Administrator Lee Zeldin Thursday said the EPA will make history with 31 unprecedented actions, rolling back federal regulations on vehicle emissions, power plant pollution, greenhouse gas reporting programs and more.
Zeldin also said he’s notified eight recipients of $20 billion under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) that their grants have been terminated. The Associated Press reported those groups include the Coalition for Green Capital, Climate United Fund, Power Forward Communities, Opportunity Finance Network, Inclusiv and The Justice Climate Fund.
Legal challenges are expected to follow.
The GGRF, Joe Biden’s signature climate law, was passed without a single Republican vote. The GOP-led House approved a bill to repeal it last year, but it never received a vote in the then-Democrat-led Senate.
“Unleashing American energy was one of President [Donald] Trump’s campaign promises, and that’s what this looks like. Common sense is finally back at the EPA. This is fantastic,” Ricketts said on Washington Watch Thursday.
“Today marks the death of the Green New Scam,” Zeldin wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing the deregulation.
Zeldin said he will reassess rules that he believes have “throttled oil and gas production and unfairly targeted coal-fired power plants.” Savings in regulatory costs will reach the trillions, he predicted.
“They're going to get rid of the greenhouse gas reporting rule, which would be an attack on our natural gas facilities, which again is a big source of power for Nebraska and many states,” Ricketts told show host Tony Perkins.
Also gone is the mandate that Americans purchase electric vehicles – which pleases the former Nebraska governor.
“This is one that I've been fighting because EVs don't make sense in big rural states with cold weather. The adoption rate in Nebraska is 2%, and under the Biden administration, they wanted two-thirds of all new vehicles being sold in 2032 to be EVs. That just wasn't going to happen,” Ricketts said.
EV sales among new purchases in the U.S. reached 20% in 2024. Most of those were hybrids, which include a gas engine and require no electric charging station. Almost two-million hybrids were sold.
Zeldin said the EPA rollbacks will lower the cost of living for American families and will revitalize the auto industry.
“The Biden administration rolled out 5,000 regulations. The average cost of that to the American family was $3,300 a year. That’s not just once – it's $3,300 every year until those regulations are rolled back, such as what we're seeing right now with the EPA,” Ricketts said.
EPA rollbacks will spur economy, Ricketts says
The restrictive nature of Biden’s EPA had a stifling effect on the economy, said the senator.
“When you put this layer of regulation on, you put a wet blanket on innovation, on small businesses; and small businesses are who create most of our jobs in this country. So, it’s anti-growth,” Ricketts argued.
Businesses will have more money to invest, and the re-shaped EPA will spur economic growth, according to the first-term senator.
“These grants, especially at the EPA, have been going out to these radical left-wing organizations. We’re giving these grants out to these organizations who are anti-America, they're anti-Israel. We’re essentially paying them to come and protest us in Washington, DC, which is clearly not the intent of the taxpayers,” Ricketts concluded.
