{"id":19696,"date":"2026-05-28T09:56:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T09:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/lee-zeldins-war-on-public-health-counterpunch-org\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T09:56:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T09:56:59","slug":"lee-zeldins-war-on-public-health-counterpunch-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/28\/lee-zeldins-war-on-public-health-counterpunch-org\/","title":{"rendered":"Lee Zeldin\u2019s War on Public Health – CounterPunch.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image by SHTTEFAN.
\u201cZeldin\u2019s EPA To Relax Drinking Water Rules\u201d was the headline<\/a> this week in the daily newspaper Newsday <\/em>on Long Island, New York\u2014from which Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is from.
The subhead: \u201cPlans to rescind PFAS limits, delay removal deadline.\u201d
The article on two pages began with telling how the EPA is proposing \u201cto rescind federal limits on certain toxic \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 in drinking water\u2014established two years ago by the Biden administration\u2026.The Trump administration plans to roll back restrictions on four types of these chemicals, known as PFAS. Another proposed rule would allow water suppliers to request two more years to comply with limits on two other PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA. Water suppliers were initially given until 2029 to meet the standards under the Biden-era plan, but they will now be eligible for an extension to 2031.\u201d
It went on: \u201cPFAS\u2014or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances\u2014have been used in thousands of industrial and consumer products, from nonstick plans to artificial turf to fast-food wrappers. There are tens of thousands of PFAS compounds, very few of which are regularly, and they do not easily break down\u2014thus the term \u2018forever chemicals.\u2019 They enter groundwater when they are washed down the drains of ordinary households\u2026\u201d
Newsday <\/em>continued: \u201cResearchers have found long-term exposure to PFAS, even in tiny amounts, increases the risk of prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, developmental problems in infants and children and other health programs.\u201d
It\u2019s difficult to rate who is the worst member of President Trump\u2019s cabinet but, certainly, Zeldin is on the top tier, amid stiff competition.
The New Yorker <\/em>magazine has just run an article<\/a> \u2013seven full pages long\u2014which in the magazine is headlined: \u201cBurning Man, Lee Zeldin\u2019s assault on the E.P.A.\u201d and online is headed:
\u201cCan The EPA Survive Lee Zeldin.\u201d
A summary paragraph in the piece: \u201cIn a little more than a year Zeldin has transformed the E.P.A. from an agency devoted to protecting human health and the environment into one that, more or less openly, sides with polluters. He has packed the E.P.A.\u2019s upper echelons with former industry lobbyists, scrubbed entire databases of information from its website, and dissolved whole departments. Under his leadership, the agency has ditched a long list of rules that industries had objected to, including regulations aimed at cutting Americans\u2019 exposure to arsenic, a known carcinogen; mercury, a potential neurotoxin; and PM2.5, a form of very fine soot that has been shown to cause asthma and lung disease. The E.P.A. has not only abandoned its own efforts to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions; it has stepped into prevent states from taking action.\u201d
The article was by Elizabeth Kolbert, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and many other major journalism awards and for nearly 30 years a top staff writer at The New Yorker. <\/em>
It provides a huge amount of details and concludes with Kolbert writing that the \u201ceffects\u201d of Zeldin \u201cwill linger long after a new administrator takes over and the E.P.A. returns\u2014or doesn\u2019t return\u2014to its original mission.\u201d
An article<\/a> last month in The New York Times <\/em>was headed: \u201cHow Lee Zeldin Shifted the Mission\u2014and the Message\u2014of the E.P.A.\u201d It criticized actions and declarations of Zeldin including, it related, his writing on X, formerly Twitter: \u201cThe war on beautiful clean coal is OVER!….Natural gas, nuclear, coal, etc. can\u2019t be held back and at the Trump EPA WON\u2019T BE HELD Back,\u201d
The Times <\/em>article quoted Christine Todd Whitman, who, it noted, is \u201ca former Republican governor of New Jersey who led the E.P.A. under President George W. Bush\u201d saying: \u201cIt\u2019s just staggering how far outside the parameters of what the agency is about he has taken it. He is completely undoing the mission of the E.P.A.\u201d
At the start of 2026, in January, the daily newspaper, Newsday, <\/em>from where Zeldin hails, ran an editorial<\/a> headed: \u201cAn EPA that doesn\u2019t live up to its name.\u201d It began: \u201cThe federal government agency in charge of protecting our environment and the people\u2019s health has warped into an entity adrift of that purpose. In the first year of this Trump administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, headed by former Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, failed in its core mission of safeguarding and improving the quality of our air, water and food.\u201d
That is no surprise.
When he was nominated by Trump to be EPA administrator, the League of Conservation Voters sent a letter to members of the Senate signed by the Washington-based organization\u2019s president, Gene Karpinski, saying<\/a> Zeldin\u2019s \u201cabysmal 14% lifetime score on LCV\u2019s National Environmental Scorecard, long history in Congress and the NY state legislature opposing environmental and public health safeguards for our communities, and little environmental experience render him unqualified for the role.\u201d It called for a rejection of Zeldin\u2019s nomination.
The New Republic <\/em>ran a piece<\/a> headed: \u201cTrump Picks New EPA Head Guaranteed to Destroy the Environment.\u201d The subhead on its article: \u201cThis will be a disaster.\u201d
Environmental organizations are enormously critical of Zeldin as EPA administrator. \u201cA Year of Betrayal: EPA Under Lee Zeldin,\u201d was the heading of a posting<\/a> this January by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
\u201cThe air we breathe, the water we drink\u2026are not abstract concepts: they shape our health, our livelihoods, and our quality of life,\u201d it said. \u201cUnder Lee Zeldin, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made its sharpest turn in decades away from that core mission. Instead of doing its job to keep people safe, the agency is systematically dismantling protections for the environment and human health: weakening safeguards around clean air and clean water; leaving rural and urban communities alike more exposed to pollution from toxic chemicals; and undermining our ability to fight climate change the most existential threat we face today.\u201d
The New Republic<\/em> published a piece in March that reported on Zeldin giving the \u201ckeynote address\u2026at a Heartland Institute conference of anti-environmental, pro-polluter lobbyists and activists who have been working for years to dismantle climate regulations.\u201d
Zeldin was \u201cgreeted like a K-pop star at the climate deniers conference because he has delivered for them beyond their wildest dreams,\u201d it said. \u201cHe has cut billions of dollars from climate grants the Biden administration has awarded, eviscerated pollution rules and enforcement capacity, and perhaps most significantly wiped out the legal basis of much climate regulation\u2026.At the Heartland gathering, a leading anti-climate activist [Marc Morano] called Zeldin \u2018the most consequential EPA chief in the agency\u2019s history.\u2019\u201d
Zeldin has been reported to be a leading candidate to replace Pam Bondi, dismissed by Trump as attorney general. But, the journal Politico, <\/em>referring to that Heartland conference, ran an article<\/a> headlined: \u201cAt climate contrarian gathering, allies urge Trump to keep Zeldin at EPA.\u201d
It began: \u201cThere was one overarching message from a large group of climate contrarians gathered\u2026at a hotel near the White House: please keep Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in place.\u201d It quoted Heartland President James Taylor saying: \u201cLee Zeldin has been unbelievable as EPA administrator. So selfishly, I would love to see him stay at EPA\u2026This is the first time we have a true champion and cheerleader as head of EPA or this high up in the administration. These are great days.\u201d
Further about the EPA under Zeldin, The Environmental Protection Network published an article<\/a> this month headlined: \u201cProposed 55% cut to EPA is a Wrecking Ball that Endangers the Air We Breathe and the Water We Drink.\u201d The reduction, said the organization, \u201cwould require mass layoffs at the agency and cripple its core functions.\u201d
Its executive director, Michelle Roos, said: \u201cThe cuts are part of a broader administration agenda to put the interests of large polluters ahead of public health and the environment. They have already halted enforcement of the Clean Air Act and other bedrock environmental laws.\u201d
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKarl Grossman<\/strong>, professor of journalism at State University of New York\/College at Old Westbury, and is the author of the book,\u00a0The Wrong Stuff: The Space\u2019s Program\u2019s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet<\/a>, and the Beyond Nuclear handbook, The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space<\/a>. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).\u00a0He is a contributor to\u00a0Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion<\/a>.<\/i> \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image by SHTTEFAN.\u201cZeldin\u2019s EPA To Relax Drinking Water Rules\u201d was the headline this week in the daily newspaper Newsday on Long Island, New York\u2014from which Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is from.The subhead: \u201cPlans to rescind PFAS limits, delay removal deadline.\u201dThe article on two pages began with telling how the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19696","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=19696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}