William Floyd High School’s own, former Congressman Lee Zeldin is now the 17th Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
He hit the ground running and, metaphorically speaking, used a chainsaw and not a scalpel to slash wasteful spending and uncover fraud, waste, and abuse.
Zeldin uncovered billions of dollars in highly questionable spending of taxpayer funds in just his first two weeks in office.
Much of the spending has nothing to do with the environmental mission of the EPA.
Zeldin’s EPA found $20 billion in taxpayer money ‘hidden’ at an outside financial institute by Biden-Harris officials in the waning days of their administration.
"An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago, featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic,’ rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day,"
Zeldin said in a video posted to X. "The ‘gold bars’ were tax dollars, and ‘tossing them off the Titanic’ meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it."
The name of the financial institution holding the funds was withheld as Zeldin said he did not think the institution had done anything wrong.
The focus now is getting these taxpayer funds back.
Zeldin made no bones about what he found, saying, “This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all the money in a rush job with reduced oversight" before Inauguration Day.”
Zeldin’s was clear that his approach to his job is “To Power the Great American Comeback, I am instituting a ZERO TOLERANCE policy at EPA to END ANY AND ALL waste and abuse.”
He hasn’t wasted a second since being confirmed on January 29th.
The former NYS Senator and Congressman made it clear that he is focused on what he calls “Pillar 1 of EPA’s Powering the Great American Comeback” initiative that is centered around the agency’s core mission to protect human health and the environment.
“Clean Air. Clean Land. Clean Water. For every American,” says Zeldin.
In an interview on Fox Business, Zeldin said, "There's going to be this level of accountability so that when grants are being distributed, there is an expectation that there's going to be this line-by-line accounting. This should be the new normal."
The savings continue as EPA also announced that is will not be renewing Politico membership and Politico E&E, saving the American taxpayers $458,919 per year.
Over 170 Diversity, Equity, and Includion (DEI) and "Environmental Justice"-focused employees on administrative leave. Zeldin made it clear that the priority of the EPA under President Trump will be on its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and “Powering the Great American Comeback”.
Elon Musk and DOGE also gave Zeldin a shout-out saying, “EPA also cancelled 3 DEI contracts, saving American taxpayers $45M.”
A $50 million Biden-era environmental justice grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, which believes “climate justice travels through a Free Palestine,” was also ended.
The Biden-Harris Administration used “Environmental Justice” to funnel billions to far-left groups in the name of climate equity. $50M was also funneled to two NY/NJ immigration groups, according to Zeldin.
In addition to uncovering fraud, waste, and abuse, Zeldin visited disaster-impacted communities in North Carolina, Los Angeles, and East Palestine, seeing the needs of the people on the ground.