President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to head up the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, emphasized accountability during hours of testimony Thursday.

Utah’s newest GOP senator John Curtis praised President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, asserting Lee Zeldin has a reputation for working across the aisle to get important environmental legislation done.

WASHINGTON -- Former Long Island congressman Lee Zeldin denied that he will favor industry over the environment and declared he thinks climate change is real as he faced questions Thursday on his nomination to be the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I believe that climate change is real," Lee Zeldin told senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee. He added that environmental policies should not hamper economic growth.

Throughout the hearing, Lee Zeldin underscored the importance of protecting the environment without hindering economic development. He stated, "We can, and we must, protect our precious environment without suffocating the economy.

Lee Zeldin expressed his worries about a report that the Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency was “tossing ... are going to “nonprofits, states, tribes.”

President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet nominees Scott Bessent, Doug Burgum, Lee Zeldin and Scott Turner will sit for Senate confirmation hearings Thursday.

Yoon Suk Yeol,South Korea's impeached president, plans to attend a court hearing on Saturday to fight a request by investigators to extend his detention on accusations of insurrection, his lawyer said.

In his opening statements, Whitehouse had flagged his concerns that Trump intends to pour millions into the pockets of billionaire fossil fuel barons, and that he hoped Zeldin would demonstrate an ability to “follow the science” and economics, as opposed to act as a “rubber stamp for looters and polluters.”

President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Republican former congressman Lee Zeldin to head the country's Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin, a Trump loyalist, is expected to undo dozens of environmental regulations.

Since launching in 2021, America First Policy Institute has been known colloquially around Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump's "Cabinet in waiting."