Staff Reports
America finally has an EPA administrator who understands that protecting our air and water doesn’t have to mean crushing American jobs. Lee Zeldin was sworn in as the 17th Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency on January 29, 2025, and he’s come in with a clear promise to put common-sense stewardship ahead of partisan bureaucracy.
The Senate confirmed Zeldin by a 56–42 vote, with a handful of Democrats crossing the aisle—proof that sensible governance still finds support in Washington when nominees put country over ideology. That bipartisan result should remind voters that reasonable leadership can win even in a toxic political climate.
From the start Zeldin has signaled he intends to strike the right balance: uphold high standards of environmental stewardship while prioritizing economic prosperity and American innovation. This administration’s message is straightforward—solve problems with technology and common sense, not endless, job-killing rules that handcuff our workers and manufacturers.
Actions speak louder than speeches, and Zeldin has already begun trimming obvious waste at the agency, closing a one-room museum that was costing taxpayers roughly $600,000 a year. Conservatives who demand accountability should applaud cutting frivolous spending and redirecting resources to real environmental priorities.
Meanwhile, critics on the left are predictably shrieking about rollbacks, but voters remember that overregulation under the previous administration strangled energy and manufacturing at the expense of American families. Zeldin’s approach—relying on innovation, rigorous science, and enforcement where it matters—aims to protect health and the environment without kneecapping our economy.
Zeldin’s record shows he isn’t a rubber stamp for industry; he served in Congress working to preserve Long Island Sound and supported bipartisan conservation measures like the Great American Outdoors Act. That kind of conservative stewardship—pro-environment, pro-worker, pro-jobs—is exactly what Americans asked for when they rejected the regulatory overreach of the past.
Now is the time for patriots to back an EPA that defends clean air and clean water while defending jobs and American ingenuity. Hold Administrator Zeldin to his promises, demand transparency and results, and don’t cede environmental care to alarmism that comes packaged as virtue but delivers only lost livelihoods.
