EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin returned to Capitol Hill this week to testify before House and Senate appropriators in defense of the Trump administration’s bid to slash EPA’s budget by more than half, from $9.1 billion this year, to $4.2 billion in fiscal 2026, which begins in October.
Because the White House has thus far released only a skeletal “skinny” version of its budget request, lawmakers don’t have a lot to work with. But it was Zeldin’s first appearance before Congress since he won Senate confirmation in late January and took charge of a deeply polarizing agenda that critics say will decimate the agency. Here are four takeaways from this week’s hearings.
During Trump’s first term, lawmakers repeatedly rebuffed deep cuts to EPA spending. They are now poised to do so again.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, launched the panel’s hearing Wednesday by questioning whether the Trump administration was serious about all of its proposed reductions to EPA programs. Some, she added, were “problematic.”
