EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said he does not think the government should broadly reconsider climate advocacy groups’ tax-exempt status.
Zeldin said “no” during a press conference at EPA headquarters Monday when asked whether the government should reconsider those groups’ status. His comments on the issue come as rumors have swirled in recent days that the Trump administration might seek to revoke environmental groups’ tax-exempt status — potentially in an Earth Day executive order.
Green groups’ concerns were fueled last week when President Donald Trump suggested that Harvard University should lose its tax-exempt status after the school defied the administration’s demands. Environmental organizations could potentially see deep cuts to their fundraising if their tax-exempt status were revoked. Donations to major environmental groups are considered charitable and tax-deductible.
Advertisement
Although Zeldin explicitly rejected a broad reconsideration of climate groups’ tax status, he stressed that it’s important for nonprofits to follow the rules.
“Where an individual group can go awry is if they register with a particular status and they do not follow the rules for having that particular status, or they just don’t follow the rules in general,” he said Monday.
“It’s a lesson for any group that’s out there, regardless of whether you’re a climate-related group or not — it’s important to follow those particular rules,” Zeldin said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment about any upcoming plans regarding environmental groups’ tax-exempt status.
The tax-status issue was among a host of topics fielded by Zeldin in the wide-ranging news conference that ran more than twice its allotted half-hour length.
RIFs and surveillance of EPA employees
As thousands of agency staffers anxiously await Zeldin’s decision on potentially large layoffs, he described extensive internal discussions but declined to say when an announcement will come.
“This is about every single office and hearing everyone’s ideas on how we can make the agency operate better,” he said.
Under orders from the White House, EPA and other federal agencies had an April 14 deadline to turn in a second round of reorganization plans that are supposed to list specific operations that could be slated for “large-scale” reductions in force, a government term for layoffs.
Last month, for example, Democrats on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee released an excerpt from EPA’s initial reorganization plan indicating that agency leaders were weighing the elimination of the Office of Research and Development as a stand-alone entity and cutting up to three-quarters of its approximately 1,500 employees.
But in remarks to an American Chemistry Council conference last week, acting Deputy Administrator Chad McIntosh suggested that any final decisions were weeks away at the earliest. On Monday, Zeldin similarly signaled that he was in no rush.
“We’re just trying to get it right,” he said, adding, “We’re speaking to political and career staff in all of these different offices to solicit their insight on ways that they think this agency can operate better.”
“I do not want to lose one good employee, and we’re going to be very thoughtful and deliberate in how we go forward in this process,” Zeldin said. At the same time, he acknowledged that change is likely.
In a meeting with staff at EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, Zeldin said he was told that they would benefit if 100 ORD scientists could help them reduce the backlog of around 300 new chemicals awaiting review before being approved to enter the market.
Zeldin, however, sidestepped a question over employees’ concerns that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is tapping artificial intelligence tools to monitor them.
“I don’t have anything to say to confirm or add to that,” he said. EPA is, however, exploring the use of AI for grant oversight, reducing backlogs in the chemicals office and improving the process for receiving and responding to public comments, he said.
While it’s still unclear which research programs will continue under the second Trump administration, Zeldin said understanding “forever chemicals,” or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is still “important.”
“We’ve figured out some, many, of the questions related to PFAS, but the research is important to continue,” said Zeldin, who has touted his past record as a lawmaker on the Congressional PFAS Task Force.
Zeldin signaled the agency will soon reveal more details on plans for PFAS, a family of thousands of chemicals used to make a range of products water-repellent but that don’t naturally break down in the environment. Only a handful of the chemicals have been studied extensively for the long-term health effects, and some of the most notorious substances have been linked to cancer, birth defects, reproductive issues and other serious illnesses.
Facing a court-ordered deadline in litigation over the Biden-era drinking water limits for six PFAS, Zeldin said, “hopefully, part of this decision” will “come out over the next few weeks on what we are looking to do, what we could do, what we will do.”
“I can’t guarantee that every single last piece of what’s in front of us, related to PFAS, is going to be part of that announcement, but it’s, I think, preferred, as opposed to just making one announcement.”
Following Monday’s news conference, Zeldin was scheduled to fly to San Diego for meetings to address what he described as a public health and environmental crisis caused by raw sewage crossing Mexico’s border with the United States.
While Zeldin, a former New York lawmaker who became EPA administrator in late January, has hitherto tended to confine his news media appearances to reliably conservative outlets, he also appeared Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”
