EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin told Newsmax on Friday that the first 300 days of President Donald Trump's administration have brought a sweeping overhaul to how the agency protects the environment while expanding the economy.
Zeldin joined "Finnerty" on Friday as part of host Rob Finnerty's "Trump 300" special on Newsmax.
"Under the Biden EPA, they were strangling entire sectors of our economy out of existence," Zeldin said. "Under the Trump EPA, we're going to do more deregulation in one year than entire federal governments in the past have done, across all agencies, across entire presidencies."
Zeldin said the EPA is cutting bureaucracy, rolling back burdensome rules, and restoring accountability after years of what he described as bloated, politically connected mismanagement under the Biden administration.
Zeldin said the EPA was massively overstaffed when Trump returned to office, with more than 16,000 employees in January. By the end of the year, he said, the agency will be down to about 12,500 — while accomplishing more.
"We will get more done with less," he said. "It's all about prioritizing statutory obligations."
Zeldin also blasted what he described as a politically connected pipeline of funding under the Biden EPA, saying the previous administration funneled tens of billions of dollars to environmental NGOs "filled with former Biden and Obama officials, Democratic donors," and groups he said were unqualified and riddled with "self-dealing and conflicts of interest."
"Under the Trump EPA, we have canceled over $29 billion worth of grants," Zeldin said.
He contrasted the Trump approach with what he said a Kamala Harris administration would have delivered.
"To protect the environment, they said we had to strangulate the economy," Zeldin said. "We couldn't disagree any stronger."
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