Lee Zeldin is arguing that climate policies advanced under the Obama and Biden administrations stretched federal law beyond what Congress authorized, imposing major economic costs on Americans through regulations affecting vehicles, appliances, coal production, and pipelines.

Zeldin said the federal government adopted what he described as an overly broad interpretation of existing law in order to pursue climate objectives that Congress never specifically placed into the Clean Air Act.

"But what happened with this climate change push was a very creative way of looking at federal statute to supposedly combat global climate change, to force Americans to go out and buy electric vehicles, to replace their lawnmower with, you know, a zero-emission lawnmower or leaf blower, to try to put coal out of existence and try to ban new pipelines from being built."

According to Zeldin, the result was an environmental regulatory agenda that placed substantial costs on households and businesses, particularly those least able to absorb higher prices.

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"It was an agenda that, in the name of climate change, was causing extreme economic pain on Americans who can least afford it."

Zeldin said his administration has been working to reverse those policies, arguing that federal agencies should not impose sweeping carbon dioxide regulations unless Congress explicitly changes the law.

"And you know that is what we have been reversing, and you know, take another angle to my point of my message to Congress. If they want me to regulate the heck out of carbon dioxide emissions, then amend the Clean Air Act."

His central argument is that the Clean Air Act, as currently written, does not specifically instruct federal regulators to use the statute as a tool for combating global climate change through greenhouse gas restrictions.

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"But right now, the Clean Air Act doesn't say anything about regulating greenhouse gas emissions to combat global climate change, so we're not going to just impose trillions of dollars of regulation, or continue trillions of dollars of regulation that were imposed by the Obama and Biden administration."

Zeldin maintained that the omission was deliberate rather than accidental.

"When statutorily, it doesn't even say on purpose. The Clean Air Act on purpose does not say anything about combating global climate change."

He pointed to comments by former Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, who played a significant role in the development of federal clean-air legislation, to support his interpretation of congressional intent.

"I'll just point to comments made by John Dingell, a longtime Democrat member of the House from Michigan, who led the way with Clean Air Act amendments, who had supported the original Clean Air Act, and his own testimony before Congress and about Congress is saying that it was on purpose that the Clean Air Act was written to not talk about the combating global climate change."

Zeldin concluded that if lawmakers want federal regulators to have broader authority over greenhouse gas emissions specifically for climate purposes, Congress should make that change directly rather than relying on agencies to interpret older statutes expansively.

"That was done purposefully."

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His argument places the climate-policy debate not only in terms of environmental outcomes and economic costs, but also around the division of authority between Congress and federal agencies. Zeldin's position is that major changes affecting energy production, transportation and household products should come through explicit legislation rather than administrative interpretation.

He also framed the rollback of previous regulations as an effort to limit what he sees as excessive federal mandates and prevent Americans from bearing trillions of dollars in regulatory costs under a legal authority he believes Congress never granted.

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