Sunday morning, Kasie Hunt on CNN’s State of The Union interviewed Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin in order to ask about the Trump administration's recent proposal to overturn the 2009 endangerment finding. Zeldin called out CNN for misleading viewers on climate change by using unrelated images and factually incorrect information.
Thinking she had her guest in a corner from the jump, Hunt pressed Zeldin on the issue, only to have him call out CNN for their misrepresentation:
HUNT: Joining me now is EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been traveling the country in part to promote this move. Mister administrator, thank you so much for being here, we really appreciate your time. I do want to start with the fundamental question that’s at the heart of all this, I mean, do you accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest drivers of man-made climate change.
LEE ZELDIN: Well, it’s great to be on with you. First, it’s worth pointing out that all eight or so images that you just posted on the screen have nothing to do with this week's announcement. What the 2009 endangerment finding had to do with was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles, this week’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles. CNN’s been using a lot of photos where they show smokestacks of stationary sources like power plants, that’s not what we proposed.
Zeldin pointed out how CNN posted pictures of dark grey smoke stacks as an attempt to attach negative connotations to the EPA’s decision.
He then explained that the 2009 endangerment findings have nothing to do with stationary sources like smoke stacks and power plants. The endangerment findings only had to do with mobile sources like vehicles:
Now, going back to 2009, the science that they were reviewing included both optimistic to pessimistic scenarios. To reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out. Hey, that’s great. We can rely on two 2025 facts as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions.
After setting the record straight on the images CNN used, he ended the fearmongering by Hunt.
Zeldin clarified the fact that the endangerment finding used very pessimistic assumptions on climate change when conducting their data. Assumptions included extreme weather and rising sea levels that never came true to the degree the findings produced. The document also failed to individually weigh the six greenhouse gasses they used, instead, they opted to mix them together into one total impact on climate change for their study.
Hunt then went on to spew a factually misleading question about how insurers were moving out of Florida due to climate change:
So one way that you have defended the change you want to make in terms of the endangerment finding and saying that the government's not going to regulate carbon dioxide fundamentally, is to say that this is going to help consumers save money, basically pay less for their cars. My question to you, though, is what do you say to people who live in a state like Florida? Farmers Insurance has pulled out of Florida entirely, State Farm basically threatened to. It’s getting harder and harder for people to get insurance at all, let alone pay for people that have insurance. It’s so much more expensive, how is this policy, this change that you're making, going to help those people?
Hunt cited Farmers Insurance pulling out of Florida as a reason why prices for insurance will go up, neglecting the fact that companies like Slide Insurance acquired the renewal rights for approximately 86,000 people following the pull out. In 2023, under the Biden administration, Florida auto insurance rates spiked by over 31 percent. In 2025, insurers like GEICO, State Farm, and Progressive had announced rate cuts following statewide auto insurance reductions announced by Governor Ron DeSantis.
At the end of the interview, Hunt urged Zeldin to abuse his power as a federal regulator:
HUNT: But sir, with all due respect a power that you have is to rewrite a regulation, you are taking an action. You could just leave it alone.
ZELDIN: The power — no — the power comes from the law. I don’t get to just make up the law just because a predecessor decided to fill in vague language in the law to do many mental leaps to try to justify an electric vehicle mandate and trillions of dollars of regulation to strangulate out of existence entire sectors of our energy economy.
Zeldin spelled out that he can’t just change the regulations for his liking, he had to enforce regulations based on Congressional legislation, as reminded by the Supreme Court. He cited how previous EPA administrators used vague wording to change laws and push for regulations on key energy sectors of the economy like coal plants.
In reference to the endangerment findings allowing for the regulation of major economic contributors to the United States, Zeldin argued: “we are not going to interpret law in whichever vague, creative way allows us to give ourselves maximum power. The power comes from the law and from Congress, not from our own creativity.”
The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:
CNN’s State of The Union
9:14:05 AM ET
August 3rd, 2025KASIE HUNT: Welcome back to State of The Union. It’s called the endangerment finding, it’s a landmark scientific determination that planet warming pollution from fossil fuels endangers human health. And since 2009, it’s formed the bedrock for the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but that’s set to all change after the Trump administration announced plans to reverse that ruling, effectively gutting the federal government's ability to combat climate change.
Joining me now is EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who has been traveling the country in part to promote this move. Mister administrator, thank you so much for being here, we really appreciate your time. I do want to start with the fundamental question that’s at the heart of all this, I mean, do you accept the overwhelming scientific consensus that these greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest drivers of man-made climate change.
LEE ZELDIN: Well, it’s great to be on with you. First, it’s worth pointing out that all eight or so images that you just posted on the screen have nothing to do with this week's announcement. What the 2009 endangerment finding had to do with was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles, this week’s proposal to rescind the 2009 endangerment finding was with regards to mobile sources, vehicles. CNN’s been using a lot of photos where they show smokestacks of stationary sources like power plants, that’s not what we proposed.
Now, going back to 2009, the science that they were reviewing included both optimistic to pessimistic scenarios. To reach the 2009 endangerment finding, they relied on the most pessimistic views of the science. The great news is that a lot of the pessimistic views of the science in 2009 that was being assumed ended up not panning out. Hey, that’s great. We can rely on two 2025 facts as opposed to 2009 bad assumptions.
The other thing too, is that at EPA, we don't just get to creatively make the law whatever we want it to be. The Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright overturning the Chevron doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA, Michigan v. EPA, that agencies like the EPA can't just use vague language in statute and try to make it be whatever we want it to be.
(...)
9:20:24 AM
HUNT: So one way that you have defended the change you want to make in terms of the endangerment finding and saying that the government's not going to regulate carbon dioxide fundamentally, is to say that this is going to help consumers save money, basically pay less for their cars.
My question to you, though, is what do you say to people who live in a state like Florida? Farmers Insurance has pulled out of Florida entirely, State Farm basically threatened to. It’s getting harder and harder for people to get insurance at all, let alone pay for people that have insurance. It’s so much more expensive, how is this policy, this change that you're making, going to help those people?
(...)
9:23:31 AM ET
HUNT: I want to bring us back here though to the present day, because a lot’s changed since 2009, do you think the federal government should have a role in trying to combat climate change?
ZELDIN: It's a great question, and I’m at the EPA and running an agency. The Supreme Court made it very clear that I have to follow the law, I have to follow the plain language of the law and I can’t get creative. So when you read through the 2009 endangerment finding, they say that where there’s silence in the law, there's gaps that I should just be interpreting that as my own discretion. The Supreme Court has made it very clear that that is not what is a power that I have. This decision is a decision for Congress to make. If they want to amend Section 202 of The Clean Air Act –
HUNT: But sir, with all due respect a power that you have is to rewrite a regulation, you are taking an action. You could just leave it alone.
ZELDIN: The power — no — the power comes from the law. I don’t get to just make up the law just because a predecessor decided to fill in vague language in the law to do many mental leaps to try to justify an electric vehicle mandate and trillions of dollars of regulation to strangulate out of existence entire sectors of our energy economy.
You were posting earlier a whole bunch of photos of stationary sources. Well, the Biden administration did do a whole bunch of regulations to try to make, for example, the coal industry get regulated out of existence. There are people out there who like wind. I come from a state where the governor says that New York is a substitute for baseload power, it's not.
In order to make America the AI capital of the world, in order to unleash energy dominance, to protect the jobs, to bring down energy costs, we are not going to regulate out of existence entire sectors of our economy. And we are not going to interpret law in whichever vague, creative way allows us to give ourselves maximum power. The power comes from the law and from Congress, not from our own creativity.
