President-elect Donald Trump is picking former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R–N.Y.) to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in his next administration. The pick came as a surprise to many who expected Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former EPA administrator, to lead the agency again, according to the Washington Examiner. While not considered an energy and environmental policy wonk, Zeldin could bring a fresh perspective to the EPA and reduce the scope of an agency that has become a behemoth that regularly oversteps its statutory authority.
In June, the Supreme Court struck down the Chevron doctrine. This decades-old precedent forced courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of ambiguous laws, which empowered agencies to implement broad, overreaching regulations. The June decision means that bureaucrats must act within the authority given to them by Congress. In a post-Chevron world, where any changes to Joe Biden–era regulations must pass legal muster, Zeldin’s “governance and legal expertise will make for a successful tenure at the EPA,” Nick Loris, the vice president of public policy at C3 Solutions, a free market energy think tank, tells Reason.
