{"id":13093,"date":"2026-05-01T03:25:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/democrats-say-epa-heads-budget-cut-proposal-reads-like-climate-change-deniers-manifesto-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T03:25:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T03:25:37","slug":"democrats-say-epa-heads-budget-cut-proposal-reads-like-climate-change-deniers-manifesto-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/01\/democrats-say-epa-heads-budget-cut-proposal-reads-like-climate-change-deniers-manifesto-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats say EPA head\u2019s budget cut proposal \u2018reads like climate change deniers\u2019 manifesto\u2019 – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lee Zeldin claims before Senate that Trump administration plan will make Environmental Protection Agency \u2018more efficient\u2019
Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration<\/a> of abandoning the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>\u2019s mission to protect human health and the environment at a congressional hearing Wednesday, slamming agency leadership over a proposal to cut its budget in half.
Lee Zeldin\u2019s appearance before the Senate environment committee was the EPA administrator\u2019s last of three budget hearings this week where he argued for sharply reduced funding for the agency, which already has seen its staffing reduced to its lowest level in decades<\/a> under his leadership. During much of the week, the former Republican congressman from New York took an aggressive approach, responding to Democrats in the House and Senate with his own questions and at times accusing them of being unprepared or failing to care about the EPA\u2019s record.
Zeldin has eliminated major climate change programs,<\/a> promoted deregulatory efforts he calls the biggest in US history and cancelled billions of dollars in Biden-era environmental justice grants to halt what he calls \u201cEPA\u2019s radical diversity, equity, and inclusion programs\u201d.
\u201cThis budget proposal captures significant efficiencies and a return focus on what Congress has directed us to do, demonstrating our commitment to a leaner, more efficient and accountable EPA\u201d that directly benefits Americans, Zeldin told senators on Wednesday.
The Republican administration\u2019s proposed $4.2bn EPA budget would sharply reduce support for state environmental programs and state-administered loans for water projects. It also would halt what it calls \u201cradical climate research\u201d and cut resources for enforcement and compliance. Officials asked for more money for faster project permitting and to address drinking water disasters.
\u201cZeldin has executed the fossil fuel industry\u2019s agenda. A massive reckoning is coming,\u201d said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator of Rhode Island.
On budgets, Congress gets the final say and lawmakers commonly depart from White House requests.
Last year, they rejected most of Donald Trump\u2019s proposed cuts, reducing agency spending by just 3.5% despite an administration request to cut spending by more than half. Democrats said the new budget plan shows Zeldin is a friend to industry and ignores the cancers, asthma and other consequences of pollution.
\u201cThe budget proposal reads like a climate change deniers\u2019 manifesto,\u201d said Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut representative and the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee. At a hearing on Monday, she asked how the EPA can justify abandoning its duty to protect people in the United States \u201cunder the false flag of economic growth\u201d.
The EPA has proposed rescinding a landmark finding that the climate crisis is dangerous, loosening rules from the Biden administration<\/a> limiting pollution from coal plants, and proposing to scrap greenhouse gas emission limits for certain vehicles.
In response to DeLauro, Zeldin asked where the Clean Air Act mentions fighting the climate crisis and whether she had heard of a recent supreme court decision that restricted the EPA\u2019s authority to write aggressive regulations.
\u201cYou do not have the right to say climate change does not exist, that it\u2019s a hoax,\u201d DeLauro said.
Zeldin said she should know about major supreme court decisions. \u201cYou\u2019re just somebody who likes to have the microphone on.\u201d
DeLauro said the administration\u2019s behavior was \u201carrogant\u201d and that it was \u201cmaking a mockery of what the agencies are all about\u201d.
Zeldin told Josh Harder, a Democratic representative of California, that data he cited on the agency\u2019s rollback of certain coal plant emissions limits was worthless.
\u201cHave your dog pee on it. It is not accurate,\u201d Zeldin said.
Harder\u2019s office later provided the EPA report from which it said the numbers came.
Zeldin argued that even with less money, the EPA has continued to enforce environmental laws. As examples, he cited an agreement with Mexico to reduce sewage flows into the polluted Tijuana River and sped up work to address radioactive contamination in the St Louis region.
That work complements strict adherence to the law, a departure from what Zeldin says was the regulatory overreach of Joe Biden\u2019s Democratic administration that wanted to strangle vital industries such as coal.
Republicans were largely supportive of Zeldin\u2019s message that the agency will be able to do more with less.
The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law provided tens of billions of dollars for drinking and wastewater loans through programs administered by states. That boost, however, ends this year, and the EPA\u2019s proposed budget would cut off most of the agency\u2019s support.
\u201cIt was never intended to be a new norm for spending,\u201d said Morgan Griffith, a Republican representative of Virginia.
But that would choke off money to remove harmful chemicals known as Pfas<\/a>, which take decades or more to break down, from drinking water. The agency\u2019s contention that better technology could do the job for less was unpersuasive, according to Jake Auchincloss, a Democratic representative of Massachusetts.
\u201cHow do we get rid of Pfas<\/a> in municipal water supplies with 90% fewer dollars?\u201d he asked.
Zeldin responded that technologies were promising and then mentioned congressional earmarks. Lawmakers have used them to fund projects in their districts with money that would otherwise go to states for loans \u2013 a practice many experts have criticized.
\u201cI know that members of Congress are going to raid it, and they have been doing it for a long time,\u201d Zeldin said.
Auchincloss replied that Zeldin was not in charge of earmarks and that \u201chope is not a strategy\u201d.
Zeldin was also questioned about industry influence on policymaking, with a particular focus on the \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d movement, which has attacked environmental harms from products like fertilizer. The movement\u2019s biggest champion is Trump\u2019s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Chellie Pingree, a Democratic representative of Maine, asked Zeldin whether he understood concerns from those advocates about industry influence at the EPA and the administration\u2019s support of more pesticides.
Zeldin called much of the lengthy question inaccurate and then mentioned plans to look at microplastics as a potential contaminant in drinking water and an upcoming review of the high-profile herbicide glyphosate.
\u201cI get it, you have an agenda,\u201d Zeldin said. \u201cI mean, I understand you\u2019d like to have a gavel in your hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lee Zeldin claims before Senate that Trump administration plan will make Environmental Protection Agency \u2018more efficient\u2019Senate Democrats accused the Trump administration of abandoning the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s mission to protect human health and the environment at a congressional hearing Wednesday, slamming agency leadership over a proposal to cut its budget in half.Lee Zeldin\u2019s appearance before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}