Sunday morning, Kasie Hunt on CNN’s State of The Union interviewed Environmental Safety Company Administrator Lee Zeldin with a view to ask in regards to the Trump administration’s current proposal to overturn the 2009 endangerment discovering. Zeldin known as out CNN for deceptive viewers on local weather change by utilizing unrelated photos and factually incorrect data.
Pondering she had her visitor in a nook from the bounce, Hunt pressed Zeldin on the difficulty, solely to have him name out CNN for his or her misrepresentation:
HUNT: Becoming a member of me now’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been touring the nation partially to advertise this transfer. Mister administrator, thanks a lot for being right here, we actually admire your time. I do need to begin with the elemental query that’s on the coronary heart of all this, I imply, do you settle for the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse fuel emissions are the largest drivers of artificial local weather change.
LEE ZELDIN: Effectively, it’s nice to be on with you. First, it’s value declaring that each one eight or so photos that you simply simply posted on the display screen don’t have anything to do with this week’s announcement. What the 2009 endangerment discovering needed to do with was on the subject of cellular sources, automobiles, this week’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment discovering was on the subject of cellular sources, automobiles. CNN’s been utilizing a variety of images the place they present smokestacks of stationary sources like energy crops, that’s not what we proposed.
Zeldin identified how CNN posted photos of darkish gray smoke stacks as an try to connect damaging connotations to the EPA’s determination.
He then defined that the 2009 endangerment findings don’t have anything to do with stationary sources like smoke stacks and energy crops. The endangerment findings solely needed to do with cellular sources like automobiles:
Now, going again to 2009, the science that they have been reviewing included each optimistic to pessimistic eventualities. To succeed in the 2009 endangerment discovering, they relied on probably the most pessimistic views of the science. The good information is that a variety of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out. Hey, that’s nice. We will depend on two 2025 info versus 2009 dangerous assumptions.
After setting the document straight on the pictures CNN used, he ended the fearmongering by Hunt.
Zeldin clarified the truth that the endangerment discovering used very pessimistic assumptions on local weather change when conducting their information. Assumptions included excessive climate and rising sea ranges that by no means got here true to the diploma the findings produced. The doc additionally didn’t individually weigh the six greenhouse gasses they used, as an alternative, they opted to combine them collectively into one complete impression on local weather change for his or her examine.
Hunt then went on to spew a factually deceptive query about how insurers have been transferring out of Florida as a consequence of local weather change:
So a technique that you’ve got defended the change you need to make by way of the endangerment discovering and saying that the federal government’s not going to manage carbon dioxide basically, is to say that that is going to assist shoppers lower your expenses, principally pay much less for his or her vehicles. My query to you, although, is what do you say to individuals who stay in a state like Florida? Farmers Insurance coverage has pulled out of Florida totally, State Farm principally threatened to. It’s getting more durable and more durable for individuals to get insurance coverage in any respect, not to mention pay for those who have insurance coverage. It’s a lot dearer, how is that this coverage, this transformation that you simply’re making, going to assist these individuals?
Hunt cited Farmers Insurance coverage pulling out of Florida as a motive why costs for insurance coverage will go up, neglecting the truth that corporations like Slide Insurance coverage acquired the renewal rights for about 86,000 individuals following the pull out. In 2023, beneath the Biden administration, Florida auto insurance coverage charges spiked by over 31 p.c. In 2025, insurers like GEICO, State Farm, and Progressive had introduced price cuts following statewide auto insurance coverage reductions introduced by Governor Ron DeSantis.
On the finish of the interview, Hunt urged Zeldin to abuse his energy as a federal regulator:
HUNT: However sir, with all due respect an influence that you’ve got is to rewrite a regulation, you take an motion. You might simply go away it alone.
ZELDIN: The facility — no — the facility comes from the regulation. I don’t get to only make up the regulation simply because a predecessor determined to fill in imprecise language within the regulation to do many psychological leaps to attempt to justify an electrical car mandate and trillions of {dollars} of regulation to strangulate out of existence complete sectors of our power economic system.
Zeldin spelled out that he can’t simply change the rules for his liking, he needed to implement rules primarily based on Congressional laws, as reminded by the Supreme Court docket. He cited how earlier EPA directors used imprecise wording to vary legal guidelines and push for rules on key power sectors of the economic system like coal crops.
In reference to the endangerment findings permitting for the regulation of main financial contributors to the US, Zeldin argued: “we aren’t going to interpret regulation in whichever imprecise, inventive manner permits us to present ourselves most energy. The facility comes from the regulation and from Congress, not from our personal creativity.”
The total transcript is under. Click on “develop” to view:
CNN’s State of The Union
9:14:05 AM ET
August third, 2025KASIE HUNT: Welcome again to State of The Union. It’s known as the endangerment discovering, it’s a landmark scientific willpower that planet warming air pollution from fossil fuels endangers human well being. And since 2009, it’s shaped the bedrock for the EPA’s capacity to manage greenhouse fuel emissions, however that’s set to all change after the Trump administration introduced plans to reverse that ruling, successfully gutting the federal authorities’s capacity to fight local weather change.
Becoming a member of me now’s EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been touring the nation partially to advertise this transfer. Mister administrator, thanks a lot for being right here, we actually admire your time. I do need to begin with the elemental query that’s on the coronary heart of all this, I imply, do you settle for the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse fuel emissions are the largest drivers of artificial local weather change.
LEE ZELDIN: Effectively, it’s nice to be on with you. First, it’s value declaring that each one eight or so photos that you simply simply posted on the display screen don’t have anything to do with this week’s announcement. What the 2009 endangerment discovering needed to do with was on the subject of cellular sources, automobiles, this week’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment discovering was on the subject of cellular sources, automobiles. CNN’s been utilizing a variety of images the place they present smokestacks of stationary sources like energy crops, that’s not what we proposed.
Now, going again to 2009, the science that they have been reviewing included each optimistic to pessimistic eventualities. To succeed in the 2009 endangerment discovering, they relied on probably the most pessimistic views of the science. The good information is that a variety of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out. Hey, that’s nice. We will depend on two 2025 info versus 2009 dangerous assumptions.
The opposite factor too, is that at EPA, we do not simply get to creatively make the regulation no matter we would like it to be. The Supreme Court docket dominated in Loper Shiny overturning the Chevron doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA, Michigan v. EPA, that companies just like the EPA cannot simply use imprecise language in statute and attempt to make it’s no matter we would like it to be.
(…)
9:20:24 AM
HUNT: So a technique that you’ve got defended the change you need to make by way of the endangerment discovering and saying that the federal government’s not going to manage carbon dioxide basically, is to say that that is going to assist shoppers lower your expenses, principally pay much less for his or her vehicles.
My query to you, although, is what do you say to individuals who stay in a state like Florida? Farmers Insurance coverage has pulled out of Florida totally, State Farm principally threatened to. It’s getting more durable and more durable for individuals to get insurance coverage in any respect, not to mention pay for those who have insurance coverage. It’s a lot dearer, how is that this coverage, this transformation that you simply’re making, going to assist these individuals?
(…)
9:23:31 AM ET
HUNT: I need to carry us again right here although to the current day, as a result of quite a bit’s modified since 2009, do you assume the federal authorities ought to have a job in making an attempt to fight local weather change?
ZELDIN: It is an incredible query, and I’m on the EPA and working an company. The Supreme Court docket made it very clear that I’ve to observe the regulation, I’ve to observe the plain language of the regulation and I can’t get inventive. So once you learn via the 2009 endangerment discovering, they are saying that the place there’s silence within the regulation, there’s gaps that I ought to simply be deciphering that as my very own discretion. The Supreme Court docket has made it very clear that that’s not what’s an influence that I’ve. This determination is a choice for Congress to make. In the event that they need to amend Part 202 of The Clear Air Act –
HUNT: However sir, with all due respect an influence that you’ve got is to rewrite a regulation, you take an motion. You might simply go away it alone.
ZELDIN: The facility — no — the facility comes from the regulation. I don’t get to only make up the regulation simply because a predecessor determined to fill in imprecise language within the regulation to do many psychological leaps to attempt to justify an electrical car mandate and trillions of {dollars} of regulation to strangulate out of existence complete sectors of our power economic system.
You have been posting earlier an entire bunch of images of stationary sources. Effectively, the Biden administration did do an entire bunch of rules to attempt to make, for instance, the coal business get regulated out of existence. There are individuals on the market who like wind. I come from a state the place the governor says that New York is an alternative choice to baseload energy, it is not.
As a way to make America the AI capital of the world, with a view to unleash power dominance, to guard the roles, to carry down power prices, we aren’t going to manage out of existence complete sectors of our economic system. And we aren’t going to interpret regulation in whichever imprecise, inventive manner permits us to present ourselves most energy. The facility comes from the regulation and from Congress, not from our personal creativity.
