Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called for EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to leave office, marking the latest move by Democrats to try to remove a Trump cabinet official.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse wrote Friday on X “Lyin’ Lee Zeldin deceived Congress, the courts, and the American people. I’m calling on him to go.”
On the Senate floor, he remarked, “Zeldin and his merry band of DOGE boys killed off grant programs based on ideas and phrases they didn’t like and wanted to cancel. None of this was based on the required individualized review he pretended to have done. That’s the Zeldin lie under oath. The Zeldin lie that is sanctionable. So for that reason, today, I’m calling on Lee Zeldin to go. It is bad enough that he’s weaponized the EPA to do the bidding of the giant fossil fuel and chemical corporations that donated to Trump’s campaign. But if he can’t be relied on to tell the simple truth to Congress, to answer simple questions honestly, how can anybody in this body believe him? Or is the new rule that lying is okay if it’s done for big polluters.”
Whitehouse’s call for Zeldin to leave office comes as Democrats have increasingly targeted Trump administration officials with demands for resignations and impeachment. Those efforts have included Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) moving to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) filing articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., House Democrats pushing a formal impeachment effort against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem before President Donald Trump announced that she would leave the post and be replaced by Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) pursuing impeachment articles against Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Whitehouse’s clash with Zeldin also fits into the Rhode Island senator’s longer-running focus on climate policy, fossil-fuel regulation, and political influence. Whitehouse has been one of Capitol Hill’s most persistent climate hawks, delivering nearly 300 Senate floor speeches on climate change and, after becoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee in 2023, signaling he intended to use that position to examine “how the fossil fuel industry has allegedly misled the public about global warming.”
In July 2025, Whitehouse underscored his view of fossil-fuel influence in the Trump administration when he said on MSNBC, “I can’t prove it,” but added, “when you look at how the fossil fuel industry directs every single thing that it cares to in the Trump administration, I think it’s hard not to put the blame for this back on the fossil fuel industry.”
Whitehouse’s latest demand comes as Zeldin has become one of the leading faces of President Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda. In February, Zeldin repealed the Obama-era Endangerment Finding, calling it “the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States” and arguing that it had been used to justify “over $1 trillion in regulations.” The White House said the move would remove federal greenhouse-gas emission requirements for motor vehicles and engines and save “the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulation.”
Days later, Zeldin also rolled back Biden-era Mercury and Air Toxics Standards requirements for coal- and oil-fired power plants, a move the EPA said would save $670 million. Zeldin said the repeal would end Democrats’ war on “beautiful, clean coal” and argued, “The Trump EPA knows that we can grow the economy, enhance baseload power, and protect human health and the environment all at the same time.”
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