Lee Zeldin tapped to lead Environmental Protection Agency under Trump
Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) President-elect Donald Trump has tapped former Rep. Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
In a statement on Monday, Trump praised Lee’s background as a lawyer and said he’s known the former New York congressman for a long time.
“He will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump said. “He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way.”
Zeldin confirmed he had been offered the job in a social media post.
“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin wrote on X. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
Zeldin represented Long Island’s Suffolk County in the House of Representatives for eight years. He ran for governor against Democrat Kathy Hochul in 2022, earning Trump’s endorsement but falling short of Hochul by 6 points.
Zeldin previously criticized the Biden-Harris administration for canceling a key permit needed for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline and rejoining the Paris climate agreement after Trump withdrew. During his gubernatorial bid, he wanted to reverse New York state’s ban on hydraulic fracking.
Zeldin will need to be confirmed by the Senate to lead the EPA.
Trump’s pick of Zeldin comes less than a week after Election Day and as Trump’s new administration begins to take shape.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(PHOENIX) — President Joe Biden was in Arizona on Friday to apologize to Native Americans for the federal government forcing Indian children into boarding schools where the White House said they were abused and deprived of their cultural identity.
Departing the White House Thursday, Biden said he was going to Arizona “to do something that should have been done a long time ago.”
He said he would make “a formal apology to the Indian nations for the way we treated their children for so many years.”
The White House called his trip to Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix — his first to Indian Country as president — “historic.”
Officials said he will discuss the Biden-Harris administration’s record of delivering for tribal communities, including keeping his promise to visit the swing state, which is happening close to Election Day.
“The president also believes that to usher in the next era of the Federal-Tribal relationships we need to fully acknowledge the harms of the past,” the White House said.
“For over 150 years, the federal government ran boarding schools that forcibly removed generations of Native children from their homes to boarding schools often far away. Native children at these schools endured physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and, as detailed in the Federal Indian Boarding School Investigative Report by the Department of the Interior (DOI), at least 973 children died in these schools,” the White House said.
“The federally-run Indian boarding school system was designed to assimilate Native Americans by destroying Native culture, language, and identity through harsh militaristic and assimilationist methods,” it said.
(GEORGIA) — One day after a Georgia judge invalidated the state’s controversial “hand count” rule, a separate judge Wednesday evening invalidated even more rules that were passed by the Republican-led state election board, declaring them “unlawful and void.”
Fulton County Judge Thomas Cox ruled after an hours-long hearing to invalidate seven rules total, including the hand count rule, finding in part that the board did not have the authority to enact them.
Cox made clear that the State of Georgia and the State Election Board “are hereby DIRECTED TO IMMEDIATELY REMOVE THESE RULES FROM THEIR ROLES AND OFFICIAL REPORTING” and to “IMMEDIATELY INFORM ALL STATE AND LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIALS THAT THESE RULES ARE VOID AND ARE NOT TO BE FOLLOWED,” in his decision.
The rules now invalidated include a rule calling county officials to certify election results after “reasonable inquiry.”
Cox wrote in his order that rule “adds an additional and undefined step into the certification process” and that it is “inconsistent with and unsupported” by state law.
He also invalidated a rule that “requires that a person delivering an absentee ballot provide a signature and photo ID at the time the absentee ballot is delivered.”
The judge said in his ruling that state provisions don’t require that.
“The SEB thus has no authority to require such presentment as a condition of accepting and counting an otherwise properly delivered ballot,” Cox wrote.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation Sunday afternoon after meeting with his national security team, calling the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s “abhorrent” regime a “historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria.”
“At long last, the Assad regime has fallen,” Biden said. “This regime brutalized, tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent Syrians.”
At the same time, it’s “also a moment of risk and uncertainty,” Biden added, saying that the U.S. would “support Syria’s neighbors, including Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, and Israel, should any threat arise.”
He also said the U.S. is “mindful” of the security of Americans in Syria, including American freelance journalist and Marine Corps veteran Austin Tice, who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in 2012. Biden said it will “remain committed to returning [Tice] to his family.”
“This is a moment of considerable risk and uncertainty,” Biden said. “But I also believe this is the best opportunity in generations for Syrians to forge their own future free of opposition.”
President-elect Donald Trump had earlier called the situation in Syria a “mess” and urged against the U.S. getting involved in the conflict.
“In any event, Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!” Trump wrote in a post on X.
On Saturday, White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett said the U.S. “has nothing to do with this offensive, which is led by Hay’at Tahir al-Sham (HTS), a designated terrorist organization,” and said that the U.S. would work together with its allies and partners to urge deescalation and to protect U.S. personnel and military positions.
Speaking at a defense conference Saturday, before rebels advanced into Damascus, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the speed and scale of the rebels’ rapid advance came, in part, because Assad’s chief backers — Iran, Russia and Hezbollah — had all been “weakened and distracted,” in recent months.
That has left Assad “basically naked,” Sullivan said. “His forces are hollowed out.”
Early Sunday, the rebel military operations command for the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, claimed the president was no longer in the capital, writing: “We declare the city of Damascus free of the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday morning that Assad “decided to leave the presidential post and left the country, giving instructions to transfer power peacefully.” Russia and Iran were the two most important foreign backers of Assad’s government.
Trump said Russia, which has long supported Assad’s regime, is “tied up in Ukraine” and apparently unable to intervene in Syria, and said Assad being forced out “may actually be the best thing that can happen” to the Russian government.
“There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin. Too many lives are being so needlessly wasted, too many families destroyed, and if it keeps going, it can turn into something much bigger, and far worse,” Trump said.
In an interview with ABC News, retired Marine Corps Gen. Frank McKenzie, who led the U.S. Central Command during Trump’s first term, agreed with the president-elect’s assessment that the situation could spell chaos.
“I’m not sure it’s ultimately going to be good news for the people of Syria,” McKenzie said. “You know, we could have an Islamic State arise there which will have profound negative implications across the region. That is possible. There are other possibilities as well. And I think in the next 48, 72, 96 hours, we — this will begin to become clearer to us.”
“It’s a significant moment in Syrian history,” McKenzie added. “I wish I could be more hopeful that it will mean good news for the Syrian people. I think that’s very unclear right now.”
Asked about the safety of the 900 U.S. military members stationed in eastern Syria to contain ISIS, McKenzie said Assad’s fall could put them in a better place.
“Actually, there’s probably less danger right now than there was before, because what you see are the Iranians, Lebanese Hezbollah and, in fact, the Russians are all on their back heels now as a result of what has just happened in Syria,” he said.
