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Zeldin Explains His Pledge to Cut 65% of the EPA's Total Spending, Mar. 11, 2025

March 11, 2025 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 0:02:44

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What happened

In a video message released by the EPA on March 11, 2025, Administrator Lee Zeldin explained his pledge to cut at least 65% of the EPA’s total spending. As he stated the arithmetic: in 2024 EPA awarded and spent over $63 billion, and accomplishing the agency’s core mission, as he put it, only requires less than 35% of that total — “we don’t want the extra money, and we don’t need it,” as he said in the message.

He listed steps already taken, as he stated them: working with the DOGE team, over $2 billion in DEI and environmental justice grants canceled; nearly $3 million in unnecessary travel costs canceled; $1 million in media subscriptions terminated; and staffing right-sizing already saving, as he stated it, $300 million annually. He criticized, as he described it, nearly $100 million a year in rent for headquarters buildings that have remained overwhelmingly empty, and a museum praising environmental justice — the size of a one-bedroom apartment, as he put it — that cost millions to build and hundreds of thousands a year to operate, with major gaps in EPA history between 2016 and January 2021, as he stated it.

Why it matters

The 65% pledge is the boldest number of the Zeldin EPA’s efficiency program — a dated, measurable commitment, stated here in the Administrator’s own arithmetic, that the agency’s budget record can be tracked against year by year.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: Zeldin’s pledge, stated on March 11, 2025, to cut at least 65% of EPA’s total spending from the 2024 level he cited (over $63 billion), with the itemized savings he listed. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Administrator Zeldin Explains How He Plans to Cut 65% of EPA’s Total Spending” (Mar. 11, 2025, embedded above; remarks as delivered by Administrator Zeldin; figures are the Administrator’s, as stated).