Regular viewers of the liberal media have come to expect that Republican guests are on Sunday shows will get hard questions and lots of interruptions. But Sunday on CNN's State of the Union, host Jake Tapper quizzed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin calmly about the threat of a chemical tank explosion California, the deregulation of refrigerants, and the dangers of forever chemicals in drinking water.
In contrast to his April "Trump sounds genocidal" interview with Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Tapper offered no interruptions and no follow-ups for his first two questions to Zeldin, going from the chemical tank to refrigerants, and then turned to his final question, which certainly was no softball.
TAPPER: Earlier this month, you also drew criticism from environmentalists and also the MAHA movement that has been backing President Trump for the repeal of limits on four specific types of what are called, forever chemicals in drinking water. Now, I know you've said that the Biden administration rushed those regulations, which left the regulations open to being struck down in court.
Tapper then read what sounds like some very alarming information.
TAPPER: But the EPA's own website, your own website, notes that current scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to increased risk of some cancers, unquote, and damage to the body's immune system, hormone disruption, decreased fertility, developmental effects on children. Do you really not have any concerns about these chemicals in drinking water?
A tough question, but Zeldin was more than ready.
ZELDIN: Well, you happen to be talking to someone who was a member of the PFAS Task Force in Congress, voted for the PFAS Action Act, had a lot of PFAS issues among congressional district that have been that I was tackling for a long time as a member. We are keeping the limits on PFOA and PFO's. That deadline is 2029. We are going to be going through a public comment period because we've received concern from some of these systems. You have rural water systems that might have five employees, and installing a new treatment plant. They have concerns over the costs.
Congress is talking about tackling what's called passive receivers, which it's a good cause for them to be able to take up because instead of polluters paying, you have a local water system passing off the cost to a ratepayer, and people have to pay to clean up PFAS from their own water supply. So that's another good issue to tackle. So they can request an extension of up to two years. But this is the most studied forms of PFAS, PFOA and PFOS.
Zeldin then brought up the role of the Biden administration in all of this.
ZELDIN: Now, you mentioned the four chemicals. This is a proposed rescission. The reason why is that we inherited litigation because the Safe Drinking Water Act has a sequential process. A preliminary regulatory determination, a final regulatory determination, and then a proposed regulation. We have to follow that process. There are multiple public comment periods in that process. When the Biden administration set the limits for these four, they combine steps which are not allowed to do under the Safe Drinking Water Act. That's why we inherited that litigation. We're fixing that. And by the way, at the end of this process, you might end up with stricter limits than what was set previously. We're just going to follow the Safe Drinking Act to a T.
Zeldin documented what else the administration is doing to combat these problems.
ZELDIN: But fighting PFAS is important. We've announced a lot of grant funding, state revolving funding for this. The the amount is into the billions. We provide a lot of technical assistance as it relates to this. Our researchers are dedicated career scientists are involved in a lot of important PFAS research. So this is a big focus of this agency. And it will continue to be for for the long term.
That answer clocked in at almost two minutes, 40 seconds. No interruptions and no follow-up. All Tapper had was, "EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, safe travels out there. Thank you so much, and on this Memorial Day sir, thank you for your service", to which the former Army and Army Reservist replied, "Yes sir, thank you so much."
This is a big issue, and there's no doubt that Zeldin knew his stuff inside-out. Allowing Zeldin that long an answer felt like CNN was interviewing a Democrat and not a Trump administration official.
