Sullivan Receives Commitments from Zeldin on Key Environment and Energy Priorities for Alaska
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, received commitments from former Representative Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), President Trump’s nominee to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), regarding critical environmental and energy-related priorities for Alaska. Specifically, Congressman Zeldin committed to coming to Alaska, supporting Sen. Sullivan’s work to address the ocean debris crisis through the Save our Seas 2.0 Act, preserving Alaska pilots’ access to affordable avgas, continuing to prioritize water and sewer infrastructure in unserved Alaska communities, working to advance the Alaska LNG Project, and listening to the voices of Alaskans. Congressman Zeldin also recognized how important responsible resource development has been to increasing life expectancy in Alaska and the vital role that natural gas has played in America leading global carbon emission reductions. They also discussed the EPA’s unacceptable history of conducting armed raids on Alaskans under the Obama and Biden administrations to check compliance with the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
A full transcript of Senator Sullivan’s questioning is available below.
Click here or on the image above to watch.
Zeldin Commits to Visiting Alaska, Supporting Sen. Sullivan’s Save Our Seas Initiative
DAN SULLIVAN: Mr. Zeldin, it was great meeting with you. Congratulations to your family as well. Thanks for your service. It's not always easy. In Alaska, we love our clean water, clean air. We know we have some of the cleanest air and water in the world. We're proud of that. We don't always think the EPA has helped in that regard. It's more state action. I want to begin by getting you to commit to me to come up to Alaska with me, bring your family. We can do some fishing maybe after you see all the important elements of Alaska. Big mountains. No offense to Utah, but real big ones. We have a little fun on state size in this committee, but can I get your commitment to do that?
LEE ZELDIN: Yes, Senator. Unlike predecessors of mine who attempted to try to negotiate an August trip, I would want to go when it's as cold and dark as possible.
SULLIVAN: Yeah, well, it's happening right now. We have communities in Alaska that are hitting 30, 40 below zero. We'd love to have you in the winter and summer.
ZELDIN: Senator Ricketts looks like he wants to come with me, so I look forward to it.
SULLIVAN: I'd love to have you. Second, I really appreciate the shout-out to me and Senator Whitehouse on the Save Our Seas Act, Save Our Seas 2.0. That was the most comprehensive ocean clean-up legislation in the history of the country. Those were both signed by President Trump. You might want to ask Senator Whitehouse at some point about the signing ceremony that we had in the Oval Office with President Trump on Save Our Seas 1.0 with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and others. It was great. Can you commit to me to work with this committee—I think we already have President Trump's commitment—to continue the progress we've made on ocean clean-up, plastics clean-up? It's good bipartisan work. The Trump administration and the President himself is very committed and so are we. We're already working on 3.0. We have to focus on the implementation of SOS 2.0. Can I get your commitment on that.
ZELDIN: Yes, sir.
SULLIVAN: Great. I want to go back to Senator Cramer's issue of—in your opening statement about honoring cooperative federalism. As you know, our Clean Air Act, our Clean Water Act laws from Congress contemplate a scheme of cooperative federalism that provides an active, in some cases, primary role for states on these laws. Will you commit to doing that? Because it's a really important issue for my state.
ZELDIN: Yes, Senator.
Zeldin Commits to Reining in Rogue EPA, End Dangerous SWAT-Style Raids
SULLIVAN: One of the areas where we haven't seen cooperative federalism at all is the way in which the EPA in my state has a history of enforcing laws. No offense to my Democratic colleagues, this is always with Democrat administrations. The Obama administration—what they do is they come in with giant, heavily-armed agents, body armor, helicopters. It's shocking. We had a raid on some placer miners in a place called Chicken, Alaska under President Obama. Over 30 armed agents, body armor—to do what? Do compliance on the Clean Water Act. They didn't find one violation. They scared the hell out of the miners. Then, not to be outdone, the Biden administration has done these raids on small mechanic shops in Alaska. They bring up EPA agents from all over the country, 30 armed agents kicking in doors in mechanic shops in Alaska.
By the way, my state believes in the Second Amendment. Most of my state is armed. This is very, dangerous because some of these agents could get shot when they're coming in. What's happened is, you don't have cooperative federalism. You have rogue EPA agents who are going to enforcement before they talk about compliance. On any of these issues, they could have gone to these mechanic shops, you could have gone to the miners saying—Hey, we think you may be violating the Clean Water Act. Can you work with us? No. These guys come. They had 40 agents, all of them armed, raiding these mechanic shops. It is just an outrage.
Can I get your commitment to focus on compliance rather than jumping to armed enforcement? And secondly, I believe in an armed citizenry. I believe in the Second Amendment. I don't believe in an armed bureaucracy. The EPA has a SWAT team. Do you believe the EPA should even have armed agents? When they go into places, they can just have the local police or local state Troopers. You have these guys out of control in Alaska and it is dangerous. The current EPA administrator, I sent him letters on this. He didn't answer me. Someone's going to get hurt. Can I get your commitment to focus on compliance, civil compliance, as opposed to kicking in doors with body armor, assault rifles, helicopters? It's crazy and it's really outrageous. It happens under Democrats, not President Trump. Democrats.
ZELDIN: Senator, it is outrageous. The story that you told and Senator Murkowski shared with me as well with regards to Chicken, Alaska, it led me as somebody who's going through this transition to be asking questions as to how did that even get authorized. Who signs off on it? What are the standards that need to be met in order to even say yes to an operation like that?
SULLIVAN: With 30 EPA agents from all over America came up to raid a mechanic shop, a small business. I think there's eight guys who owned it. They were National Guard guys, great Alaskans. Can I get your commitment on that to work with me and do you think the EPA should be armed? I don't.
ZELDIN: Senator, if something requires an enforcement action on a prosecutorial front, that is working with the Department of Justice. Congress has enacted laws where enforcement is part of the effort. On the compliance front, there are people and entities owning property where there is mitigation that needs to happen and where they want to work with the government to mitigate that situation on their property. We should be working with them to make that happen.
Zeldin Recognizes Emissions Benefits of Natural Gas, Supports Alaska LNG Project
SULLIVAN: Congressman Zeldin, you're doing a great job. Your opening statement was really good. I really appreciated it. There's been a lot of railing against the hydrocarbon industry. I think the facts are the hydrocarbon industry has lifted more people out of poverty—continues to do so—than any major industry in the world. It’s doing that. But they've also been a major contributor—it never gets talked about—with regard to our leadership on global emissions. Leadership. So that, Mr. Zeldin, take a look at this chart that's been fact checked to death because the far left hates it. This is what Senator Ricketts was talking about earlier, about American innovation.
This is what Senator Graham was talking about earlier. There are some people who are working hard on reducing emissions, countries. And there are countries that aren't. Senator Graham mentioned China and India. He is exactly right. You never heard this from John Kerry, but the leader in the world in the last 20 years on reducing global emissions was the United States of America. Okay? The bad guys in terms of emission increases—look at China. Through the roof. This is a fact. Now, I've asked some of the Biden administration EPA officials—Hey, why do you think this happened? Why do you think we're the leader? It’d be great if you said it, because we are. They would always come back and say, let's see, EPA regs? Wrong answer. The reason this happened is because of the revolution in the production of natural gas, where we have switched to natural gas as a cleaner-burning source of energy. When we export natural gas around the world, Mr. Zeldin, what do you think that does to global emissions?
ZELDIN: Brings it down, Senator.
SULLIVAN: It does. these are facts. So, my colleagues, I wish my good friend Senator Whitehouse was here, because they don't like this chart because it goes against their narrative. The narrative that is the fact is that when you have all-of-the-above energy, including a big mix of natural gas, you reduce global emissions. Can you commit, to Senator Ricketts’ point, to work with us and private industry on innovation that can help power America, power our allies, produce American energy and, at the same time, lower emissions?
ZELDIN: Yes, Senator. Absolutely. American innovation has been critical, and it will be critical going into the future. That's something that President Trump has often spoke of and I believe it's also one of the reasons why we saw so much support for him in this last November's election.
SULLIVAN: In Alaska, we are working—and I've talked to President Trump about it just recently—we have a very large-scale LNG project that would reduce our trade deficit by billions by exporting clean-burning Alaska natural gas to our Asian allies, get clean-burning Alaska gas to Americans, and would produce thousands of American jobs. Can I get your commitment to help us work on that large-scale LNG project, which will help continue these global emission reductions?
ZELDIN: Senator, I would I welcome the opportunity, if confirmed, to be able to work with you on this and other issues.
SULLIVAN: Great. I have another map I want to show you real quick. You and I talked about this issue of leaded aviation fuel. This is a huge issue to my constituents—what we call Avgas. We got it an extension for Alaska in the FAA [bill] given our pilot safety issues, our aviation safety issues. There was this congressman, I forget his name, from New Jersey. He tried to limit this. My view is, he should be more focused on cleaning up New Jersey than worrying about aviation safety in Alaska. Can I get your commitment to work with me on this avgas issue, as we discussed in my office?
ZELDIN: Senator, as I gave you my commitment then, I’ll reiterate it here today for all your constituents to hear. We had a very long, substantive conversation on a lot of topics that you're fighting for Alaska and I welcome the opportunity to be able to work with you on all of that.
SULLIVAN: Great. Thank you. Let me give you one final map and one final question. It’s a little complicated. This is the American Medical Association study on life expectancy changes in America. Okay? This is from 1980 to 2014. Purple and dark blue, that's where life expectancy changes happened the most. Okay? Up to 13 years. Unfortunately, see the yellow and red, certain places where there was a life expectancy decrease. That's mostly the opioid epidemic. My state led this. It led it because Alaska Natives, which is where most of these communities are, with about 20% of my population, started at a real low level—real low, lowest life expectancy. Then what happened on the North Slope? What happened out in the Aleutian Island chain? What happened to the Northwest Arctic Borough?
Resource development happened. Oil and gas happened. Opened up fisheries happened. Resource development happened and people's lives increased on average by up to 13 years. Here's my quick issue: This is a matter of life and death in my state and the indigenous people in particular, who I care deeply about, have benefited tremendously from resource development. President Biden comes in with his Secretary of Interior. She doesn't listen to Native people. They issued 68 executive orders to shut down resource development in my state, which is going to hurt people, hurt their life expectancy. So when we talk about all this stuff, about—Oh, we’re against resource development, oil and gas—For my state, for my constituents, this is a matter of life and death. It's brought gymnasiums and health clinics and water and sewer.
Can I get your commitment to work with me on these issues on resource development that benefit the Native people tremendously in my state? The Biden administration is talking about “environmental justice.” This is environmental injustice when they shut down Alaska Native communities’ opportunity to develop their resources. Their focus on minority communities, I think that's great, but they've had a big asterisk during four years of Biden and Secretary Haaland—not for Alaska Natives. It's an outrage. This helps my communities. Can I get your commitment to work with the Alaska Native communities, indigenous communities of my state on this issue? On the other issues, you talked about contaminated lands, water and sewer. We have communities that don't have clean water and flush toilets. I really want your help on this. We didn't get the help from the Biden administration. They talked a big game about “communities of color.” They didn't care about the Alaska Native communities. I need your help on this.
ZELDIN: Understood, Senator. You have my commitment to work with you on this.
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