GOODBYE, E.P.A.; HELLO, E.D.A. 

THERE IS IRONY GALORE IN THE NEW U.S. Environmental “Deregulation” Agency having originally been established by Richard Nixon on December 2, 1970, “to protect human health and the environment” (this, at the E.P.A.’s website; or at least as of March 13, 2025). Alas, the rest of the website has already been contorted by a convicted felon, his oil and gas lobbyists, and now his new E.P.A. Administrator Lee Zeldin.

Lisa Friedman and Hiroko Tabuchi gives details in “E.P.A. Targets Dozens of Environmental Rules As It Reframes Its Purpose,” The New York Times, March 12, 2025.

What’s Being Repealed. Friedman and Tabuchi report,  “In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.”

This, of course, should come as no surprise, coming as it does from one who only recently called Climate Change “a hoax.”

Lower Costs? Friedman and Tabuchi write, “But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the E.P.A. In a two-minute-and-18-second video posted to X, Mr. Zeldin boasted about the changes and said his agency’s mission is to ‘lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home and running a business.’ ”

E.P.A. Origins. “Nowhere in the video,” The Times researchers note, “did he refer to protecting the environment or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.”

E.P.A.’s first administrator, William D. Ruckelhaus, was quoted as saying “the agency would be focused on research, standards and enforcement in five areas: air pollution, water pollution, waste disposal, radiation and pesticides.” 

What’s Coming. Friedman and Tabuchi recount, “Mr. Zeldin said the E.P.A. would unwind more than two dozen protections against air and water pollution. It would overturn limits on soot from smokestacks that have been linked to respiratory problems in humans and premature deaths as well as restrictions on emissions of mercury, a neurotoxin. It would get rid of the ‘good neighbor rule’ that requires states to address their own pollution when it’s carried by winds into neighboring states. And it would eliminate enforcement efforts that prioritize the protection of poor and minority communities.”

So much for “Making American Great Again.” 

“In addition,” they report, “when the agency creates environmental policy, it would no longer consider the costs to society from wildfires, droughts, storms and other disasters that might be made worse by pollution connected to that policy, Mr. Zeldin said.”

Cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze.

Lee Michael Zeldin, Long Island-born 1980; U.S. House of Representative, 2015–2023; Trump ally since the latter’s first administration; identified as a liar since his confirmation hearing.

Zeldin’s Environmental Cred:  “In perhaps its most consequential act,” The Times reporters note, “the agency said it would work to erase the E.P.A.’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by reconsidering decades of science that show global warming is endangering humanity. In his video, Mr. Zeldin derisively referred to that legal underpinning as ‘the holy grail of the climate change religion.’ ” 

He and the rest of the Trump administration have been particularly petulant in eschewing anything encouraged by Biden. God help them when they determine that Biden uses toilet paper. 

The Times researchers continue, “Mr. Zeldin called Wednesday’s actions ‘the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.’ He added, ‘today the green new scam ends, as the E.P.A. does its part to usher in a golden age of American success.’ ”

Let’s wait a decade and then you tell one.

Other Views: Friedman and Tabuchi quote Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island: “Today is the day Trump’s Big Oil megadonors paid for…. The E.P.A. moves [are] a series of attacks on clean air, clean water and affordable energy. Administrator Zeldin clearly lied when he told us that he would respect the science and listen to the experts.”

Confirming this lie, Wikipedia notes, “In 2014, he [Zeldin] ‘expressed doubts about the severity’ of climate change. In his confirmation hearing for EPA Director, Zeldin stated that climate change ‘is a real issue and needs to be addressed.’ ”  

Also, The Times researchers cite Gina McCarthy, who served as E.P.A. administrator in the Obama administration, who said it was “the most disastrous day in EPA history. Rolling these rules back is not just a disgrace, it’s a threat to all of us. The agency has fully abdicated its mission to protect Americans’ health and well being.” 

Zeldin will likely install a roadblock in this image as he has cancelled 2027 improvements in automotive clean air. Image from epa.gov/greenvehicles, (as of 3/13/25.…).

And “Jackie Wong, senior vice president for climate change and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said repealing or weakening regulations on automobiles, power plants and more would lead to increases in asthma, heart attacks and other health problems. At a time when millions of Americans are trying to rebuild after horrific wildfires and climate-fueled hurricanes, it’s nonsensical to try to deny that climate change harms our health and welfare,” said Ms. Wong.

The E.P.A. Endangerment Finding, 2009. This gave “the agency the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.” The Times researchers write, “Reversing the rule has long been the white whale for climate deniers. But doing so would require Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. to make and substantiate the argument that greenhouse gas emissions pose no foreseeable threats to public health, when decades of science says otherwise.”

Ha. Not that a Queens mobster knows “decades of science” from “weaves” of his own. To wit, his Tesla hypocrisy after campaigning against EVs for years. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025