government’s use of the report to justify the repeal of the endangerment finding. The agency is seeking public comment on this change through September 22.

Eliminating Government Research

The EPA has eliminated its Research and Development Office (ORD) and scaled back agency-wide staffing by more than 20%. The scientists at ORD conducted their own research and applied the peer-reviewed research of other scientists to make the most informed decisions around environmental regulations for public health and safety. The agency is replacing this office with an Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions to “prioritize research and science more than ever before” while saving the American taxpayers nearly $750 million. It’s unclear how they can prioritize research while simultaneously eliminating their research arm. The change represents a widespread loss of expertise, as well as potentially jeopardizing databases, models, and risk assessment systems ORD previously maintained.

Illegally Cutting Grants

Grant funding is also being impacted as the EPA tries to end grant programs such as $20 billion for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and $7 billion for Solar for All. The latter was widely recognized as a means of lowering energy bills for American consumers, and recipients across the country are in the planning phase for implementation of the funds. However, a judge ruled in April that the EPA hadn’t provided sufficient evidence of fraud within the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and can’t end the program which was appropriated by Congress. Kim Meyer of the Southern Environmental Law Center said that if the administration moves forward to cancel the Solar for All funds, “we will see them in court.”

Bringing Asbestos Back

In June the EPA stated in a court filing that they would be revisiting the ban of the last type of asbestos used in the U.S. to determine whether it “went beyond what is necessary to eliminate the unreasonable risk and whether alternative measures – such as requiring permanent workplace protection measures – would eliminate the unreasonable risk.” Asbestos is a well-known carcinogen, causing multiple different types of cancer, and is linked to tens of thousands of deaths each year. It is banned in more than 50 countries, and the ban under Biden was widely regarded as a win for the fight against cancer.

Vague Commitment to Replacing Lead Pipes

Another Biden era rule required municipalities to replace all lead pipes within 10 years, and the EPA has stated that it will defend this rule, but with a promise to “develop new tools and information to support practical implementation flexibilities and regulatory clarity.” The statement provokes concern that the agency could carve out loopholes to the strict requirements.

Punishing Dissent

At the end of June, hundreds of EPA employees signed a letter addressed to Zeldin detailing specific concerns about the actions and direction of the agency. These concerns include an undermining of public trust, ignoring scientific consensus and benefitting polluters, reversing progress in vulnerable communities, dismantling the ORD, and promoting an internal culture of fear. They called on Zeldin to change course, and stated that in doing so he would gain their support. Instead, the EPA placed at least 139 of these employees on administrative leave for two weeks pending an administrative investigation. However, the leave has been extended multiple times, and has lasted two months so far. Democratic Senators sent a letter to Zeldin at the end of July urging him to reinstate these employees, which appears to have had no effect.