Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin brought a fiery exchange against a progressive climate control hawk who forgot to do her homework, suggesting his defense was “BS.”
Zeldin appeared before the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee on Monday to testify and defend the EPA’s 2027 budget. He soon got into a heated argument with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who called his budget request a “climate change deniers’ manifesto.”
Yelling from DeLauro and gaveling by Chairman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, quickly began.
“How can the EPA justify abandoning that duty to protect Americans, to appease polluters under the false flag of economic growth,” DeLauro claimed.
Zeldin quickly corrected her, saying climate change acknowledgment and activism are not the role of the EPA.
“Where does it say anything about fighting global climate change,” Zeldin responded, referring to Section 202 of the Clean Air Act. He cited Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a landmark Supreme Court case with which DeLauro was unfamiliar, which found that the EPA does not have the authority to “get creative” on the basis of climate change.
“You are a member of Congress, you should know,” Zeldin, also a former congressman, said. DeLauro continued to seem confused and unfamiliar with Zeldin’s defense.
The congresswoman also seemed unfamiliar with the major questions doctrine, and the two biggest Supreme Court cases that deny her argument. Michigan v. EPA determined that the agency must take all costs and the economy into consideration, and West Virginia v. EPA determined Congress must authorize major policy changes.
“You should know this,” he said. “I actually read the law and did my homework,” Zeldin continued as DeLauro continued yelling.
“This is the appropriations committee,” she yelled as the chairman gaveled for silence.
“I don’t have to listen to this BS,” DeLauro continued yelling.
Zeldin’s fight for his budget comes as he works to reform the EPA while also strengthening the economy, a directive from the Trump administration. “Protecting the environment and growing the economy … we chose both,” Zeldin said as he noted major wins from the Trump administration.
“Without apology or regret, I will always adhere to the best available reading of federal statute pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright,” Zeldin wrote in a post on X sharing the video of the heated exchange.
