Senator engages nominee on unfair emission standards enforced by the EPA, invites him to visit Utah to better understand state’s unique challenges
Washington, D.C. – During a Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee hearing on the nomination of Lee M. Zeldin to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Senator John Curtis (R-UT) urged the EPA to develop fairer methodologies for measuring emissions in regions with geographies that naturally trap emissions, like the Uinta Basin in Utah. The Senator also engaged Mr. Zeldin on their shared history of bipartisan efforts in the House, where Zeldin was a member of Curtis’ Conservative Climate Caucus, a group of over 85 Republicans working to address climate issues through commonsense, market-driven environmental policies. Senator Curtis ended the exchange by raising concerns about the EPA’s delays in approving safer alternatives to harmful chemicals like PFAS, which are used in industrial and consumer products.
A transcript of the exchange between Senator Curtis and Mr. Zeldin can be found below and video can be found here.
Senator Curtis: Thank you. And before I begin, just a big thanks to all my colleagues on the Committee. Madam Chair, Mr. Ranking Member, and all my colleagues, really look forward to working with you on this Committee. And I’m very excited to be part of this.
Mr. Zeldin, I’m from Utah. In Utah, we’re pretty proud of our beauty, of our natural resources. It really would be hard to find a more spectacular place in the United States. Everything from five national parks, arches, and monuments, and ski resorts. And I think because of that, Utahns have this inherent desire to take care of it, to leave it better than we found it, to make sure that we’re not polluting. I can find total agreement in Utah that less pollution is better than more pollution, less emissions is better than more emissions, and that we want to leave the Earth better than we found it. And you and I had the benefit of working together in the House.
And I just want to use this opportunity to thank you for your support of my work in talking about climate, talking about some of these issues that are being addressed this morning. And for all my colleagues who didn’t see us work together in the House, I just want to emphasize how helpful you were getting Republicans talking about climate and dealing with some of these serious issues. I don’t know if you want to comment on that or have any thoughts on that.
The Honorable Lee M. Zeldin: Well, Senator, congratulations. I’m looking forward to serving with you in this new capacity and I enjoyed our work together. I would say that that there’s a lot that should unite Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, as it relates to the environment. I represented a district where people who are conservative Republicans would be able to unite with people who identify as more liberal Democrats to focus on making our environment better.
That type of work together, that common ground, is what the American public are desperate for. They are looking for us to be able to find pragmatic, common sense solutions to be able to represent their interests here in D.C.
Curtis: Yeah. And I’ll just double down, my experience is you’re the right person to do that. And I appreciate your efforts.
Now, all of that said, let me talk about some problems in Utah. And some of that has to do with our geology and geography. And you and I, when you were in my office, we talked specifically about the Uinta Basin. 80% of the methane that is registered in the Basin doesn’t come from traditional fossil fuel sources. It comes from ground sources. It comes from air that comes into the region. And yet they’re judged and measured on that whole 100%, not the 20% that they emit.
Our geography also surrounds us with mountains. We like to call them real mountains, as opposed to the hills that we have on the East Coast. And that traps in… Good way to start off the Committee!
EPW Chairman Shelly Moore Capito: I’m from the Mountain State!
Curtis: That traps in…
Capito: You want to rephrase that?
Curtis: That traps in all the emissions and they’re caught in that area. And so, part of our discussion in my office that I’d like to talk about today is asking from your agency an acknowledgment that, despite sometimes our best efforts, and I will tell you, in Utah, government, education, business leaders, civic leaders have all come together to try to lower these emissions and meet these standards, but, because of these, sometimes we can’t. I’d love to work with your administration to figure out how we fairly measure that. Could you comment on that?
Zeldin: Yes, Senator, I look forward to being able to work with you and every senator on this Committee. I want to make sure that our teams are working together. I sat on the other side of many of these hearings, and one of my greatest frustrations as a member of the House of Representatives was to send a letter, send a follow up letter, send another letter, and then you’re at a hearing following up on your third letter and the person who’s testifying before you is acting as if they haven’t received your first, second, or third.
That collaboration is very important, so that when I’m sitting here before you, that I am able to be accountable to all of you, and that when you need something from the EPA and you’re asking a question, that we are able to provide prompt answers. Part of this too is a relationship and understanding every important local priority of each of you in your home states.
I want you to be able to travel to your states, to be able to see firsthand on the ground, whatever are your top priorities. And I know, Senator, you have many top priorities in Utah. I look forward to visiting Utah and being able to see for myself and bringing the team.
Curtis: Thank you. Would love to have you there. And given your regional administrator some flexibility also, for instance, flexibility in things like technology. Being agnostic to the technology and being more focused on the end result, I think would help us get some better results.
Finally, in the last few seconds, your predecessor in the House had to deal with me every time that he would come before us talking about his low approval rate on getting chemicals approved. There are 0% of statutory requirement getting these chemicals approved. And I would joke with him, like you could actually, it’s statistically impossible. You could stumble on some approvals, right? Accidentally.
So, I just want to warn you that I’m going to be as tough on you as I was on him and that this is important. A lot of these chemicals can replace some of these PFAS chemicals, and if we can’t get them approved, it just makes the difficulty of getting these off the market near impossible. So, I look forward to working with you on that and look forward to seeing you in the mountains of Utah. I yield my time.
Capito: Your seat has been relocated over there by Senator Moran.