Lee Zeldin: Making the EPA Efficient—and Exceptional

Newsweek

02-05-2025

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mission has always been protecting human health and the environment for Americans everywhere. Clean air, land, and water are the foundation for the statutory obligations that allow EPA to carry out its work. EPA must efficiently and exceptionally accomplish this while Powering the Great American Comeback.
President Donald Trump was elected to implement common sense policies that deliver on the top concerns of the American people, and at EPA, we're unveiling the next phase of organizational improvements to better deliver on this mandate.
Under the previous administration, EPA's buildings stood largely empty, with headquarters attendance peaking at just over one-third occupancy as the record high attendance day last year. Agency spending had ballooned from around $8 billion to $10 billion to more than $63 billion. Hundreds of new chemicals remained in regulatory limbo far beyond statutory review timelines, as did more than 12,000 pesticide reviews, and 685 State Implementation Plans to improve air quality around the country.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, accompanied by Education Secretary Linda McMahon (R), speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, accompanied by Education Secretary Linda McMahon (R), speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30.Under Trump, we are making the government work most effectively for the American people. We've already delivered more than $22 billion in savings directly to American taxpayers through cancelled grants and contracts. This new phase of EPA's reorganization efforts is anticipated to result in more than $300 million in additional annual savings for taxpayers by fiscal year 2026. When the agency's larger, comprehensive effort to restructure its organization is finalized, EPA's employment levels will resemble those during President Ronald Reagan's administration.
EPA is improving its structure by integrating scientific staff directly into our program offices instead of siloed in the Office of Research and Development, which will better ensure that research directly advances statutory obligations and mission-essential functions. In the administrator's office, there will be a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, which will elevate research efforts, put science at the forefront of the agency's rulemaking, and enhance technical assistance service for states and local partners.
In the Office of Air and Radiation, we're establishing the first-ever Office of State Air Partnerships to improve coordination with state, local, and tribal air permitting agencies. This collaborative approach will resolve permitting concerns more efficiently and ensure EPA is working with states, not against them, to advance our shared mission. Alongside this, the new Office of Clean Air Programs will align statutory obligations and essential functions with centers of expertise to create greater transparency in our regulatory work.
Similar improvements in the Office of Water will better connect regulation development and policy with underlying science. This will allow us to prioritize critical issues, including cybersecurity, emergency response, and water reuse to ensure these current, pressing challenges receive appropriate resources.
The Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention will gain more than 130 scientific, bioinformatic, technical, and information technology experts to address the substantial backlog of new chemical and pesticide reviews from the previous administration. This influx of expertise will accelerate our ability to evaluate risk exposure while also allowing us to gain the tools needed to advance new priorities like a PFAS (chemicals that persist in the environment and may cause negative health affects) testing strategy—an issue I've championed since my days in Congress.
This reorganization is a promise to the American people that EPA is bolstering our commitment to transparency, cooperative federalism and all our statutory obligations to enhance our ability to protect human health and the environment.
The American people deserve an EPA that effectively balances environmental protection with economic prosperity. Through this reorganization, we're positioning the agency to do just that. EPA will adhere to the rule of law, advance policies that deliver real results for Americans, be a good steward of taxpayer dollars and Power the Great American Comeback while ensuring cleaner air, land and water for all Americans. This is just the beginning as we do our part to transform the EPA into a more efficient and effective agency that will provide a cleaner planet for generations to come.
Lee Zeldin is the 17th administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He served in the New York State Senate from 2011-2014 and later represented New York's 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2015-2023.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.