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Everyone Trump Has Picked to Join His Second Administration [1]

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Date: 2024-11-19 14:30:00+00:00

In 2021, former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) earned himself the worst lifetime record on environmental policy in the entire New York congressional delegation from the League of Conservation Voters, which offered a litany of pro-environment legislation Zeldin voted against.

Zeldin is now taking over the Environmental Protection Agency.

Zeldin isn’t going to prioritize combating the climate crisis, preserving and protecting America’s natural habitats, or any of the other responsibilities one might expect the head of the EPA to take on. Instead, he’ll be tasked with “unleashing America’s energy potential,” as Trump often puts it, through deregulation, catering to the fossil fuel industry, and moving away from green-energy initiatives. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI,” Zeldin wrote on X. “We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Trump added in a statement of his own that Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards.”

The “highest environmental standards” is subjective, though — to say the least. Zeldin has scoffed at taking climate change seriously, supporting Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords. He voted against the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and its bounty of clean-energy initiatives, and has opposed efforts to transition away from gas-powered cars, pushed to reverse New York’s ban on fracking, and supported the construction of new natural gas pipelines.

It goes without saying that Zeldin’s tenure atop the EPA will be bad for the environment. Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous said it anyway in a statement released after Trump’s announcement. “Naming an unqualified, anti-American worker 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,” Jealous wrote. “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.

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[1] Url: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-lists/trump-administration-picks-guide-maga-loyalists-1235162988/tulsi-gabbard-director-of-national-intelligence-1235165246/

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