President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead EPA has a history of siding with Democrats on toxic chemicals issues, giving advocates some hope “forever chemicals” rules may be spared from the incoming administration’s deregulatory agenda.
As a Republican representing a Long Island, New York, congressional district between 2015 and 2023, Lee Zeldin voted twice in favor of legislation that would limit per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water and put polluters on the hook for cleanup under the federal Superfund program.
“I’d like to think he’d bring these smarts,” said Loreen Hackett, who leads the PFOA Project NY. “But I’d be lying if I said we weren’t extremely concerned with a repeat” of the first Trump-era EPA.
Former Trump EPA officials have previously said their efforts laid the groundwork for the Biden administration’s limits on PFAS in drinking water, but they have also signaled an appetite to review those levels as well as designations that list PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law.
