This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Lee Zeldin, President Trump's administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is warning of "far more severe, drastic" layoffs at the EPA as the federal government shutdown continues.
"It was about three weeks ago where EPA had a 4,000 staff furlough kick in, Zeldin said on "Sunday Morning Futures" with Maria Bartiromo on the Fox News Channel.
"This is the last pay period before a far more severe, drastic furlough is going to kick in at the EPA."
The administrator explained there would be "impacts for environmental protection across the board."
"The Office of Air and Radiation, we're talking Clean Air Act, we're talking about air pollution, they're gonna be operating at less than 15%," he said. "The Office of Water which is responsible for the Safe Drinking Water Act will be operating at less than 40%.
"Big impacts at the Office of Land and Emergency Management. Think Superfund, Brownfield, emergency response. The Office of Enforcement and Compliance will be down over 70%. That is enforcement and compliance of the environmental laws of this country.
"So I don't want to hear congressional Democrats in the future talking about how important it is to be dealing with Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and these other laws if right now they're talking about this environmental impact as leverage to be able to gain more power.
"We at the EPA want to be operating with a federal government that's open, employees at the office and getting paid. Unfortunately we're at a crossroads moment where congressional Democrats are choosing to use this as leverage and it's wrong."
Zeldin indicated he came into office with an employee staff size of about 16,000, and expected that number to be 12,000 by the end of this year.
Prior to his stint at the EPA, Zeldin unsuccessfully ran for governor of New York, and he was asked about the big change in New York City with last week's election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor.
"Drastically, it's a sad moment where I feel bad for the New Yorkers who tried to stop it," Zeldin responded.
"I feel bad for the former New Yorkers who have fled. But I don't feel bad for those who voted for it and others who decided to stay on the sidelines."
"The Democratic Party chose to nominate a guy who is a socialist, who is a communist, who has talked about defending the police and will absolutely set the New York City back."
"This isn't even the Democratic Party of a few years ago. The far left is tail-wagging the dog here and is taking over the Democratic Party and it's harming all of America because of it."
