WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin told The Post Friday that he plans to defer to scientists on the safety of two common herbicides with residential and commercial applications that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has described as harmful.
Kennedy, the embattled nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has associated glyphosate, an ingredient in Roundup, with liver cancer and kidney disease, and atrazine, another of America’s top herbicides, with the chemical castration and feminization of frogs and suggested it might do the same to human beings.
“As I said throughout the confirmation process, it’s important following my obligations under the law and the Administrative Procedures Act and it also is related to my movement yesterday throughout these halls to begin meeting career staff,” Zeldin said during a small-group discussion with reporters inside EPA headquarters on his second full day on the job.
“I don’t show up on Day 1 prejudging a review that the EPA will take in the future on any of this,” the former New York congressman said inside the sprawling William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building near the White House.
“My role as administrator isn’t to start a process of an agency review by telling everyone working on the review what I want that outcome to be. So I don’t come into this position prejudging, and I’ll tell you, you’re listing some that came up in my meetings with senators,” he continued.
“Sen. [Katie] Britt, for example, brought up more than one of what you just referenced, but she wasn’t alone, others have as well,” Zeldin revealed.
Britt, an Alabama Republican, has voiced support for Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again mantra.
“And I’ll give you the same answer that I gave Sen. Britt: It is important that I don’t come into this position prejudging the outcome of those reviews,” Zeldin said.
“And I don’t have any agency position to announce today as to what the decision will be at the end of any review.
Asked to clarify that he was not requesting a review of the two herbicides and leaving the verdict to career staff, Zeldin said, “It’s important for the scientists to be empowered to do the science and the policymakers to do the policy, and for all of us to collaborate and work together.
“I follow that process as a general practice, of not announcing on Day 2 that these are all of the things that are going to be changed, this is how it’s going to be changed, this is the when and the how of the end of the process,” Zeldin said.
“Step one for me is hearing from the career professionals here at EPA for their thoughts on what you brought up and I could think of 100 other variations of that question.”
Zeldin, who plans to potentially visit the disaster zones of wildfires in Los Angeles and hurricane damage in North Carolina, was cautious in many of his responses as he assumes the key role of implementing President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.
He also told The Post there was much he could do to help boost domestic energy production, which Trump has identified as a key objective to lower inflation — but held his cards close.
“There are many ways the EPA can assist. The biggest ways include a process that will require me to follow my obligations under the law,” Zeldin said.
“There have been a lot of rules that have come out impacting the energy space over the past few years and our work started on day one yesterday of talking with the talented career folks here at EPA.”
Zeldin said he will endeavor to make changes “by the book.”
“The one thing I want to make very certain of is that I don’t cut a particular corner myself that results in some court the next day overturning my action or decision from the day before,” he said.
“I could answer your question with extreme specificity that would probably end up undercutting the agency’s efforts on a whole host of fronts.”
