The incoming Trump Administration has moved quickly on nominees to administer most government agencies. Like the first Trump Administration, many of the nominees have clear financial conflicts-of-interest with the potential for regulatory oversight for companies and investments they are tied to. Many government agencies direct policies that affect our food and agriculture system in various ways, from farm programs that benefit the environment, to competition and fairness in agriculture markets, to responses to the climate crisis. Each Trump Administration nominee will have to be approved by the new Senate following the Jan. 20, 2025 inauguration.
For key Trump Administration nominees that oversee government agencies that intersect with farmers, rural communities and our food system, IATP will be proposing three key questions for the Senate to consider as part of the confirmation process.
Here, we focus on the nominee for the new Administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Lee Zeldin. The EPA’s mission is to protect human health and the environment, including clean air, land and water. The EPA focuses on reducing environmental risk, environmental stewardship, cleaning up contaminated land and toxic sites, and reviewing chemicals for safety. The EPA develops and enforces regulations, issues grants, conducts research and informs the public about environmental issues.
Zeldin is a former Congressman from Long Island, New York, who served on the House Foreign Affairs and Financial Services Committees from 2015 through 2022. As a congressman, Zeldin received nearly $270,000 from the oil and gas industry, reports Open Secrets. When running for New York Governor in 2022, he campaigned on overturning the state’s fracking ban. More recently Zeldin has held a leadership role at America First Works, a pro-Trump think tank co-founded by the owner of a giant gas fracking company. Other AFW alumni include Trump’s Agriculture Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins and Education Secretary nominee Linda McMahon.
During his time in Congress, Zeldin was a member of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and called it a very important issue, but never supported climate legislation. Zeldin received only a 14% score from the League of Conservation Voters. LCV reported that Zeldin voted against the Biden Administration’s signature climate bill the Inflation Reduction Act, and against cracking down on oil industry price gauging, while supporting deep funding cuts for the EPA. Zeldin also voted to withdraw the U.S. from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and opposed the Renewable Fuels Standard and its biofuel requirements. On the positive side, Zeldin voted in favor of taking action on PFAS contamination, a toxic chemical that has been found in sewage sludge fertilizer.
Since the election, there have been reports that the Trump Administration wants to relocate EPA’s headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. and could eliminate environmental justice initiatives in the EPA and other government agencies. Trump’s nominee for the Office for Budget and Management, Russel Vought, co-authored Project 2025’s policy recommendations which proposed to drastically reduce EPA’s budget and regulatory authority.
Thus far, Zeldin hasn’t said much about his priorities. In a statement on X accepting the nomination, Zeldin wrote, “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”
The EPA’s mission to protect the environment and ensure clean air and water intersects in multiple ways with our food and agriculture system, including regulating agriculture pollution, responding to the climate crisis, and ensuring toxic chemicals used in agricultural production do not damage farm and farmworker health. IATP proposes the following three questions for nominee Zeldin:
Question 1: How will the EPA address the significant air and water pollution coming from the nation’s factory farm system of animal production?
The factory farm system of production confines hundreds to thousands or even tens of thousands of animals in a concentrated space (often indoors), and produces enormous amounts of manure frequently stored in giant lagoons. The EPA has granted regulatory exemptions for air and water pollution from factory farms. This system is also a major source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
States and regions with a high concentration of factory farms — like Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Carolina — are all experiencing serious rural water pollution problems. Rural neighbors have experienced air pollution from factory farms and seen their quality of life and property values sink. Yet, the EPA has thus far failed to provide basic protections for rural communities. Instead EPA has enabled industry self-regulation and non-enforcement that largely serves big meat and dairy companies like JBS, Tyson and Smithfield that benefit from the factory farm system.
Question 2: How will the EPA reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving the global climate crisis?
The climate crisis is already deeply affecting our nation’s farmers. In November, all but two U.S. states were in drought conditions. That multi-year drought is affecting pasture for the nation’s cattle herd, whose numbers are now at a 73-year low. Farmers are facing more extreme weather events, such as recent hurricanes in southeast states or wind derechos (straight line winds) in the Midwest. The most recent national climate assessment concluded, “Climate change—especially shifts in precipitation, air temperature, and soil moisture—is disrupting agricultural production and food systems and is projected to reduce the availability and affordability of nutritious food.”
The EPA has regulatory oversight of greenhouse gas emissions. The Biden Administration has moved forward on rules to limit power plant and oil and gas emissions. Thus far, agriculture-related emissions (about 10% of total U.S. emissions) have been exempt from GHG regulatory oversight.
The first Trump Administration pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement and removed the words “climate change” from many government websites. The Trump campaign’s close ties to the fossil fuel industry, as well as Zeldin’s own ties, raise concerns that EPA will neglect to respond to the climate crisis or potentially open up new opportunities for the oil and gas industry to expand and accelerate the momentum toward an irreversible climate crisis.
Question 3: How will the EPA ensure that on-farm fertilizers and agricultural chemicals are safe for farmers, farmworkers and the environment?
Many U.S. farms rely on the heavy use of fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides for production. The steady exposure to these toxic chemicals risks harming farmworkers, farmers and rural communities. Iowa is the fastest-growing state with new cancers and many are linking that rising rate to agriculture chemical exposure. Global chemical giant Bayer, the maker of one of the most used agriculture chemicals glyphosate, has lost a slew of lawsuits that tie herbicide to cancer.
The EPA under President Joe Biden set final drinking water standards earlier this year for multiple types of PFAS. In a recent report, the EPA highlighted “unprecedented” progress the past three years on its PFAS strategy focused on limiting further pollution and remediating existing contamination. The contamination of sewage sludge fertilizer with PFAS is becoming an increasing problem for farmers around the country, with damaged farms, including animal deaths, in Maine, Texas, Missouri, California and Michigan. Regulations restricting PFAS in sewage sludge used as fertilizer are currently inadequate, exposing farmers and their neighbors to an enormously toxic and persistent chemical.
IATP hopes the EPA nominee will address these and other issues that intersect with our food and agriculture system during the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.
