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As President-elect Donald Trump announces his choices for high-level positions in his administration, his environmental plans are coming into focus.
Former Florida congressman Lee Zeldin will head the Environmental Protection Agency. During Zeldin's time in the House, he voted against clean air legislation at least a half dozen times and against clean water bills at least a dozen times, according to the League of Conservation Voters. Zeldin has a 14 percent lifetime score from LCV. Trump said that Zeldin would "ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions" to "unleash the power of American businesses."
The New York Times reports that Trump's former Interior secretary, David Bernhardt, is working on the transition team that is preparing a slate of executive orders. Those orders include shrinking national monuments in the West to allow more drilling and mining on public lands, and eliminating every office across the federal government that works to limit pollution that disproportionately affects poor communities.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's administration is working to "Trump-proof" his climate and environmental legacy. That includes finalizing plans to protect the greater sage-grouse across the West and limit oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Biden administration is also planning to deliver billions of dollars in climate and clean energy grants in the coming months. White House clean energy adviser John Podesta said the administration had issued $98 billion in grants by the end of the fiscal year that ended in September—88 percent of the funding available—with the rest on the way before Biden leaves office.
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This is not the end of our fight for a cleaner, safer planet. The fight is bigger than one election or political cycle.”
