Heres what EPA chief Lee Zeldin thinks about RFK Jr.s herbicide theory: Scientists need to be empowered
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin told The Post Friday that he plans to defer to scientists on the safety of two common herbicides with residential and commercial applications that Robert F.Kennedy Jr.
has described as harmful.Kennedy, the embattled nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has associated glyphosate, an ingredient in Roundup, with liver cancer and kidney disease, and atrazine, another of America’s top herbicides, with the chemical castration and feminization of frogs and suggested it might do the same to human beings.“As I said throughout the confirmation process, it’s important following my obligations under the law and the Administrative Procedures Act and it also is related to my movement yesterday throughout these halls to begin meeting career staff,” Zeldin said during a small-group discussion with reporters inside EPA headquarters on his second full day on the job.“I don’t show up on Day 1 prejudging a review that the EPA will take in the future on any of this,” the former New York congressman said inside the sprawling William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building near the White House.“My role as administrator isn’t to start a process of an agency review by telling everyone working on the review what I want that outcome to be.So I don’t come into this position prejudging, and I’ll tell you, you’re listing some that came up in my meetings with senators,” he continued.
“Sen.[Katie] Britt, for example, brought up more than one of what you just referenced, but she wasn’t alone, others have as well,” Zeldin revealed.Britt, an Alabama Republican, has voiced support for Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again mantra.“And I’ll give you the same answer that I gave Sen.
Britt: It is important that I don’t come into this position prejudging the outcome of those reviews,” Zeldin said.“And I don’t have any agency position to announce today as to what the...