‘He Has Betrayed the Agency’: More than 160 Environmental Groups Call For Firing of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin

“[The Environmental Protection Agency’s] foremost purpose is to protect human health and the environment. With Administrator Lee Zeldin at the helm, EPA has abandoned its mission, creating damage that will take decades to address,” the open letter, signed by more than 160 US-based environmental and health groups, read.

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The US Environmental Protection Agency‘s Administrator Lee Zeldin has “betrayed” the agency’s core mission and set a “dangerous” agenda that is hurting public health and the environment, according to an open letter calling for Zeldin’s firing.

The letter, signed by 163 local and national environmental and health organizations, says Zeldin must be held accountable for his actions.

Since taking office in January 2025 following Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Zeldin has taken significant and often controversial steps that go against the agency’s stated mission to “protect human health and the environment,” the letter said.

“No EPA administrator in history—Democratic or Republican—has so brazenly betrayed the agency’s core mission. EPA’s foremost purpose is to protect human health and the environment. With Administrator Lee Zeldin at the helm, EPA has abandoned its mission, creating damage that will take decades to address,” the organizations, which include the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Public Citizen and the US Climate Action Network, said in the letter.

Controversial Mandate

Zeldin has been raising eyebrows since his Senate confirmation hearing, where he hesitated to address the agency’s role in reducing US reliance on fossil fuels. When questioned on the 2007 Supreme Court ruling Massachusetts v. EPA – which established the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants – Zeldin argued that the decision “does not require the EPA, it authorizes it.”

That authority was later solidified in the Obama-era Endangerment Finding, which formally determined that greenhouse gases pose a risk to public health. However, in a highly anticipated move that has nevertheless stunned environmental advocates, the EPA repealed this legal framework last month, labeling it a “radical rule” and the “foundation for the Green New Scam.”

While the EPA claims the repeal will save American taxpayers $1.3 trillion, scientists, politicians, and environmental groups have denounced the move. They argue the rescission will shift the immense costs of climate-driven harm onto families and future generations. At least two lawsuits have already been filed challenging the agency’s decision.

Many of Zeldin’s actions directly benefit the Trump administration’s anti-climate and pro-fossil fuel agenda. Zeldin himself has repeatedly sought to dismiss climate change as a “cult” and a “religion”, falsely claiming that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil energy production do not “contribute significantly to air pollution.”

Since taking office, he has rolled back dozens of environmental rules, including national air quality standards for particulate matter, limits on wastewater discharges for oil and gas extraction facilities, and regulations on power plant emissions and vehicle pollution. The agency also stopped calculating the monetary benefits of air pollution rules in terms of healthcare savings or avoided deaths, focusing instead on the costs of such rules to industry. 

Dozens of employees were fired as the EPA shut down all 10 of its regional environmental justice offices, which had been instrumental in addressing pollution issues in low-income, historically marginalized, and disadvantaged communities. Experts have warned that the move would leave “those living, working, studying, and playing near polluting industries, smog-forming traffic, and contaminated waterways and soil, with little support from the very agency they rely on to enforce protective laws.”

Zeldin also scrapped roughly $20 billion in environmental justice and clean energy grants, claiming they did not “align” with the agency’s priorities. The grant money was made available through a fund created with former president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. It was awarded in April 2024 to eight organizations, which were tasked with financing “tens of thousands” of projects ranging from home energy retrofitting to air pollution reduction. Some of them have sued the administration over the freeze.

More about this: What Happend When the US Awards $20 Billion in Climate Grants, And Then Wants Them Back?

‘Zeldin Must Go’

The EPA’s new agenda is “dangerous” and millions of Americans will suffer as a result, the open letter said.

“Because of Zeldin’s directives, we will suffer more health-damaging air pollution and be exposed to more toxic chemicals in our homes, in our food, in our products, and in our water. Zeldin’s rollbacks will lead to more carbon dioxide and methane pollution that will contribute to worsening climate disasters. Families across the country, whether rural or urban, are already struggling with the consequences of Zeldin’s actions. The damage he is doing will span generations,” it read.

“By corrupting EPA’s mission, Administrator Zeldin has abandoned his sworn duty and betrayed the trust Congress and the American people placed in him. We have seen enough. Administrator Zeldin must go.”

Featured image: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons.