Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin told Fox News Wednesday that the Trump administration will put an end to the “green new scam,” adding that Democrats will no longer be able to waste billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars.
Since confirming Zeldin in January, EPA administrators have implemented substantial budget cuts to institutions, causing a democratic pushback to new leadership. Playing a clip of Democrat Maine Rep. Cherry Pinley, expressing “deep concerns” about the Trump administration’s approach to the climate crisis, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked Zeldin about “Ingraham’s angle.” (Related: Trump’s EPA announces 31 “historical” actions to overturn Biden’s Obama-era regulations)
“The green new fraud death is on top of us, and people who are Congressional Democrats are not satisfied with what we do,” Zeldin said. “I’m here to fight for people in this country as part of the Trump mandate I won on November 5th, seeing a green new deal that would cost trillions of dollars if fully implemented. People who can warm up their homes and can’t afford to buy cars. Small businesses are struggling to operate. People are quitting their jobs and that’s going to be over.”
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Speaking on House floor Tuesday, Pinley said he was concerned that “the Republican majority is giving them a free pass to protect the public from pollution, protect human health and abandon programs that deal with the climate crisis.”
The Democratic lawmaker’s statement comes after Zeldin announced in a social media post Monday that he cancelled more than 400 diversity, equity, inclusion and environmental justice grants. With nine grant programs cuts, the EPA has accumulated $1.7 billion in savings, exceeding the agency’s total savings of $2 billion.
“This whole complaint is that you can get tens of thousands of dollars of taxes to your friends, that’s over,” Zeldin said. “They don’t offer them to friends, you know, $100,000 here, or $2 million there. They’re giving billions of dollars to friends.”
Before the agency’s recent cuts, Zeldin was shocked by the agency’s inappropriate waste during a Fox Business interview on February 19, adding that billions from the EPA are “standing head-on to eight entities,” highlighting how money has gone to support some Democrat groups.
In August 2024, the Biden Harris EPA was found to have given $2 billion in taxpayer funds, the Forward Forward Consortium, a left-wing nonprofit consortium linked to Democratic voter mobilization efforts, including the acquisition initiative of former Democrat Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams.
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