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Zeldin Testifies at the Senate Appropriations FY2027 EPA Budget Hearing, May 13, 2026

May 13, 2026 · PBS NewsHour · 1:56:11

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What happened

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin testified on the President’s fiscal year 2027 budget request for the EPA before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies on May 13, 2026, in PBS NewsHour’s live carry of the hearing. The subcommittee chair thanked the Administrator for his travel to her state and credited steps including, as she stated them, the transfer of $100 million to the Denali Commission for bulk-fuel storage in Alaskan communities and the new Waters of the United States rule — while stating directly that she does not support the elimination of virtually all funding for the clean-water and drinking-water state revolving funds or the categorical grants, and that the committee would take the President’s request as a suggestion and work together to produce its own bill, as she put it.

Zeldin’s opening statement closed on the case he carried through the FY2027 cycle: the proposal, as he put it, “captures significant efficiencies” and a return focus on what Congress has directed, toward “a leaner, more efficient and accountable EPA,” supporting the President’s goal of right-sizing the federal workforce. Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, who began the hearing on the Senate floor, delivered his opening after the Administrator’s statement, as the hearing record shows.

Why it matters

This hearing closes the FY2027 budget cycle with the appropriators’ verdict in outline: the Republican chair publicly withholding support for the request’s deepest water-infrastructure cuts while crediting the Administrator’s state-level work — the same bipartisan SRF defense that shaped the FY2026 outcome, now on the record a full cycle earlier.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard watch: the fiscal year 2027 EPA budget request as it stood at the close of the hearing cycle on May 13, 2026, with the state revolving fund and categorical grant cuts publicly opposed by the subcommittee chair at the hearing. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; no entry is published from this page.

Sources: PBS NewsHour, “WATCH LIVE: EPA Administrator Zeldin testifies on department budget request in Senate hearing” (May 13, 2026, live carry, embedded above; remarks as delivered at the hearing).