Zeldin attacks Whitehouse over country club membership in EPA budget clash
NEWYou can now take heed to Fox News articles!
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., traded barbs with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in a fiery Senate listening to Wednesday over cost-benefit evaluation of coal crops and whether or not President Trump’s EPA had executed sufficient to weigh whether or not hospital payments and insurance coverage claims ought to issue into the calculus.
The heated back-and-forth left Zeldin taking a thinly-veiled dig at Whitehouse lengthy after the Democratic environmentalist had concluded his line of questioning.
“We just want to stick to the truth,” Zeldin mentioned.
“We want to stick to the science. If you don’t agree with them, you don’t follow their logic, then they’ll want to vilify you… and I’m not going to take morality lessons from people who join all-White country clubs,” Zeldin added.
He was referring to reports of Whitehouse’s household membership at Bailey’s Beach Club, a seaside club previously often known as Spouting Rock Beach Association.
EPA CHIEF TAKES ON MEXICAN ‘SEWAGE CRISIS’ FLOWING INTO US WATERS WHERE NAVY SEALS TRAIN
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin attends a gathering with President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 13, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“I think the people who are running the place are still working on that, and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse mentioned in 2017, referring to permitting minority members. “It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island, and there are many of them. And we just need to work our way through the issues.”
The interplay comes as lawmakers weigh President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget request for the EPA, a framework that has alarmed Democrats for its proposed 50% reduction to company funding.
Zeldin’s clash with Whitehouse additionally underscores sharp divisions between the administration and Democrats in Congress over what menace, if any, climate change poses and what sources the US ought to commit to combating it.
Whitehouse, who panned the proposed budget, argued that Zeldin was ignoring secondary prices introduced on by fossil fuels.
“One plant in Michigan has already price Michiganders $600 million in extra well being prices. That is cash out of shoppers’ pockets and into the pockets of your fossil fuel polluters, Trump’s large donors. Are you even monitoring the patron prices of these coal crops?” Whitehouse requested Zeldin.
“We’re going to get to talk about math?” Zeldin replied. “Oh, this is great; I don’t even know where to start.”
“Are you even tracking the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse requested once more. “Answer that question: Are you even tracking the consumer costs of those coal plants?”
ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS PRESENT DIFFERING OPINIONS OF TRUMP’S ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT APPOINTEES
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for EPA administrator, speaks throughout his Senate Environment and Public Works affirmation listening to on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Jan. 16, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Zeldin started replying that the EPA did, in reality, observe consumption prices of vitality however was minimize off.
“Where are you tracking the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse interjected.
Zeldin, setting apart the matter of monitoring, turned to confront Whitehouse’s underlying argument in regards to the cost-benefit of coal across the country.
“Are you kidding me? Coal crops even staying open – you suppose that the mathematics is that it is higher for West Virginia in the event you shut down their coal crops and put these individuals out of labor and inform them to learn to code?” Zeldin mentioned.
“According to you, in your mind, that’s saving West Virginia? Is it saving them on energy access? Is it saving them on jobs?” Zeldin added.
Whitehouse, operating out of his allotted time, closed his line of questioning by proposing that Trump’s administration stood to realize from energy-aligned donors.
NEW SEN. JIM JUSTICE ‘ABSOLUTELY’ SHOCKED BY DEMOCRATS’ RESPONSE TO ELON MUSK’S DOGE REVELATIONS
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., conducts the Senate Budget Committee listening to titled “The Default on America Act: Blackmail, Brinkmanship, and Billionaire Backroom Deals” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 4, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
“You’re raising costs on purpose because the money that you get when you raise costs from consumers goes to Trump’s big fossil fuel donors,” Whitehouse mentioned.
The EPA was given roughly $8.82 billion in the 2026 fiscal yr. For 2027, Trump has requested simply $4.2B for 2027, a drop that may signify a 52% decrease year over year.
