Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin got into a shouting match over agency grant cancellations during a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Whitehouse was questioning Zeldin over whether the EPA conducted individual reviews of the grants it had canceled amid sweeping funding cuts across the government under President Trump.
The Rhode Island Democrat said that the testimony of agency officials and statements made in court by government lawyers contradict the administration’s comments about the thoroughness of the reviews.
Specifically, he pointed to one court document where EPA official Travis Voyles stated, “On February 25, 2025, I conducted an individualized review of EPA grant programs” as well as Zeldin’s own comments that the administrator himself had conducted a grant review.
Whitehouse also said that “On May 16, DOJ career lawyers …filed a pleading in federal court that conceded that you had not done individualized grant by grant reviews.”
“The problem with your assertion here today is that it is belied by your own employees' sworn statements in court and by the decision of the Department of Justice to admit that what you say isn't true," Whitehouse told Zeldin.
“No, you’re not grasping the fact that we would have multiple employees looking at these grants, that concept just escapes you,” Zeldin fired back.
After a back-and-forth, Zeldin said, "We're not going to waste dollars just because you insist on EPA lighting taxpayer dollars on fire.”
“The American taxpayers, they put President Trump in office because of people like you. They have Republicans in charge of the House and Senate because of people like you, because you don't care about 99 percent of this story,” he continued.
In response, Whitehouse said that what he actually wants is for Zeldin to “explain why the Department of Justice lawyers representing EPA in court under a duty of candor, have said that everything you've just said isn't true.”
The comments come as the agency has sought to cancel hundreds of grants as part of its efforts to reduce government spending — and specifically to crack down on environmental programs.
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