President-elect Donald Trump's choice of Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency suprised regulatory attorneys and law professors who did not expect a former U.S. representative with little environmental experience to chart the incoming president's plan to turn back climate change regulations.

Zeldin “wasn't somebody who'd come across my radar screen as a potential pick," said Robert Glicksman, an environmental law professor at George Washington University. "He's not somebody that I've encountered as a knowledgeable member of Congress … on environmental issues.”

Zeldin's lack of an environmental background stands in stark contrast to Trump's EPA administrators during his first administration. Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler had long track records working in environmental policy, unlike Zeldin, a New York Republican who served in Congress from 2015 to 2023.

The League of Conservation Voters gave Zeldin a 14% score on its National Environment Scorecard, a figure higher than most Republicans. He was a member of the House Republican Climate Change Caucus, a membership that will likely matter little to the incoming administration, Glicksman said.

Even if Zeldin “were a mild supporter of climate change activity, Trump's opposition to climate change regulation is so strong and so well known that I doubt that Zeldin would get him to move off of his opposition,” Glicksman said.

Trump campaigned on dismantling EPA regulations intended to cut carbon emissions and move the United States toward green energy. He has said he plans to repeal environmental provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which President Joe Biden has touted as a clean energy achievement.

One Biden-era EPA rule designed to cut carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants by 90% by 2032 has been challenged by the industry—and assailed by Trump—as seeking too much too soon.

During Trump’s first stint in office, the EPA took at least 74 actions to deregulate environmental rules, according to the Brookings Institution.

Jeff Porter, an environmental attorney at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, said nearly every action taken by the EPA during the first Trump administration and the Biden presidency was challenged in court. Porter added that he expects Trump to replace the EPA's Biden-era Clean Water Act rule, which expanded water protections in the United States, and to slowdown regulations of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, PFAs, also known as the "forever chemical."

“And I think pretty much everything the second Trump administration does in the realm of environmental protection is going to be challenged in court,” Porter said. “The difference this time is you have a solid majority of six Supreme Court justices that are generally inclined to see things in a way different than the way environmental NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] want them to see things.”

Trump, in a statement on Truth Social, said this week that Zeldin will “ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses,” but also maintain “the highest environmental standards.”

Zeldin said in a statement on X that he plans to “restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI [artificial intelligence]. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”