EPA chief wraps national tour as critics slam deregulation agenda

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin just capped off a nine-and-a-half month 50-state tour around the country talking to various folks impacted by his agency's policies. 

Zeldin completed his tour Friday after having made numerous reforms while on the road, including an agreement with Mexico to stop their wastewater from continuing to flow into the United States, a new directive that will help expedite the cleanup of nuclear waste in Missouri, rescission of an emissions rule and new guidance on diesel exhaust fuel aimed at helping farmers and truckers. 

Meanwhile, Zeldin also visited sites of major environmental disasters, such as East Palestine, Ohio, which is still dealing with the after-effects of a major chemical spill that happened during the Biden administration, and Los Angeles, which has recently seen several devastating wildfires. 

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"From business owners to trade workers, elected officials to residents impacted by environmental challenges, I've been soliciting feedback on any and every way the Trump EPA can fix everything," Zeldin said after the culmination of his tour.

One of the accomplishments Zeldin is touting includes a July Memorandum of Understanding to address sewage spillage from the Tijuana River. Raw sewage has been flowing into Southern California from Mexico for decades, which Zeldin's EPA said has led to beaches being forced to close, harm to the region's economy and sickness on either side of the border.

EPA administrator Zeldin also released an "EPA Region 7 Status Update for West Lake Landfill Superfund Site" located in Bridgeton, Missouri and Coldwater Creek. The update cut two years off the initial start date of the project, according to the EPA. The waste is scheduled to be entirely cleaned up by 2038.

Another reform includes rescinding guidance from the "Preparation of Clean Air Act Section (CAA) 179B Demonstrations for Nonattainment Areas Affected by International Transport of Emissions." Zeldin's EPA said that the guidance made it "unnecessary difficult" for states to prove that foreign air pollution was harming Americans, not theirs, and seek regulatory relief under the Clean Air Act. Zeldin said this was of major concern for elected officials and business owners in Arizona and Utah. 

Part of this reform will include a reevaluation of a determination by the federal government of how much international emissions are impacting residents in the Wasatch Waterfront area, in Utah.

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Zeldin also announced in Iowa that new action would be taken to "protect" farmers, truckers and other individuals who need to operate diesel-fueled engines during his trip. In conjunction with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the government is pushing engine and equipment manufacturers to revise emissions control system software in existing vehicles and equipment that has been compelling sudden speed and power losses and costing businesses a lot of money in order to comply with strict regulations.

"Together we are empowering the great American comeback," Zeldin insists in a video his team posted to social media about the conclusion of his tour. However, there are some folks who disagree with Zeldin. 

"Administrator Zeldin is supposed to safeguard the environment and public health, yet under his watch the Trump EPA is fast-tracking new pesticides - including several containing PFAS 'forever chemicals' that build up in our bodies and never break down," Alex Formuzis, spokesperson for the Environmental Working Group, told Fox News Digital. "At the same time, he is tearing apart core protections on toxic air pollution, contaminated drinking water, hazardous industrial discharges, and even bedrock legal decisions that allow the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes and smokestacks under the Clean Air Act."

Zeldin was "alarmingly right" about enacting one of the "biggest de-regulatory action[s]" in history, Formuzis added, calling it "a wholesale retreat from facts, science and environmental and public health protection." 

"Hardly an agenda to make Americans healthy," he added.

Environmental groups have sued Zeldin's EPA and the Trump administration over many of their regulatory rollbacks. Earthjustice Action and WE ACT for Environmental Justice have recently challenged Zeldin's bid to scrap federal greenhouse-gas reporting rules in a Nov. 3 filing.

"The climate crisis is a public health crisis, and EPA's proposed repeal of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program will exacerbate both," the groups wrote. "At a time when millions of Americans are losing access to healthcare and millions more are seeing polluting data centers and energy generators built in their backyards, it is imperative that EPA uphold its mission to protect human health and the environment."