- Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, earned $186,000 from paid writing and speaking engagements.
- Some of those op-eds criticized climate and ESG policies.
- The former NY congressman also won $45,475 from casino gambling.
Former Rep. Lee Zeldin, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, has made millions of dollars in recent years from consulting, speaking fees and paid op-eds, according to a financial disclosure by made public on Saturday.
This includes tens of thousands of dollars to write about topics related to the environment and climate change. In one case, Zeldin was paid $25,000 for an article in which he compared environmental, social and governance, or ESG, investing to the practices of disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried.
A staunchly pro-Trump Republican first elected to Congress in 2014, Zeldin left office after making an unsuccessful bid for governor of New York in 2022. As retiring lawmakers in both parties often do, Zeldin made money, setting up a consulting firm to advise corporate clients while plunging into the well-funded world of conservative political advocacy.
It has been paid. According to the disclosure document, which covers Zeldin’s major financial activities since early 2023, the former congressman made a total of $775,000 in salary income and between $1 million and $5 million in dividends from his main firm, Zeldin Consulting.
He has also received $144,999 from America First Works, a pro-Trump nonprofit where he has a board seat, along with $65,500 from paid speaking engagements and $15,000 from an entity called the Plymouth Union Public Research.
He also got lucky — literally — winning a combined $45,475 in the past two years gambling at the Golden Nugget, Venetian and Atlantis casinos.
“All appointees and appointees will abide by the ethical obligations of their respective agencies,” Trump-Vance Transition spokesman Brian Hughes said in a statement.
Zeldin did not respond to a request for comment.
$120,500 to write op-eds
The former congressman’s disclosure reveals a number of income streams, including substantial speaking fees from GOP organizations in Florida and California, a synagogue on Long Island and a Turning Point USA event in Michigan in June. In many cases, Zeldin was paid over $10,000 for a single appearance.
It also disclosed a total of $26,775 in payments from Fox News and Nexstar Media Group for “media studio use.”
The document lists payments from several public relations firms for paid op-eds, listing the media and date of publication. The titles of these opinions are not listed, but Business Insider identified several that matched the publication and date involved in the disclosure.
Among the most notable were a series of paid opinion pieces on climate issues — Zeldin may soon head the federal government’s environmental policy agency.
In an op-ed for Real Clear Politics published in March 2023 titled “How Congress Can Stop the Future FTX,” Zeldin called on Congress to investigate the practices of ESG and nonprofit watchdog Better Markets, arguing that companies could use ESG to avoid regulatory scrutiny in the same way that Bankman-Fried used political contributions to curry favor with Washington.
The disclosure shows that Zeldin was paid $25,000 to write that op-ed. He also appears to have made an additional $10,000 for another Newsday story in August about ESG and $3,000 for a Fox News story in July that criticized New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s climate policies and called on her to lift the state’s fracking ban. .
Zeldin was also paid to write about other topics, including $10,000 for a New York Post op-ed criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ housing policy proposals, $10,000 for a Washington Times op-ed calling on regulators to hit China-linked financial platforms. , and $15,000 to a Washington Examiner writer accusing the Biden administration of targeting Republican-led states through Medicaid regulations.
In some cases, Zeldin was paid even when the items never saw the light of day. His disclosures list two opeds that were never published, for which he received $10,000 and $30,000.
In total, Zeldin reported $120,500 in op-ed payments. The original clients who made these payments are unclear, and Zeldin and the Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a question about the original sources.
As with the other nominees, Zeldin has agreed to give up his consulting business if he is confirmed as the next EPA administrator, according to his ethics agreement. His confirmation hearing is scheduled for Thursday, January 16.
