[Pages S454-S455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Nomination of Lee Zeldin

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I strongly support Congressman Lee 
Zeldin as the nominee to be the Administrator of the Environmental 
Protection Agency. We are blessed in America with enormous natural 
resources. I support using our resources responsibly; I support 
sensible environmental stewardship; and that is what we will have with 
Mr. Zeldin.
  Americans deserve clean wear and clean air. They deserve good jobs 
and economic strength. Environmental protection and economic growth 
should go hand in hand; they are not mutually exclusive. As the head of 
the EPA, Lee will return the Agency to its original mission of 
protecting America's air, water, and land without, as he puts it, 
suffocating the economy.

  Nearly 2 weeks ago, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public 
Works held a hearing on Lee Zeldin, and as the former chairman of the 
committee, I was honored to introduce him. He is highly qualified, and 
his support is bipartisan. He is a lifelong public servant, and he is a 
seasoned lawyer and has a sharp legal mind.
  He has over 20 years of military service and currently serve as 
lieutenant colonel in our U.S. Army Reserve.
  Lee also served 8 years in Congress, in the House of Representatives, 
as a Representative from New York. In that role, he worked to 
strengthen our economy as well as protect his district's unique 
ecosystem. He worked across party lines to accomplish his goals.
  For the last 4 years, the so-called experts at the Environmental 
Protection Agency went on a reckless regulatory rampage. They saddled 
American families and businesses with higher costs and with heavyhanded 
restrictions. They bowed to climate extremism while ignoring common 
sense.
  In 2024, the EPA introduced one of the most expensive regulations in 
American history. It is called the electric vehicle mandate. The EV 
mandate was truly leftwing lunacy at its worst. According to the 
Competitive Enterprise Institute, the total cost of compliance is over 
$760 billion--with a ``b.'' To put this in perspective, the cost of 
this one regulation coming out of the Biden administration was equal to 
the entire pricetag of 8 years of regulations under the Presidency of 
Barack Obama. The EV mandate would also cost hundreds of thousands of 
jobs.
  Americans rejected the EV mandate and other costly climate policies 
this past November at the ballot box.
  President Trump revoked the EV mandate on his first day in office. 
Here in the Senate, repealing the Biden EV subsidies is one of my top 
priorities. These subsidies alone are estimated to cost taxpayers more 
than $393 billion.
  Americans shouldn't have their taxpayer dollars pay for vehicles that 
most Americans don't want, can't afford, and actually don't work for 
them and their families. Americans shouldn't be dependent on communist 
China like we are today with electric vehicles.
  Lee Zeldin will continue President Trump's mission to roll back these 
punishing political regulations.
  The EPA does important work. It does that work in States and in local 
communities. Lee will be a fantastic partner to my home State of 
Wyoming. He is not going to impose one-size-fits-all mandates on 
American consumers and American businesses. Instead, he is going to cut 
redtape. We will see a new wave of creativity and innovation. Lee knows 
that innovation, not government intervention, is the best solution to 
lower prices, to grow the economy, and to protect our environment.
  Many Americans are confident that Lee will right the ship and restore 
the balance needed at the EPA. One of these organizations is the 
National Association of Clean Water Agencies. In a letter to the 
committee, the association said that Lee has ``shown a willingness to 
engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders to address pressing 
issues.''
  Lee also impressed our colleagues here in the Senate. That is why my 
Democrat colleague from Arizona said about Lee:

       He's a qualified candidate for this job.

  I share America's confidence in Lee.
  Through 3 hours of tough questions, Lee Zeldin provided quality 
answers and proved that he is well qualified. He showed he is committed 
to strong environmental protection and to energy production. He is the 
right nominee to lead the EPA. The Senate should confirm him quickly.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am a friend of the distinguished 
Senator from Wyoming, but on this matter, we disagree quite a lot. I 
think, clearly, everybody likes clean air and clean water. My 
opposition to Lee Zeldin is founded on where he is likely to be on a 
different issue--climate change.
  Climate change is coming at us, and the context for Lee Zeldin's 
nomination, I believe, is this: We went through a long period of 
science on climate change, starting with the early days of Dr. Hansen 
and NASA's work, work by Exxon and other Big Oil majors themselves, 
lots of work at universities and in U.S. and State government. And the 
science pretty well nailed it. They pretty much got it right. They 
warned what was going to happen, and it began to happen, and it has 
continued to happen.
  Based on those warnings, we moved into phase 2, which was the 
political era of climate, where it was our job here in this building to 
listen to those warnings and figure out what the best and smartest 
thing was to do about them. The problem was that the fossil fuel 
industry got involved with Citizens United climate money in the 
hundreds of millions behind it, and they squelched that conversation. 
As a result, Congress has failed to address the looming climate crisis 
purely from fossil fuel-funded Republican opposition.
  That takes us now into era 3, the era of the ``forewarned but not 
prevented'' consequences, and the place in which those consequences are 
most saliently making themselves felt is in the homeowners insurance 
industry.
  Homeowners insurance is in crisis in this country and is in near 
meltdown in various States and counties in this country because the 
risk that the insurers have to bear is now unpredictable to them. So 
what we are seeing is homeowners insurance prices skyrocketing. We are 
seeing homeowners insurance companies going bankrupt, leaving States, 
firing their long-time clients because they don't want to provide 
coverage in these danger areas, which include coastal areas--Florida, 
as a result, is kind of first and worst in the home insurance 
meltdown--and wildfire-adjacent areas second, which puts California and 
a lot of other Western States very much in harm's way.
  Now, the problem with that is it doesn't just end with an insurance 
crisis. When you get a sufficient number of properties that cannot get 
affordable home insurance or cannot get home insurance at all, those 
properties become unmortgageable.
  If you are a billionaire living in Palm Beach, you can find another 
billionaire to buy your property who can write a check, but if you are 
a real-life person--a plumber in Orlando, living in a development, who 
paid for their home with a mortgage--you are going to want to sell that 
home to somebody who can get a mortgage. When your home can't be 
mortgaged any longer, that will crash its property value. In fact, if 
your homeowners insurance goes from $4,000 to $16,000--a case we heard 
of--then that crashes your property value, too, because a $16,000 
carrying cost on a piece of property knocks its value way down.
  So not from the ``greenies,'' not from the environmental community, 
but from Freddie Mac, the mortgage giant, we heard the warning that an 
insurance crash turns into a mortgage crash, turns into a coastal 
property values crash, which is serious enough

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that it redoes 2008: We have another national recession.
  It is in that context that we need to understand that we need an EPA 
Administrator who will take climate change seriously, treat the science 
honestly, and stand up where necessary to the political pressure that 
will be coming from the White House, where we have a President who 
actually thinks it is a hoax, and from the huge fossil fuel forces that 
propelled him into office with enormous amounts of political money and 
who now think they own the place.
  The fossil fuel industry has done nothing but lie about this and use 
their power for evil. President Trump is completely mistaken and under 
the thumb of the fossil fuel industry. And against that will stand the 
EPA Administrator who has to be truthful and factual and support and 
defend our environment and our safety from climate change.
  In that context, I have nothing against Lee Zeldin personally, but 
the likelihood of him standing against that fossil fuel bulldozer that 
is coming at him is, essentially, zero. And that fossil fuel bulldozer 
is also going to be bulldozing their way into American homes in the 
form of an insurance crisis that is looming. So this is going to become 
very real very fast. And in that context, this is very much the wrong 
guy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sheehy). The majority whip.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
mandatory quorum call with respect to the Zeldin nomination be waived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.