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Zeldin Testifies at the Senate Appropriations FY2026 EPA Budget Hearing, May 14, 2025

May 14, 2025 · The Union Herald · 1:52:27

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What happened

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin testified on the President’s fiscal year 2026 budget request for the EPA before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on May 14, 2025, in The Union Herald’s carry of the hearing. The subcommittee chair welcomed the Administrator while noting that the committee had so far seen only the budget’s “skinny” outline, and said plainly that, looking at some of the proposed cuts, she questioned whether they were serious and found many of them problematic, as she stated them at the hearing’s opening.

In his opening statement, Zeldin said the EPA had wasted no time advancing the President’s directive to deliver clean air, land, and water for all Americans while restoring common sense, accountability, and cooperative federalism, “powering the great American comeback,” as he put it. He cited, as he stated them: completion of the largest wildfire cleanup in agency history in less than 30 days after the Los Angeles wildfires; steps against PFAS contamination; redevelopment advanced at 21 Superfund sites across 13 states, with all or parts of four sites delisted; 25 state implementation plans completed, 16 of them backlogged from the prior administration; and revision of the Waters of the United States definition to align with the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision. Democratic members accused the agency of unlawfully impounding about $24 billion, including $1.7 billion in environmental-justice grants, as one senator stated the charge at the hearing.

Why it matters

This was the first appropriations test of the Zeldin EPA’s budget posture, and it fixed the pattern of the two budget cycles that followed: the Administrator defending a much smaller EPA on a first-100-days record, and senators of both parties — starting with the Republican chair’s own opening doubts — resisting the scale of the proposed cuts.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the fiscal year 2026 EPA budget request Zeldin defended on May 14, 2025, and the first-100-days figures he put on the record with it — the under-30-day Los Angeles wildfire cleanup, 21 Superfund sites advanced, and 25 state implementation plans completed, as he stated them. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: The Union Herald, “Senate Hearing on the FY 2026 Budget for the Environmental Protection Agency” (Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, May 14, 2025, embedded above; remarks as delivered at the hearing).