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Administrator Zeldin Tells Rep. Ellzey the EPA Can Protect the Environment and Grow the Economy

April 29, 2026 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency · 0:01:43

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Rep. Jake Ellzey asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin why he cares about clean air and water. Zeldin answered, as he stated it, that the EPA’s core mission is protecting human health and the environment, and that the first pillar of ‘Powering the Great American Comeback’ is a pursuit of clean air, land, and water for all Americans.

Zeldin said that when the American public voted in November 2024 and elected President Trump and a Republican Congress, they were looking for an agency like EPA to strike the balance of both protecting the environment and growing the economy — a difference, as he put it, from predecessors who treated it as a binary choice. He said the agency delivered, on the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s term, a list of 500 top environmental wins from the first year.

Among the wins he cited, as he stated them: 1.6 million pounds of illegal pesticides stopped; a new deal to stop the decades-long Tijuana River sewage crisis; a record response to the Los Angeles wildfires, which he called the largest response in agency history; and increased water quality standards for over 30 miles of the Delaware River Basin. Ellzey thanked him and said the Delaware and San Diego work would help Americans and Mexicans alike, and that Zeldin had accomplished in one year something not accomplished for decades, as Ellzey stated it.

Why it matters

The interview is Zeldin’s affirmative case for the Trump EPA — a 500-item wins list meant to answer the charge that deregulation and environmental protection cannot coexist.

Scoreboard watch

Flagged for the scoreboard editor: Zeldin cited a first-year list of 500 environmental wins, including 1.6 million pounds of illegal pesticides stopped and water quality standards raised for over 30 miles of the Delaware River Basin, as he stated the figures; no verdict is given here.

Sources: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Administrator Zeldin Dicusses EPA\u2019s Mission with Rep. Jake Ellzey”, 2026-04-29 (official upload, embedded above; published 2026-04-29). Transcript via Supadata (private research store, paraphrased and attributed, not republished). All figures and characterizations as stated by the speakers.