The administration’s 55-percent slash in agency spending drew heated objections from Democrats in debates that devolved into shouting matches.
The Trump administration’s proposed $4.2 billion fiscal year 2026 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency cuts its spending by 55 percent, slashes its 15,000-worker staff by at least a third, rolls back a broad slate of environmental regulations, and either rescinds or “claws back” billions in already approved grant appropriations.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s two-hour May 21 hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee featured heated exchanges, finger-pointing, and name-calling with Democrats over the administration’s plan.
The hearing often spiraled into partisan rhetorical combat, at times getting personal and ugly, including in exchanges between Zeldin and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
Democrats railed against proposed cuts of $2.46 billion in Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds, $1 billion in eliminating 16 “categorial grant” programs, $254 million in Superfund management, $235 million in disbanding the agency’s Office of Research and Development, $100 million in “environmental justice” awards, $100 million in the Atmospheric Protection Program, and $90 million in Diesel Emissions Reduction Act grants.
They questioned motivations—and legalities—in President Donald Trump’s executive orders terminating tax credits, including the energy-efficient home improvement credit for domestic appliances, and unilateral repeal of Clean Air Act provisions without congressional approval.
Democrats criticized Zeldin for his March directive suspending for review, and certain repeal, a new methane emissions rule that levies a first-ever “waste emissions charge,” and the EPA’s April 2024 power plant rule that would essentially make using coal for power generation untenable.
Sens. Angela Ashbrook (D-Md.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.)—in more moderate tones—asked Zeldin about specific grant allocations for ongoing water and air quality programs that have apparently been defunded without notice, spurring lawsuits nationwide from states and local governments scrambling to sustain them midstream.
Republicans defended the administration’s drive to slash environmental regulations they’ve long challenged as duplicative and detrimental to economic development as the EPA mushroomed in size, spending, and regulatory reach.
“Our nation is in a dire financial mess. We are $37 billion in debt with no end in sight,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) said. “Every EPA budget I’ve seen in the 13 years I’ve been here, all prior to this president under Democrat presidents, proposed massive increases in new employees at EPA, thousands of employees.”
She noted that the $9.5 billion fiscal year 2025 EPA budget called for 3,000 new employees.
“These are people we can’t afford,” she said. “Every state has its own department of environmental quality, and that’s where ‘cooperative federalism’ begins.”
She praised Zeldin for “making tough decisions,” assuring “laws will still be responsibly administered under [his] leadership.”
By John Haughey
