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.)….