WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday he believes climate change is real and a threat, but that the agency he should lead is only authorized, not mandated, to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Former New York congressman Lee Zeldin, speaking at a Senate confirmation hearing, said the 2007 Supreme Court decision gave the agency legal authority to regulate heat-trapping greenhouse gases but did not bind the EPA to take action.
Zeldin said at the hearing that he believes climate change is real, a departure from his predecessors who led the EPA during the first Trump administration from 2017 to 2020 and from Trump himself, who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax.
“I believe climate change is real,” he told the committee, but did not directly answer questions about whether the U.S. should reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, the main driver of carbon emissions.
Zeldin said in his opening speech that the new Trump administration has a mandate from American voters to protect the environment, but without harming economic growth.
Trump has vowed to roll back the Biden administration’s climate agenda, including EPA regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide, methane and other emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources.
“The American people elected President Trump last November in part because of serious concerns about upward economic mobility and their struggle to make ends meet,” Zeldin said. “We can and must protect our precious environment without stifling the economy.”
