jilipark Lee Zeldin Knows How to Defend Trump. Will He Defend the Environment?
When he ran for governor of New York two years ago, fellow Republicans privately exhorted former Representative Lee Zeldin to distance himself from Donald J. Trump and his debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
He leaned in instead, most likely dooming any chance of his winning in a Democratic-leaning state. But his loyalty did not go unrewarded: This week, President-elect Trump chose Mr. Zeldin, 44, to be the next administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The selection caught even Mr. Zeldin’s closest allies by surprise, and sent environmentalists and their opponents alike racing to understand his record. Unlike the energy industry lobbyists Mr. Trump elevated during his first term, Mr. Zeldin is a former Army lawyer and career politician with relatively little climate or energy expertise.
But it fits a pattern emerging in Mr. Trump’s earliest cabinet-level announcements, as he turns to his most reliable boosters from New York and Florida, often over seasoned policy experts. Mr. Zeldin’s nomination came the same day that Mr. Trump tapped another prominent New York Republican, Representative Elise Stefanik, to be his ambassador to the United Nations.
Mr. Zeldin declined to be interviewed for this article. In interviews with nearly a dozen environmental activists and others from his district, though, a portrait emerged on Tuesday of Mr. Zeldin as a Republican willing and even eager to address environmental problems at home on coastal Long Island, who nonetheless became more extreme on national climate positions as his profile grew.
Many also wondered whether Mr. Zeldin’s personal positions would even matter under a president who has promised to “kill” key environmental regulations as part of his economic agenda.
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