How Lee Zeldin Went From Environmental Moderate to Dismantling the E.P.A.

When President Trump’s cabinet secretaries clashed with Elon Musk this month over the billionaire’s chain saw approach to shrinking government, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, made it clear where he stood.

Mr. Musk had just traded barbs with Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, and Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. Things were tense. That’s when Mr. Zeldin chimed in to say he had no complaints about Mr. Musk, according to three people briefed on the March 6 meeting.

It was a telling moment for Mr. Zeldin, who has evolved from moderate blue state Republican to full MAGA warrior, taken to dismantling the agency he oversees with zeal.

Over the past nine weeks, Mr. Zeldin has withheld billions of dollars in climate funds approved by Congress, tried to fire hundreds of employees, recommended the elimination of thousands more E.P.A. scientists, and started trying to repeal dozens of environmental regulations that limit toxic pollution. He has filled the leadership ranks at the agency with lobbyists and lawyers from industries that have fought environmental regulations.

He has embraced Mr. Musk, calling theirs “an incredible partnership” and requiring that any expenditure at the E.P.A. over $50,000 be approved by Mr. Musk’s advisory group, the Department of Government Efficiency. Two members of the DOGE team, Kathryn Loving and Cole Killian, occupy an office outside Mr. Zeldin’s wood-paneled executive suite on the third floor of the E.P.A. headquarters. A handwritten note was recently taped to the door that said “Welcome to DOGE.”

Mr. Zeldin, 45, has canceled programs focused on marginalized communities that are disproportionately burdened by pollution, including an area in Louisiana known as Cancer Alley. He says he wants clean air and water, yet is taking steps scientists say will endanger both, while also working to ensure that the E.P.A. can never again limit the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.

And throughout, Mr. Zeldin has been running an aggressive public relations campaign, appearing on Fox News and Fox Business nearly two dozen times, writing opinion pieces for the New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, and using his taxpayer-funded press office to excoriate news outlets that fact-check his assertions. He posts direct-to-the-camera videos on X, demonstrating the communications skills he has polished throughout several political campaigns.

“He’s doing the job in a way that is a lot more visible than many of his predecessors of both parties,” said Kevin S. Minoli, a lawyer who worked in the E.P.A. Office of General Counsel from the Clinton through the Trump administrations. “I would imagine that he’s motivated to do things that his boss is going to like and see and reward.”

The E.P.A. did not respond to several requests to interview Mr. Zeldin. In a written statement, Mr. Zeldin said the Biden administration had used environmental regulations “to put a stranglehold on the American auto industry in their quest to destroy the American economy in the name of climate change.”

He was referring to strict limits imposed by the Biden E.P.A. on tailpipe emissions, regulations that were designed to speed the transition to electric vehicles.

“This administration does not support that policy posture, and we are doing everything in our power to revitalize this quintessential American industry,” he said.

Mr. Zeldin has sought the president’s notice by trying to claw back $20 billion that had been approved by Congress under the Biden administration for clean energy projects around the country.

He has framed the money as a slush fund for Democratic issues, citing a hidden-camera video made by Project Veritas, a conservative group known for using covert recordings to embarrass its political opponents.

In the video, which was made in the final weeks of the Biden administration, an E.P.A. employee likened the efforts to spend federal money on climate programs to throwing “gold bars” off the Titanic.

Mr. Zeldin has made the most of the “gold bars” line, claiming that he has discovered rampant fraud in the clean energy program, which he has shut down. Despite a request from a federal judge, the Trump administration has not provided evidence of fraud in that program and some of the nonprofit organizations that had been approved to receive the funds are now suing the administration.

John Podesta, who oversaw the implementation of the clean energy program during the Biden administration, said it had followed “extremely” stringent rules when selecting grantees. “We followed the law and they’re breaking the law,” he said of the Trump administration.

Mr. Zeldin’s other priorities at the E.P.A. have little to do with the agency’s half-century mission of protecting public health and the environment. They include increasing fossil fuel use, fast-tracking permits for energy projects, increasing jobs in the auto industry and advancing artificial intelligence.

“It’s quite shocking to have an administrator who in announcing his own vision did not even mention protecting public health and the environment,” said Daniel C. Esty, professor of environmental law and policy at Yale Law School.

Christine Todd Whitman, who led the E.P.A. under President George W. Bush, called Mr. Zeldin “a water boy for the president and Elon.”

A lawyer, leukemia survivor and a former Army captain who is now a reservist, Mr. Zeldin comes from a small coastal community on Long Island that borders a national wildlife refuge and is struggling with rising sea levels linked to climate change. During four years in the New York State Legislature and four terms on Capitol Hill, he was a moderate on environmental issues. Mr. Zeldin joined a bipartisan caucus to address climate change and supported solar energy and offshore wind. He voted to protect the E.P.A.’s budget and against a Republican effort to restrict the agency’s ability to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

But he moved to the right during his unsuccessful bid for governor of New York in 2022. He campaigned to end New York’s ban on hydraulic fracturing and to slow the state’s landmark law designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s very hard for me to rectify the Lee Zeldin I’ve known and met with for over a decade with the person we see now,” said Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an environmental group in Farmingdale, N.Y., in Mr. Zeldin’s former congressional district.

Mr. Zeldin would say “things like ‘science tells us climate change is real and we must act,’” Ms. Esposito said. “Now, it’s as if he has transformed into a completely different person. Was he acting for his first decade in elected office?”

Mr. Zeldin’s spokeswoman, Molly Vaseliou, said that his values have remained consistent.

Mr. Zeldin’s admirers say he is a workhorse, someone who prefers staying up late reading briefing books to socializing. When he ran for Congress, he’d ask his staff each morning how much money he needed to raise that day and then he’d meet the goal.

As E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Zeldin has kept a peripatetic travel schedule. Five days after he was sworn in, he was in East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a 2024 train derailment and toxic chemical spill, with Vice President JD Vance. Then he was in Los Angeles to survey wildfire damage, and North Carolina to visit families rebuilding after a devastating hurricane. Last week, he was in the Midwest talking to farmers and in the Southwest meeting with tribal leaders.

“He’s the kind of guy who feels guilty taking a day off,” said Matt Scott, who worked for Mr. Zeldin during his first two terms in Congress.

Mr. Zeldin hitched his wagon early to Mr. Trump. He was one of the first Republicans in Congress to endorse Mr. Trump in 2016. He led Mr. Trump’s impeachment defense and then helped to sow doubt about the 2020 election result. Mr. Trump showed his appreciation, reposting Mr. Zeldin’s statements about the impeachment proceedings on social media and later endorsing him for governor.

Chapin Fay, who managed Mr. Zeldin’s first campaign for Congress, said that Mr. Zeldin has a keen understanding of Republican voters and was taking his cues from them as much as from the president.

The E.P.A. is one of the most disliked federal agencies among conservatives, according to a Pew Research Center poll, with only 32 percent of Republicans having a favorable view of the agency.

“Opponents are going to say this is against the American people’s interests, but Lee believes what he is doing is good for the American people,” Mr. Fay said.

So far, Mr. Zeldin appears to be adhering to Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a government overhaul that was published by the Heritage Foundation. It recommends deep cuts at the E.P.A. and an end to the agency’s legal authority to regulate carbon dioxide and other gases that are heating the planet. It also calls for weakening the agency’s independent science office.

Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff at the E.P.A. during the first Trump administration and who wrote the E.P.A. section of Project 2025, said Mr. Zeldin was off to a good start. “He’s very good at communicating to the public what he’s doing and why he’s doing it,” she said.

Mr. Zeldin showed his political instincts by winning campaigns for both the State Legislature and Congress despite the feeling among some in the New York Republican Party that he wasn’t ready. And while Mr. Zeldin lost the governor’s race to Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, he came closer to winning than any Republican had in the previous 20 years.

Benji Backer is a Republican environmental advocate whose new organization, Nature is Nonpartisan, said it was too early to judge the E.P.A. administrator.

“He expressed to me that he wants to be remembered as somebody who cares about the environment,” Mr. Backer said.

Mr. Backer said he believed Americans wanted sensible environmental regulation. While the Trump administration is in a “burn it to the ground” mode, Mr. Zeldin must protect air and water quality, reduce plastic pollution and address climate change, or the Trump administration will lose popular support, Mr. Backer said.

“My call to him would be, leave your legacy on this,” Mr. Backer said. “This is your opportunity to build something really positive for the environment.”

One thing that comes naturally to Mr. Zeldin’s is building his own profile, Mr. Fay said, and that is happening.

Mr. Fay recalled that during Mr. Zeldin’s campaign for governor, he hammered the Democratic incumbent on crime and carefully timed almost-daily appearances in front of bodegas and subway stops where violence had occurred.

“He understood that if you have the press conference in the afternoon, you’ll be on the B-roll all day,” Mr. Fay said, referring to the supplementary film that is used to enhance storytelling and add visual variety in newscasts.

“Lee is trying to break through the clutter and make a name for himself,” he said. “One of his political talents is not getting left behind.”

Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.