Zeldin attacks Whitehouse over country club membership in EPA budget standoff
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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D.R.I., traded barbs with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in a fiery Senate hearing Wednesday over an analysis of the cost of coal plant profits — and whether the EPA, under Trump’s leadership, is doing enough to weigh what hospital bills and insurance claims should include in the calculation.
The escalation left Zeldin holding on to the White House long after the Democratic environmentalist wrapped up his questions.
“We just want to stick to the truth,” Zeldin said.
“We want to stick to the science. If you don’t agree with them, you don’t follow their thinking, then they want to discredit you… and I’m not going to take moral lessons from people who join white country clubs,” he added, referring to reports of the Whitehouse family’s membership in Bailey’s Beach Club, a beach club formerly known as the Spouting Rock Beach Association.
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EPA Director Lee Zeldin attends a meeting with President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 13, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
“I think the people who run this place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn’t happened yet,” Whitehouse said in 2017, referring to allowing minority members. “It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island and there are a lot of them and we just need to fix the problems.”
The discussion comes as lawmakers weigh President Donald Trump’s 2027 budget request for the EPA, a proposal that has shocked Democrats by slashing 50% of the agency’s funding.
Zeldin’s clash with Whitehouse also underscores the deep divide between the administration and Democrats in Congress over what threat, if any, is posed by climate change and what resources the US should devote to combating it.
Whitehouse, who introduced the proposed budget, said Zeldin was ignoring the secondary costs of fossil fuels.
“One plant in Michigan has already cost Michiganders $600 million in excess health care costs. That’s money coming out of consumers’ pockets, and into the pockets of you polluters, big Trump donors. Do you even track the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse asked Zeldin.
“Are we going to talk about math?” Zeldin replied. “Oh, this is great; I don’t even know where to start.”
“Do you even track the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse asked again. “Answer that question: Do you even track consumer spending for those coal plants?”
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Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for EPA director, speaks during his Senate Environment and Public Works confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on Jan. 16, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Zeldin began to respond that the EPA did, in fact, track consumer energy costs but was cut off.
“Where do you track the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse intervened.
Zeldin, setting aside the issue of tracking, turned to addressing Whitehouse’s basic argument about the benefits of coal tariffs across the country.
“Are you kidding me? Coal plants stay open – you think the math is that it’s better for West Virginia if you shut down their coal plants and put these people out of work and tell them to learn to code?” Zeldin said.
“In your opinion, in your mind, does that save West Virginia? Does it save them from getting power? Does it save them from jobs?” Zeldin added.
Whitehouse, who is running out of time, closed her line of questioning by suggesting that the Trump administration benefit from powerful donors.
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Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I., conducts a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing titled “The Default on America Act: Blackmail, Brinkmanship, and Billionaire Backroom Deals” at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 4, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
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“He’s raising costs on purpose because the money you get when you raise costs on consumers goes to Trump’s biggest fuel suppliers,” Whitehouse said.
The EPA was allocated approximately $8.82 billion for fiscal year 2026. In 2027, Trump requested just $4.2B in 2027 – a drop that would represent a 52% year-over-year drop.
