Seven Questions for EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as He Testifies Before Congress

   

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin is set to testify before Congress this week, and he should be held accountable for decimating bedrock environmental protections that keep our air clean, the water we drink safe, waterways we swim and fish in clean, and soil unpolluted, as he oversees massive staffing and budget cuts, an assault on agency science, and unprecedented loopholes for polluters.

The rhetoric from this administration that mischaracterizes core public health and environmental programs as wasteful or ideologically driven is a dangerous distortion of reality. Framing environmental protection as excessive or radical is a deliberate tactic to discredit science, weaken enforcement, and strip communities—especially frontline and low-income communities—of essential protections against pollution, climate risk, and environmental injustice.

In addition to all the harms that have already happened, now President Trump’s “skinny” budget for fiscal year 2026 proposes cutting EPA funding by a massive 54.5%, or $4.2 billion, and includes harmful, anti-science provisions such as cutting funding for state clean and drinking water programs, the hazardous substance Superfund program, and even removing air monitors at National Parks. If implemented, these cuts would represent a reckless and deeply unpopular assault on the health and safety of all Americans. Despite holding the power of the purse, Congress has thus far put up little resistance to President Trump’s overreach. 

Zeldin’s unprecedented assault on the EPA’s ability to deliver on its mission is entirely designed to prop up big polluters, including fossil fuel interests—while the rest of us pay the price. The American public—across the political spectrum—support clean air, water and land. According to a 2024 post-election poll sponsored by Environmental Protection Network, 88% of all voters, and 81% of Trump voters want Congress to increase EPA funding or at least keep funding steady.

As Zeldin goes up before Congress, here’s what lawmakers could ask him.

How do you expect to protect clean air, water and lands while acquiescing to the lowest EPA funding levels since the 1980s, including steep cuts to critical environmental programs, which would inevitably put our children’s health at risk and place the burden of cleanup on future generations?

President Trump’s proposed budget will put children, seniors, and frontline workers in harm’s way, and Congress should reject it. Cutting EPA’s budget by greater than 50% will result in higher asthma rates, more contaminated water systems, and delayed cleanups of toxic sites. And from a historical perspective, these cuts would lower EPA funding to levels not seen since the early years of EPA’s history (EPA was formed under President Richard Nixon in 1970) when its statutory mandate was much narrower.

Over the past 40 years, regardless of political persuasion, presidential administrations have generally recognized EPA’s vital function and funded it accordingly.  The Trump 2026 proposal constitutes an abdication of environmental governance and mocks the thoughtful, intentional, hard-fought process of setting up a system upholding public health priorities.  

The White House’s EPA budget shows an absolute and irreverent disregard for their responsibilities to the American people. There’s a proposed 89 percent cut to EPA’s bipartisan water infrastructure programs. And major cuts to noncompetitive state passthrough grants.

No doubt, states will be forced to shoulder responsibilities once backed by robust federal programs, from clean water enforcement to toxic site cleanups, all while facing rising pollution, public health crises, and climate-related disasters. The result will be patchwork protections, deepening inequities, and greater risk for every community, especially those least able to absorb the blow.

Imagine the smokestack across the state line making your child’s asthma attacks worse, or your swim in the river unsafe because of water pollution from the state upstream.

During your confirmation hearing, you promised to “defer to scientists,” yet you have repeatedly undercut science-based public health protections, distorted scientific facts and undermined scientific expertise at the EPA. How do you intend to ensure that the EPA’s actions to protect our health are guided by the best available science?

Administrator Zeldin is also seeking to undermine and eliminate scientific expertise and evidence, giving the Trump administration a way to avoid taking action to cut pollution despite the overwhelming proof of harms to people. By bypassing regulatory processes and silencing scientific expertise, the Trump administration is seeking to gut efforts to address the impacts and economic damage caused by climate change, and the impacts of toxics exposures to the American people. All to protect the profits of the oil, gas and chemical industries at our expense.

You say the environment will be safer for all and “a cleaner planet for future generations”. How will EPA protect communities most in danger from pollution if there is no staff or budget in the environmental justice program left to help while you expend taxpayer dollars to dig up dirt for your appeals in the courts? 

The EPA’s environmental justice office was created to challenge the historic pattern of pollution disproportionately harming low-income communities and communities of color. The office’s work is based on robust research that identifies communities most affected by pollution. Scientific data shows that, due to historic and ongoing injustices, communities overburdened by polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil are home to predominantly low-income, Black, Brown and Indigenous people. Exposure to consistently higher levels of pollution increases the risk of asthma, heart and lung ailments, cancer and even death. Prioritizing limited public resources into the most overburdened communities is efficient governance.

EPA received $3 billion for Climate and Environmental Justice Block Grants through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and also had been given clear direction from the previous administration to more fairly distribute the benefits of environmental protections across the country. After doing their jobs of getting sorely needed money to communities, while complying with abundant government regulations on contracts and grants, employees were vilified, and their grantees were denied their rightfully executed funding agreements. Promises made were broken. Despite numerous court orders to turn IRA funding back on, Zeldin’s EPA has repeatedly denied funding, and instead terminated nearly 800 grants, all with environmental justice in the descriptions, without demonstrating mismanagement or negligence. Although an agency official stated that they did “an individualized, grant-by-grant review” to satisfy court orders, it is hard to see how that was possible.

Not only has Zeldin gone after the $3 billion IRA Climate and Environmental Justice grants, he has targeted $20 million of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. He has repeatedly alleged falsehoods and set the investigative power of government on a witch hunt to find fraud, waste and abuse. It seems that EPA and the Trump administration would rather search for evidence to support their legal appeals, while communities suffer the effects of climate change caused by the very greenhouse gases this program was designed to prevent.

Simultaneously, Zeldin’s team has announced their intent to shutter EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights (OEJECR) and regional environmental justice divisions by laying off or reorganizing staff effective July 31. This means leaving those living, working, studying, and playing near polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil with little support from the very agency they rely on to enforce protective laws.

Thousands of people have been intimidated into resigning through the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) infamous “fork in the road,” terminating recent hires, suggesting all scientists be reclassified from positions with career civil service protections into ones that allow for easy removal, much like political positions (formerly known as “Schedule F”). The words of Russell Vought, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget, about intentionally traumatizing federal workers, should set off alarm bells of our appropriators in Congress.

Once again, the Trump administration is sidelining both science and programs to assist the nation’s most overburdened people.

Bedrock clean air and water protections are designed to take account of the latest science, but you’ve signaled your intent to scrap science-based standards and question the scope of EPA’s clear statutory obligations. Are you planning on taking EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation back to the 1970s?

The EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) leads a large share of the regulatory work of EPA, required by the Clean Air Act statute. In the 1970s the Clean Air Act covered only four chemicals, now it’s in the hundreds – not to mention the threat of climate change.

A recent study showed that rollbacks of just a subset of these regulations would lead to nearly 200,000 premature deaths by 2050 (think 20 sports arenas-full) and at least 10,000 asthma attacks every day. And the cost? For every dollar saved by corporate polluters, it would create six dollars of cost to the public from things like health care bills and the loss of a longer, healthier life—and that doesn’t even capture many known but difficult to quantify impacts.

The work of the OAR is being threatened through a drastic reorganization plan, which seeks to eliminate its Atmospheric Protection Program and disrupt other parts. The reorganization is planned with Zeldin on record saying there will be a focus on state air programs (a.k.a. expedited permitting of polluting projects). UCS has been tracking the administration’s deregulatory agenda, focusing on key regulations such as carbon rules for power plants and those limiting vehicle emissions.

Zeldin is also proposing to eradicate the climate-related voluntary programs, like the industry supported, popular Energy Star appliance labeling program that delivers huge benefits for consumers’ pocketbooks. He would also eliminate reporting programs for greenhouse gases.

How do you expect businesses to navigate the unfair playing field you have created and stay competitive when some have complied with regulations and others can look for a free pass?

The EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance and all regional enforcement directors received notice in March that they should not follow any previous guidance documents, particularly where there are EJ concerns. Moreover, they have specific limitations on enforcing for example, methane releases coal ash contamination, reducing air toxics and pollution, and reducing risks of chemical accidents. The preeminence of oil and gas industry interests is laced throughout, as further detailed by my colleague Julie McNamara.

The effect? Enforcement cases have already dropped compared to prior administrations. Not only that, the President’s skinny budget would erase $1 billion in categorical (noncompetitive) grants across all 50 states, which provide the funding to enforce federal clean air, water, and waste rules.

And, let’s not forget the Clean Air Act hotline set up for companies to request presidential waivers. These waivers ensure that certain favored companies can operate outside the law.

Can you explain how you plan on meeting EPA’s mission that demands unbiased science while cutting the Office of Research and Development’s budget and proposing to dismantle it?

EPA’s Research and Development Office produces independent science that’s used to keep people safe from pollution and chemical exposure. Industry doesn’t always like what’s coming out of this office. Dismantling this office by cutting its budget by $235 million and planning to remove more than 1,000 staff is a dangerous move during a period of intensifying environmental threats, wildfires, flooding, and other climate change impacts.

UCS has pointed out the threats to human health and the environment from the loss of a one-of-its-kind program, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), which provides independent reviews of chemicals like formaldehyde or ethylene oxide tied to certain health effects, like cancer. IRIS assessments are known to be a gold standard in toxicity reviews. Read this fact sheet for more information.  

According to post-2024 election polling data, 88% of voters, including 81% of Trump voters, support maintaining or increasing EPA funding. So, who exactly is served by these cuts, and why are you ignoring the public’s clear demand for stronger environmental protections?

If Administrator Zeldin goes forward with this destructive move, he will be responsible for ending decades of work intended to help set right the harmful legacy of pollution in overburdened communities in a handout to big polluters. This is also part of the Trump administration’s larger ongoing strategy to dismantle EPA and its core functions and undermine its very mission, which is to help keep all people in America safe.

During this week’s hearings with Administrator Zeldin, Congress should stand up and take back the power of the purse. Congress must see the proposed budget for the sham that it is and hold Zeldin accountable for his promises to protect public health and the environment during his confirmation hearings. Members of Congress must show Zeldin they understand—even if he’s forgotten— the importance of EPA as a longstanding investment in our health and safety, and see through the ruse of “fiscal responsibility” and “streamlining” as just code words to gut the agency. The administration knows, and history shows, that industry will not regulate itself.

We urge lawmakers to reject these shortsighted and harmful reductions, restore critical EPA funding, and reaffirm the federal commitment to public health, environmental justice, and scientific integrity. If they don’t act, under Zeldin’s watch, the very mission of the agency will be subverted—from protecting public health, environmental justice and scientific integrity to becoming an instrument of unchecked polluting industry interests. The cost of inaction will be measured in lives, livelihoods, and long-term environmental damage.