EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin zinged Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) during a tense exchange at a Senate committee hearing this week.
Whitehouse accused Zeldin of going on a “polluter-funded rampage to increase Americans’ costs” and charged him with “climate denial.” Overall, Whitehouse asserted that the Trump administration is deliberately raising energy costs on Americans to benefit fossil‑fuel donors.
“Can we talk about your math yet?” Zeldin asked as Whitehouse continued to reference an offshore wind power contract.
“Are you even tracking the consumer costs of those coal plants?” Whitehouse continued, hardly allowing Zeldin to speak.
“Oh, this is great. So I don’t even know where to start,” Zeldin said as the Democrat asked again if they are tracking the consumer cost of coal plants.
“You think that the math is, it’s better for West Virginia… if you close down their coal plants and put these people out of work and tell them to learn to code, according to you, in your mind, that’s saving West Virginia,” Zeldin said. “Is it saving them on energy access? Is it saving them on jobs?”
During the hearing and exchange with Whitehouse, which also “focused on whether President Trump’s EPA had done enough to weigh whether hospital bills and insurance claims should factor into the calculus,” as reported by Fox News, Zeldin had enough and jabbed Whitehouse.
“We want to stick to the science. If you don’t agree with them, you don’t follow their logic, then they’ll want to vilify you… and I’m not going to take morality lessons from people who join all-white country clubs,” Zeldin said.
His jab references Whitehouse’s family’s membership at an all-white beach club in Rhode Island — a membership he defended in 2021. At the time, a reporter asked about his remarks following the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, speaking of “systemic racism in the country.”
“Your thoughts on an elite, all-white, wealthy club in this day and age. Should these clubs continue to exist?” the reporter asked.
“It’s a long tradition in Rhode Island, and there are many of them, and I think we just need to work our way through the issues,” Whitehouse responded. Days later, he apologized and claimed that the reporter caught him off guard, denying his personal membership at the exclusive club — Bailey’s Beach Club, which now denies that it is all white.
“A representative of a local website recently caught me off guard by asking me about diversity at a beach club to which family members of mine belong,” Whitehouse said days after a reporter questioned him about exclusive beach clubs.
“I was attending an unrelated event and wasn’t prepared for the question. At the time, I made the mistake of accepting her premise,” the Democrat claimed, adding that while he is not a personal member of the beach club, he is a member of a sailing club that lacks diversity.
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