Lee zeldin

Birthday: January 30, 1980

Hometown: East Meadow, New York

Primary residence: Shirley, New York

Current role: Head of the EPA

Net worth/Salary: Ranges from $285,009 to $715,000

Education: 

• Bachelor’s Degree from SUNY Albany 

• JD from Albany Law School 

Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

• Trump’s Nominee for Secretary of the EPA

• Chairman of Zeldin Cares

• Chairman of Leadership America Needs PAC

Past roles: 

• Republican Nominee for New York Governor (2022)

• Congressional Representative, NY-1 (2015-2023)

• New York State Senator (2011-2014)

History of supporting anti-environmental policies in the state of New York 

• Zeldin has a long history of supporting anti-environmental policies, especially in his home state of New York where he represented the first Congressional district from 2015 to 2023. In 2020, Zeldin received the League of Conservation Voters’ worst score on environmental issues out of the entire New York Congressional delegation, opposing the pro-environment position on 18 of the 21 votes scored that year alone. Although the drinking water in his district is among the most contaminated in New York State, Zeldin has supported efforts to block the Clean Water Act. He also voted to ease coal-burning factory emission standards and prohibit the EPA from ever releasing new air quality standards based on scientific findings.

• Additionally, Zeldin’s unsuccessful campaign for governor of New York in 2022 emphasized increasing fossil fuel extraction. Zeldin was a staunch opponent of New York’s ban on fracking and ran his campaign for governor on ending the ban. He proposed a three-point plan to lower energy costs, which would have included reversing the state’s moratorium on fracking, building new gas pipelines, and suspending the state gas tax.

Summary of voting records in Congress

• Lee Zeldin supported Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and has voted against protecting the environment at least 164 times. 

VOTED AGAINST: 

• The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the most transformative climate and environmental justice legislation in American history

• A package of five bills that would improve accountability in corporations and require companies to disclose their emissions  and take steps to mitigate their climate risks

•  A pro-environment funding package to support environmental justice communities and EPA grants, cancelling over 400 environmental justice grants totaling $1.7B

• Establishing a White House Office of Climate Resilience

• Cracking down on oil industries’ price gouging and protecting working class families from rising energy costs while billionaires profit 

• The INVEST in America Act, a modern infrastructure bill that would invest in climate smart and pro wildlife infrastructure

• Increasing funding for renewable energy research and development 

• The 2009 Endangerment Finding, which removes the EPA’s ability to regulate harmful greenhouse gases.

And dozens more!

Wealth 

• While it is difficult to ascertain Zeldin’s exact net worth, it is guaranteed to only increase if he is appointed to head the EPA under President Trump’s administration. WealthX estimates his wealth at over $1.5 million.

• Zeldin has assets in real estate in Arizona that are at least $250,000, in addition to a mansion in Long Island where he resides with his family. 

Praise

• The EPA has released a list of organizations praising the agency’s actions. HEATED’s Emily Atkins reported that there were no environmental or public health groups listed; instead there were fossil fuel trade groups; conservative policy groups with fossil fuel industry backing, and members of Congress who have taken millions in campaign donations from the oil and gas sector over their careers. 

• Climate criminal Mandy Gunasekara, who wrote the E.P.A. section of Project 2025, has said that  Mr. Zeldin is offto a good start, noting “He’s very good at communicating to the public what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.” 

• New York State Conservative Party Chair Jerry Kassar was thrilled to hear about Zeldin’s appointment as leader of the EPA, noting, “We believe the country is over-regulated particularly as it affects some of the oil industry and some of the auto industry as well as some of the just general business regulations that do not necessarily follow the science. And we think Lee understands that and he will be a perfect EPA administrator for the Conservative Party.”

• Lee Zeldin serves as a regulatory insider for the fossil fuel industry. He has a history of climate skepticism and opposing climate change mitigation measures, including promising to reverse New York’s ban on fracking if elected governor. In 2022 he told POLITICO,  “When I talk about reversing the state’s ban on the safe extraction of natural gas and approving new pipelines, that’s a lot of jobs, that’s a lot of revenue.”

• Zeldin also supports climate misinformation and deception techniques: he has voted for 17 bills that make it more difficult for the government to inform the public about the health risks of toxic chemicals. He also voted to prohibit the EPA from ever releasing new air quality standards based on scientific findings. In debates, he emphasizes his role in the House Climate Solutions Caucus, but that caucus has been repeatedly criticized by experts as a way for members of Congress to greenwash their records without taking action. 

• “Donald Trump has chosen to reward a 2020 election denier, whose only job will be to reward corporate polluters by gutting the EPA and making our air and water dirtier. In Congress and the courts, we’ve got a fight ahead.” - Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) 

• “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,” - Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous

• “We need a steady, experienced hand at EPA to marshal federal resources to fight climate change and utilize the full power of the law to protect communities from toxic pollution. Lee Zeldin is not that person. His loyalty to Donald Trump indicates he will gladly take a sledgehammer to EPA’s most recent lifesaving regulations, putting politics over science and endangering our communities.” -EarthJustice President Abby Dillon

• “Trump's EPA pick, Lee Zeldin, has a climate record that includes slashing the EPA’s budget, opposing climate action, and denying climate change.  His main “qualification”? Loyalty to Trump.” -Sunrise Movement

• “With regard to the endangerment finding, they’ll say carbon dioxide is a pollutant and that’s the end of it. They’ll never acknowledge any type of benefit or need for carbon dioxide… It’s important to note, and they don’t, how important it is for the planet.” - Zeldin, July 2025

• “Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen. We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.” - Zeldin, July 2025

• “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boat loads of cash to far-left, activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.” - Zeldin, March 2025.

• “It would be productive if we could get to what is real and what is not real,” he said. “I’m not sold yet on the whole argument that we have as serious a problem as other people are.” - Lee Zeldin, 2014. 

• “The president was talking about unleashing economic prosperity through the EPA… there are regulations that the left wing of this country have been advocating through regulatory power that end up causing businesses to go in the wrong direction.” -Zeldin on Fox News

• “So, day one and the first 100 days, we have the opportunity to roll back regulations that are forcing businesses to be able to struggle, they’re forced to cut costs, internally, they are moving overseas all together. There are regulations that the left wing of this country have been advocating through regulatory power that ends up causing businesses to go in the wrong direction” -Zeldin, November 11th, 2024

Government ties 

• Zeldin was a New York State Senator from 2011 to 2014, and then spent four terms as the congressional representative from New York’s first district from 2015 to 2023. Instead of continuing his run in Congress, Zeldin ran as the Republican nominee for New York Governor in 2022, narrowly losing to incumbent Kathy Hochul.

• Zeldin accepted at least $170,107 in contributions from pesticide manufacturers and other major polluters like Koch Industries when he was in Congress. Zeldin also received over $260,000 from the oil and gas industry while running for Congress and over $150,000 during his 2022 gubernatorial campaign. The cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder donated at least $11 million dollars to support Zeldin’s gubernatorial run, which was likely motivated in part by the billionaire’s opposition to a cable from an offshore wind project that was planned to be installed where he has a home in the Hamptons. 

• Zeldin is a chair at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a conservative think tank co-founded by fellow oilgarch and major Trump donor Tim Dunn. 

Zeldin has donated to the Congressional campaigns of a number of fossil fuel magnates and climate change deniers. These include: 

• Alex Mooney (R- WV 2): cosponsored the Keystone XL Pipeline Act, voted against the Paris Climate Agreement, and passed the STREAM Act to prevent coal mining regulations. 

• Kevin Calvert (R- CA 41): received an 8% Lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters and is a longtime supporter of oil and “traditional energy sources”. 

• Ryan Zinke (R - MT 1): active climate change denier who was a key part of President Trump’s destructive “energy dominance agenda” during his first administration. 

Zeldin is a chair at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), a conservative think tank co-founded by fellow oilgarch and major Trump donor Tim Dunn.

• Zeldin’s EPA has facilitated the process for reversing the endangerment finding, which is the federal position cemented in 2009 that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger the public. If successful, this will remove the legal foundation for regulations limiting greenhouse gases in the United States. 

• He has proposed repealing the emissions standards for new fossil fuel-fired power plants issued during the Obama Administration and Biden Administrations. 

• The EPA has Rolled out a reorganization plan that will severely downsize the Office of Research and Development, the agency’s largest research arm that employs close to 1,000 scientists and climate experts.

• Zeldin recommended the reversal of the endangerment finding, which is the federal position that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger the public. If successful, this will remove the legal foundation for regulations limiting greenhouse gases. 

• The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate the Office of Research and Development, the agency’s largest research arm that employs close to 1,000 scientists and experts. 

• Climate change sections on the EPA’s website have been made less visible on their homepages, and mentions of climate change and application portals for funding opportunities have been removed from the Agency’s website.

• Rolled back 31 pollution protections that would save 200,000 lives and deliver $254 billion in economic benefits, citing his actions as “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen.”

• Dozens of EPA contracts have been canceled, totaling what the agency said is around $2 billion across more than 400 initiatives.  

• Zeldin is trying to illegally claw back $20 billion dollars of funding through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and has launched a criminal investigation on the program. These funds are currently frozen. When obligated, they would help create a national green bank to finance low and zero emissions energy projects, more than half of them in low-income and disadvantaged communities. 

• The EPA has closed all of its environmental justice offices, with Zeldin noting that “President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people. Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.”