EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s travel didn’t cease over what has become the federal government’s longest funding lapse in history.
Zeldin has gone to 11 states and Canada, recording 16 days for travel on his public calendar since the shutdown started Oct. 1, according to a review by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The matter marks another unprecedented aspect of the Trump administration’s novel approach to the appropriations gap, stretching carryover funds to keep EPA open while furloughing staff not working on the president’s priorities of rolling back rules and expediting permits.
Zeldin’s travel also raises questions about whether it contradicts the agency’s own shutdown plan, which said no trips are permitted during the appropriations lapse except for “exempted” work.
Former EPA officials from Democratic and Republican administrations don’t recall previous administrators traveling during shutdowns. They acknowledged that could lead to poor optics for the agency when taxpayer money is lean and front-line staff postpone their own trips.
Bob Perciasepe — who served as EPA deputy administrator during the Obama administration, including during the 2013 shutdown — said travel during funding lapses should be for “essential activities,” such as first responders racing to an oil spill or chemical disaster as part of the agency’s emergency response function.
“’I’m hard pressed to see how you would have that much travel under the kind of restrictions that are generally in place,” said Perciasepe, referring to Zeldin’s trips.
Zeldin’s shutdown travel has taken him far from EPA headquarters in Washington. He visited a coal mine in Kentucky; toured an auto manufacturing plant in Mississippi; and spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, among other stops.
At several of the visits, the administrator warned about the funding lapse’s impacts on his agency while urging Democratic lawmakers to reopen the government.
In response to questions, EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said in a statement, “Thanks to meticulous planning, we’ve traveled to our regions to hear directly about environmental challenges and deliver solutions that Power the Great American Comeback.”
Hirsch added, “Every trip the administrator takes advances the agency’s mission and serves the American people.”
‘Not a good look’
Meanwhile, EPA employees granted anonymity because they fear retaliation said they canceled inspections of oil and gas facilities, off-site meetings and training sessions during the shutdown. That was either because they had been furloughed or their managers pulled back from those trips, worried carryover funds were too thin to cover the expense.
“It’s not a good look to be constantly traveling during a shutdown, unless you are traveling for an environmental emergency,” said one agency staffer. “The public expects that travel will be limited because the federal government should be taking austerity measures to preserve funding for the most severe public health emergencies.”
Zeldin also traveled to Toronto for the G7 energy and environment ministers’ meeting. There, he told reporters another furlough round was being considered for EPA staff as the shutdown continued.
Perciasepe said a long-scheduled trip to meet with foreign government officials would strike him as essential, even during a funding lapse.
“You’ll have no control over managing that. I mean, that is international complications,” he said. “I could see that.”
Zeldin also went to Montana to check up on a large Superfund project in Butte as well as to North Dakota, where he approved the state’s coal ash program. Doug Benevento — who served several roles in the first Trump EPA, including as acting deputy administrator — said that was well within the agency head’s purview.
Benevento, now a partner at law firm Holland & Hart, said he thought it was “100 percent appropriate” for Zeldin to travel during the shutdown, particularly to the places the administrator has gone.
“I have a lot of experience with Montana, and the number of Superfund sites and the number of issues they have up there make that a place where an administrator should go to, and should visit and should hear from people,” he said.
Travel for ‘excepted or exempted activities’
EPA has been operating under its shutdown or “lapse” plan with government spending frozen.
“No travel is allowed during a lapse in appropriations, except for travel required for excepted or exempted activities,” the plan says. Elsewhere, it notes travel associated with that type of work can happen during the funding lapse.
Hirsch, the agency spokeperson, said, “Administrator Zeldin’s travel during the shutdown was exempted.”
On the eve of this shutdown, all EPA employees received an unsigned email saying they were exempt from the lapse and to continue working.
But as the shutdown lingered, more were subject to “phased” furloughs and sent home without pay. Those left in the office were often working on President Donald Trump’s priorities, including repealing regulations and approving permits.
Somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 agency employees have been furloughed so far, according to an estimate from American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, EPA’s largest union.
Hirsch with EPA said the agency is fulfilling “its statutory obligations” and advancing “administration priorities” through careful planning for the shutdown.
“While Democrats did everything possible to obstruct our progress, we moved forward strategically with a phased lapse plan to preserve funding and critical agency functions, keeping the majority of our employees working to execute the administration’s priorities,” she said.
Travel wasn’t on the agenda during past shutdowns at EPA. Perciasepe, who also served as head of the agency’s air office for the 1995-1996 shutdown, doesn’t remember then-Administrator Carol Browner leaving Washington during that time. Neither did Gina McCarthy, the administrator during the 2013 funding lapse, he said.
“I was living in Baltimore at the time, and I was driving into work. I was happy there was no traffic because the government was shut down,” Perciasepe said about the 1995-1996 shutdown. Every morning, he and other assistant administrators would meet with Browner in the administrator’s conference room “trying to figure out what we would do.”
Browner doesn’t have any records of her traveling during that shutdown, said a spokesperson for her. In addition, a spokesperson for McCarthy confirmed the ex-administrator didn’t travel during the 2013 shutdown.
Stan Meiburg, who served 39 years at EPA, said he didn’t travel during the funding lapse in 2013 when he was Region 4’s acting administrator. His staff there had to cancel a trip to collect water quality samples in the Everglades as well.
“The inability of the staff to travel at that time to collect samples ended up rendering the results of a significant amount of prior work unusable,” Meiburg said.
During the first Trump administration, controversy arose during the 2018-2019 shutdown over unpaid agency staff preparing Andrew Wheeler, who was then acting administrator, for his confirmation hearing. Wheeler was later approved by the Senate as administrator.
Benevento doesn’t remember if Wheeler traveled during that time but said Wheeler never stopped working when he was out of the office.
“There’s a misconception, perhaps, among some that when an administrator travels, they’re not working. That’s not true,” Benevento said. “He was making decisions and informing sort of the regulatory process of the agency. You would get emails from Wheeler at 11 p.m. and at 7 a.m., and he would be doing events during the day.”
Wheeler didn’t respond to questions for this story.
Now it appears the shutdown is coming to an end. As early as Wednesday afternoon, the House is expected to pass the Senate’s short-term spending patch that will reopen the government.
Zeldin, already a frequent traveler as the agency’s head, will hit the road again this week. In an interview with Breitbart on Monday, he said has been to Canada, Mexico and 48 states as EPA administrator, and will reach the 50-state milestone by Thursday, visiting West Virginia and then Kansas.
Zeldin, who just ended his last travel swing with a delayed flight back to Washington, said, “I can’t even imagine the impacts to average Americans across this country with regards to travel.”
He urged for the shutdown to be over.
“Just vote for a clean CR, get the government back open,” Zeldin said. “There’s no point in delaying any further.”
Contact this reporter on Signal at KevinBogardus.89.
