'Nature was nice while it lasted': Trump's pick for EPA met with derision

Donald Trump’s incoming administration is beginning to take shape with his latest picks being announced on Monday, but it’s the president-elect’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency that’s raising eyebrows with social media users expressing a mix of humor with genuine concern.

“Nature was nice while it lasted,” actress Heather Thomas wrote on X Monday after Trump announced that former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) was his pick to head the EPA.

“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin, a Trump loyalist who in 2022 unsuccessfully ran for New York governor against Kathy Hochul, wrote Monday. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Zeldin will likely begin his new role by starting the process of overturning several of the Biden administration’s “biggest rules on climate, including tailpipe regulations for vehicles and rules aimed at slashing pollution from power plants and oil and gas producers,” CNN reported.

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“Gonna be ironic when Long Island is consumed by the climate change that hometown boy Lee Zeldin hastened as EPA administrator,” news producer Jordan Zakarin wrote in a social media post.

“Trump has selected Lee Zeldin to head the EPA,” X user Deacon Blues wrote. “God help our planet.”

Others took a more stark approach.

“A climate denier who received hundreds of thousands of dollars from fossil fuel companies and polluters will be running the EPA. Trump isn't just a threat to the US. His administration is threat to the entire planet,” Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director for Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X.

Author Jeff Sharlet told his social media followers that he believes Zeldin’s policy record “is irrelevant."

"He was chosen for his absolute submission to the whims of Trump," said Sharlet. "Trump doesn’t intend to govern but to rule.”

CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir noted that Zeldin “gets a woeful 14% lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters,” while LA Times climate columnist Sammy Roth reminded his followers that Zeldin was “an election denier.”