Senate climate hawks grill nominee to head EPA on reducing emissions to stop ‘existential crisis’

Thursday’s confirmation hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for EPA administration, former New York GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, gave anti-fossil fuel Democrats in the Senate the opportunity to scrutinize what Zeldin would do, if confirmed, to reduce or eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Collaboration and balance

During the Biden-Harris administration, the Environmental Protection Agency took a large role in advancing President Joe Biden’s climate agenda, including tailpipe emission standards, which critics call the “EV mandate,” and the Clean Power Plant rule that aims to shut down most fossil fuel-powered electricity generation by requiring expensive and undeveloped carbon capture technologies.

President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, has suggested he’ll axe both policies as part of his American “energy dominance” plan, which seeks to lower energy costs.  

Sen. Shelley Capito, R-W.V., said that during the Biden-Harris administration, the EPA issued a number of rules that imposed heavy costs on coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, with the intention to shut them down. She said the EPA should reduce red tape and return to its core mission. 

“Unsurprisingly, over the same period of time, the cost of energy skyrocketed 23% over the last four years. Now our nation's Electric Reliability experts, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, forecasts over half of the United States could face potential electrical shortages and blackouts in the next decade,” Capito said. 

In his opening statements, Zeldin said, if confirmed, that he’d foster collaboration and balance in his approach to carrying out the mission of the EPA. 

“Our mission is simple but essential to protect human health and the environment," he said. "We must do everything in our power to harness the greatness of American innovation with the greatness of American conservation and environmental stewardship, we must ensure we are protecting the environment while also protecting our economy.

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, speaks during his Senate Environment and Public Works confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on January 16, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

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Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., speaks during his Senate Environment and Public Works confirmation hearing on January 16, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

(Getty Images)

Climate confirmation

Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse held up a photo of home state Rhode Island with hypothetical flooding as a result of sea level rise.

“Fossil fuel pollution is the cause of that," he said. "It will change the map of my state, and it will do us crippling economic damage."

The world’s oceans have been rising for centuries, but the rate is estimated to be increasing. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations consortium of the world’s leading climate scientists, estimates that seas will rise one to two-and-half feet by 2100. Maps like those shown by Whitehouse don’t factor in any adaptation efforts, such as sea walls. It’s similar to counting the people playing on a beach at low tide and assuming they’ll all drown when the tide comes in. 

Zeldin discussed adaptation measures in his response to Whitehouse’s questions. 

The nominee said that as the representative of New York’s First District, which covers the eastern half of Long Island, the Army Corps of engineers invested in the fortification of Montauk Lighthouse to protect it from collapsing into the ocean. 

Whitehouse argued that fossil fuel companies, which have been drilling for oil for nearly 200 years, are being “propped up” by subsidies, which will result in the “carbon bubble bursting” resulting in “stranded assets,” which are investments in technologies with no value when they become obsolete. The Rhode Island Democrat asked Zeldin whether he believed that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. 

“As far as carbon dioxide emitted from you, during that question, I would say no. As far as carbon dioxide that is admitted in larger masses that we hear concern about from scientists as well as from Congress, that's something that certainly needs to be focused on for the EPA,” Zeldin replied. 

While acknowledging that Zeldin isn’t a scientist, Whitehouse also asked the nominee what effect carbon-dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is having on the atmosphere. Zeldin said he believes that the EPA should work with its internal scientists to provide informative research. Whitehouse pressed him further to answer in layman’s terms what he thought the effect of carbon dioxide emissions are, to which Zeldin said it traps heat. 

Existential crisis

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, further pressed Zeldin on the issue of climate change. The self proclaimed democratic-socialist pointed to the wildfires in Los Angeles, flooding in China and drought in Brazil and Africa as evidence of climate change. He also claimed that people in Africa were dying as a result of an inability to grow crops. 

The IPCC, however, disputes that there’s any trend in drought or floods. 

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr., retired professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said on his “The Honest Broker” Substack that for a climate signal to be found in any climate trend, the IPCC needs to detect a trend happening. 

With regards to flooding, the IPCC has not achieved detection of trends in drought anywhere in the world at a level consistent with the IPCC’s threshold for detection. The panel has detected an increase in hydrological drought in the Mediterranean and northeast South America with high confidence but has, respectively, only medium confidence and low confidence that these droughts can be attributed to climate change. 

With regard to floods, the IPCC concludes, “there is low confidence in the human influence on the changes in high river flows on the global scale. In general, there is low confidence in attributing changes in the probability or magnitude of flood events to human influence because of a limited number of studies, differences in the results of these studies and large modeling uncertainties.” 

Sanders' claims about people dying from crop failures as a result of climate change also aren’t supported by the data. While regions can experience problems, globally, most staple crops in 2024 were on track to see record yields. 

The Vermont senator and former Democratic presidential candidate quoted Trump stating that climate change is a “hoax” and asked Zeldin whether he agreed. Zeldin said he thought climate change is real, but said Trump wasn’t necessarily disputing that. 

“As far as President Trump goes, the context that I have heard him speak about, it was with a criticism of policies that have been acted because of climate change. And I think he's concerned about the economic costs of some policies where there's a debate,” Zeldin said, before Sanders cut him off saying he “respectfully disagreed” with him. 

Before Zeldin can be confirmed, the committee will vote on whether to recommend him to the full Senate. His confirmation will then be debated on the Senate floor, and he’ll need a majority of senators in the GOP-controlled Senate to be confirmed.