Lee Zeldin Hits the Ground Running at EPA

Two years after a train derailment exposed residents of East Palestine, Ohio, to hazardous chemicals, the new leader of the Environmental Protection Agency is making the village his first official visit Monday.

Lee Zeldin, a former New York congressman from Long Island, won his Senate confirmation vote Wednesday afternoon, spent Thursday and Friday meeting with agency employees, and now heads with Vice President JD Vance to the Ohio community still reeling from the catastrophic train crash on Feb. 3, 2023.

Zeldin invited The Daily Signal and a half-dozen other reporters to the EPA’s headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue last week to preview his plans for the agency.

It took then-President Joe Biden more than one year to visit the community of East Palestine. Vance and Zeldin will mark the somber anniversary with Ohio leaders Monday.

Speaking with Fox News “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo, the Ohio-born vice president praised Zeldin.

“People would always ask, ‘Is the water clean to drink? Is the air clean to breathe?’ And luckily, we now have a great EPA administrator who I think can answer those questions and fix the problems on the ground,” Vance told Bartiromo. “We’re going to do a little fact-finding, talk to people, and see what’s happening.”

East Palestine is just one stop Zeldin is planning to make early in his tenure at EPA.

He told The Daily Signal he’ll also soon visit hurricane-damaged North Carolina and fire-ravaged California. The wildfires in Los Angeles have created risks for residents returning to their homes, and Zeldin said the EPA has about 1,000 staff who are on the ground to help, educating individuals about handling everything from batteries to paint.

Before hitting the road for Monday’s visit to East Palestine, Zeldin spent his first full day at the EPA with career staff, soliciting their input and listening to their ideas. He said it’s part of his open-door approach to management.

“We’ve hit the ground running,” Zeldin said.

Like all agencies in the federal government, Zeldin is following through on President Donald Trump’s directive on in-person work. Many government offices resorted to telework during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving buildings empty and raising questions about productivity.

“I believe the COVID remote work era is over,” Zeldin said. It’s time to come back into the office and collaborate and to be productive in a way that the American public can be proud of to the max.”

Even as he made his way around the EPA building Thursday, Zeldin observed entire areas devoid of workers.

“And it wasn’t that I just passed by an office or two. I went through an entire wing where no door was open and no one was inside. I went to other offices where there were lots of people there, working hard,” he recalled. “We’re occupying a beautiful, historic, massive building. And we shouldn’t have hallways that are this quiet. The American people pay us to work for them.”

Zeldin defended the Office of Personnel Management’s “Fork in the Road” email to federal employees, offering them severance through Sept. 30 if they resigned this month.

“If you consider yourself to be the best, brightest talent that the EPA has, then I would encourage you to come help us accomplish our mission,” Zeldin said. “If you feel that your time is best spent no longer working for the federal government, and that your best days are behind you as far as your service with the EPA, that’s a personal choice for them to make.”

Picking up on a theme of his predecessor Andrew Wheeler, who served as administrator during Trump’s first term, Zeldin said he would prioritize permitting reform at the EPA.

After Trump announced his nomination in November, Zeldin said he received a call from Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., who told him about a European-based business that wanted to relocate to Oklahoma but was hesitant to do so given the bureaucratic process in Washington.

“It would be an investment of billions of dollars. The big deterrent for this company is that they would have to spend so much money that would take too many years, with great uncertainty, that even if they went forward with the process, they’re not even sure, at the end of the time and investment, that they would even get the permits,” Zeldin said. “There have been a lot of stories like that.”

Zeldin said he would also pursue policies to ensure the United States is “the AI capital of the world,” supplying the required energy to make that possible.