By Steven Cohen, Ph.D., Director of the M.S. in Sustainability Management program, School of Professional Studies
Lee Zeldin seems confused. Recently, he decided that the mission of EPA was to: “lower the cost of buying a car, heating a home, and running a business.” That is not EPA’s mission, that is the job of the Commerce Department and several other federal agencies. Here in New York City, the Fire Department puts out fires, the Police Department arrests criminals, and the Sanitation Department picks up garbage. All have different uniforms, different organizational capabilities, and different functions. Each department focuses on their assigned mission. It’s easy to understand. I guess we should be grateful that Zeldin isn’t New York City’s Mayor. The EPA’s job is to protect the environment. It is not trying to raise the cost of living and does not really do that. If you look at all EPA’s programs, the financial benefits are far greater than the costs. It does you little good to buy a car that costs $1,000 less if poisons from environmental pollution keep you out of work or put you in a hospital where your co-pay can be far greater than the cost of a car. Lee Zeldin and the Trump administration apparently do not understand the financial value of a clean environment. If one of President Trump’s golf courses had to close for a week due to the type of air pollution we used to see in China, perhaps he’d better understand the economic value of clean air. There are plenty of agencies involved in promoting the economy, EPA’s job is to protect the environment. In the New York Times on March 13, Lisa Friedman and Hiroko Tabuchi reported that:
“In a barrage of pronouncements on Wednesday the Trump administration said it would repeal dozens of the nation’s most significant environmental regulations, including limits on pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks, protections for wetlands, and the legal basis that allows it to regulate the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet. But beyond that, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, reframed the purpose of the E.P.A. In a two-minute-and-18-second video posted to X, Mr. Zeldin boasted about the changes… Nowhere in the video did he refer to protecting the environment or public health, twin tenets that have guided the agency since its founding in 1970.”
Among the many rules he will waste enormous resources seeking to attack was the one required by the Supreme Court when they ruled that greenhouse gasses were a danger to public health and directed EPA, under the requirements of the Clean Air Act, to regulate these emissions. Since Zeldin runs the Environmental Destruction Agency and not the EPA, I guess he figures the Court’s decision doesn’t apply any longer.
This performative and absurd attack on the structure of American environmental law further destabilizes the certainty of America’s business environment and, along with tariffs and other ill-advised pronouncements from the Trump administration, makes America a less attractive place to park and invest foreign capital. As Zeldin will learn, just as it takes about half a decade from regulatory concept to on-the-ground reality, so too will it take many years and many court battles to deregulate our environmental rules. His pronouncements will create more uncertainty than actual deregulation. Rules are designed to operationalize laws, and unless the laws are repealed, some form of regulation must be promulgated. I see no sign that the Trump Administration is going to try to repeal America’s pollution control rules in Congress.
The result of all this performative rule bashing is that good corporate citizens who now adhere to the law will continue to do so, but scofflaw corporations will know that the rules will not be enforced and will feel free to ignore them. I am not arguing that all environmental regulations are sound or that government regulators don’t make mistakes. But regulation and enforcement are slow and deliberative processes. Regulated parties are given plenty of time to comply with rules, and it is rare that a regulation destroys a business. Many regulations create businesses. Someone must make all those seat belts and airbags. Zeldin believes that he is saving American businesses one trillion dollars in regulatory costswhile presenting no data to back up his claim and then argues that “we will abide by the rule of law to protect consumer choice and the environment." Since he is cutting research labs and inspection and enforcement staff while gutting regulations designed to clarify the law, his statements are a little disingenuous.
There are examples of what I consider over-regulation in the drive to decarbonize our economy. I don’t favor regulating the internal combustion engine out of existence through tailpipe and mileage regulations. I prefer subsidizing the development of renewable energy and electric vehicle technology and use. Eventually, the market will reward the superior technology of EVs, and internal combustion engines will go the way of the horse and buggy. Climate activists think they can accelerate the process, but what they’ve done is generate political pushback related to “consumer choice.” Additionally, the Trump Administration’s macho need for “energy dominance,” bias toward fossil fuels, and attack on the battery and EV charging investments of the Inflation Reduction Act have resulted in an all-out attack on efforts to decarbonize our economy and mitigate climate change. Fortunately, the market for lower-priced and decentralized renewable energy and electric vehicles can grow without incentives. The growth will just be slower.
While he’s only been Administrator for a short time, I see no evidence of Zeldin doing anything at all to protect the environment. Although he won’t be EPA’s worst Administrator, since that honor belongs to either Anne Gorsuch Burford or Scott Pruitt, he’s only just begun. He has eliminated environmental justice offices throughout the agency and has begun the process of cutting 65% of the agency’s budget. In addition, EPA has canceled and frozen hundreds of contracts with nonprofit organizations and cut-off staff-grantee communications, labeling all the grants as “environmental justice” programs banned by Presidential Executive Order, without even examining the actual activities underway. In a report on ABC’s website, MaryAlice Parks observed that:
“Environmental Protection Agency staff members across the country have been told by supervisors they are prohibited from communicating with grantee partners they are supposed to supervise and monitor, according to multiple sources inside the EPA and others working directly with the agency. And many nonprofit organizations and other EPA grant recipients have found themselves frozen out of accessing their federal funds without notice or explanation…Nonprofit leaders from across the country with EPA grants and contracts describe weeks of a communication blackout…While the communication blackout appeared to be sweeping in multiple regional offices and consequential for grant recipients, it did not seem to apply to all EPA staff nationwide…Many nonprofit leaders who received termination notices in the last few weeks expressed frustration that they were not given the chance to explain their work and said the savings, in their view, were overblown. The news comes as agency leaders were also told to draft plans with a deadline of this week for further staffing reductions.”
Like the entire DOGE (Destroying Our Government’s Effectiveness) effort, the cuts at EPA are designed for visibility and public relations. Similar to much of the Musk effort in both the private and now public sector, the strategy seems to be “ready, fire, aim.” Unlike regulatory changes, which are complicated and supervised by courts, disrupting a grant is relatively simple, if probably illegal. The government simply cuts off the electronic transfer of funds. Even if the funds are reimbursement for activities already complete, and even if EPA has signed a grant or contract agreeing to send the money, the DOGE tech bros have simply flipped the switch on government payment portals. Certain parts of the federal government have simply stopped paying their bills. One sometimes sees this practice in the private sector where payments are delayed to suppliers to enable the purchaser to benefit from keeping the cash on hand as long as possible. Donald Trump’s construction businesses in New York were famous for delaying or even denying payments to contractors who had completed their work. Governments have no reason to avoid paying their bills, but in the case of DOGE and the cuts at EPA, it appears the effort is to dismantle entire parts of the government. This is an extreme version of the right-wing strategy of “starving the (governmental) beast.”
I must sadly conclude that the EPA of Lee Zeldin is an agency in the process of being dismantled in an unthinking and chaotic manner. It no longer deserves to be called an environmental protection agency but instead should be re-titled the Environmental Destruction Agency. I worked at EPA during Jimmy Carter’s presidency and was impressed by the brainpower, dedication, and work ethic of its people. It was a wonderful place to work. Many of my graduates work there and have worked there, and while I had hoped that Zeldin would refine but adhere to EPA’s mission, it is clear my hope was misplaced. It saddens me to see this small but critical agency being dismantled, but as I have written before, if its demise results in visible environmental damage, those in power will pay a political price for their actions. The American people will pay an even steeper price. As I often say, “People like to breathe…they sort of get used to it.”
Views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Columbia School of Professional Studies or Columbia University.
About the Program
The Columbia University M.S. in Sustainability Management program offered by the School of Professional Studies in partnership with the Climate School provides students cutting-edge policy and management tools they can use to help public and private organizations and governments address environmental impacts and risks, pollution control, and remediation to achieve sustainability. The program is customized for working professionals and is offered as both a full- and part-time course of study.
