Congress
Senate confirms Zeldin to head EPA
Lee Zeldin, the former Republican congressmember who leveraged his full-throated defense of President Donald Trump into a position in his inner circle and ultimately his Cabinet, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday to be the 17th administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency by a 56-42 vote.
Zeldin has a mandate from Trump to carry out an aggressive deregulatory agenda aimed at boosting domestic energy production and bolstering the increasingly power-hungry data center and artificial intelligence sectors.
“We must ensure we are protecting the environment while also protecting our economy,” Zeldin said at his Jan. 16 confirmation hearing.
But he arrives at a moment when lawmakers and state officials on both sides of the aisle are panicked over potential cuts to popular EPA funding programs following the Trump administration’s Monday night memo to freeze federal grant and loan spending. Among the programs the Office of Management and Budget wants reviewed are EPA’s water infrastructure revolving funds, watershed cleanup programs that Zeldin strongly supported while in Congress, and Superfund and brownfields programs.
The Trump administration rescinded the freeze memo on Wednesday afternoon, though uncertainty about federal spending still swirls around Washington.
Republicans said Zeldin will pull back Biden-era policies they opposed and refocus the agency.
“As head of the EPA, Lee will return the agency to its original mission of protecting America’s air, water, and land — without, as he puts it, ‘suffocating the economy,’” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said on the floor.
Pro-biofuels Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), specifically praised Zeldin’s commitments to issue biofuels blending rules on time and expand sales of the E15 blend of ethanol year round.
Three Democrats joined all Republicans in supporting Zeldin: Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
Kelly, who previously supported Zeldin in committee, said in a brief interview on Wednesday that he was persuaded by Zeldin’s vows to uphold the law and spend appropriated money.
But most Democrats ultimately opposed Zeldin.
“I think, clearly, everybody likes clean air and clean water. My opposition to Lee Zeldin is founded on where he’s likely to be on a different issue: climate change,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, the top EPW Democrat, said on the floor on Wednesday.
He pointed to harm occurring now from disasters like the California wildfires and “the home insurance meltdown” in coastal areas, phenomena many scientists say have broadly been exacerbated by climate change. Whitehouse also cited Zeldin’s connections to fossil fuel interests.
“In that context, I have nothing against Lee Zeldin personally, but the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that is coming at him is essentially zero,” Whitehouse said.
Appearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this month, Zeldin positioned himself as a moderate, acknowledging the science underlying climate change and agreeing to provide aid and support to wildfire-ravaged California, a top target of Trump’s.
But he arrives at the agency with an ambitious to-do list ranging from deregulation and clawing back spending opposed by Republicans to broader administration goals such as ferreting out gender- and equity-oriented programs and workers.
“I commit to fully following the law,” Zeldin said in response to questions about spending appropriated funds and regulating pollutants, including greenhouse gases.
Zeldin also has some presidentially assigned tasks with looming deadlines.
An order signed on Trump’s first day in office directs EPA to report by Feb. 19 “on the legality and continuing applicability” of the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases. Undoing that finding would undermine the legal footing of many key EPA climate regulations. But the strong scientific case for how greenhouse gases cause climate change and the increasing certainty about its future effects could make defending such a decision in court extremely difficult.
Zeldin also has until March 21 to issue guidance pulling back on the social cost of carbon, the metric used to estimate the future benefits of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Trump’s order directed EPA to consider eliminating the social cost altogether, a step beyond Trump’s first term when his administration greatly reduced its value but still used it to study rulemakings.
Several of Zeldin’s longtime aides have already landed at the agency.
Eric Amidon, Zeldin’s chief of staff on Blue Light News and later his gubernatorial campaign manager, is serving as his chief of staff once again. His spokesperson Daniel Gall has landed in the public affairs office, while his former legislative assistant Jaide Barja works on congressional relations.
Trump has already announced plans to nominate David Fotouhi to be Zeldin’s deputy administrator. Currently a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Fotouhi served in the Office of General Counsel during Trump’s first term, eventually rising to be EPA’s acting general counsel.
Trump is also expected to nominate Aaron Szabo, another attorney and veteran of the first Trump administration, to run EPA’s air office. That nomination has not yet been announced.
Zeldin is the seventh member of Trump’s Cabinet to be confirmed this term, with Interior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum and Energy Secretary nominee Chris Wright lined up for votes in the coming days.
Annie Snider and Josh Siegel contributed to this report.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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