Washington — A key Senate Democrat on plastics issues pressed President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency to focus on the health impacts of microplastics and to be skeptical of industry claims around chemical recycling.
At a Jan. 16 confirmation hearing, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., urged Lee Zeldin, Trump's nominee to head the EPA, to put microplastics and chemical recycling high on his agenda.
"We're learning more and more. We now have plastics in breast milk, plastics in every organ of the body and plastics in the brain," Merkley said. "We also have a record of microplastics and nanoplastics affecting human fertility. Plastic is by its chemical structure an endocrine disruptor.
"Are you familiar, have you steeped yourself in the science and problems associated with plastics in the human body?" asked Merkley, who was the lone U.S. senator to travel to the last round of the plastics treaty talks in November 2024 in South Korea.
Zeldin said he would study the issue to become "intimately familiar" with the topic.
"Clearly, this is an issue of great interest and passion of yours," Zeldin said. "I would look forward to an opportunity to be able to read what you're specifically referencing."
The three-minute exchange between Zeldin and Merkley, who led a series of Senate hearings on plastics from 2022 to 2024, was the longest discussion on plastics at the confirmation hearing.
The three-hour hearing covered a wide range of topics, from Zeldin's views on the role of fossil fuels in causing climate change to the federal government's response to California wildfires to whether Zeldin would resist calls in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 for steep cuts in EPA's budget and staff.
Zeldin, in his opening remarks at the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, noted that he had voted for the Save Our Seas Acts to clean up plastic in the ocean when he was a Republican member of Congress representing a district on Long Island in New York.
"Going back to my time in the House, I advocated to clean up our waterways around my district, and as I cited in my opening, the bipartisan work between Senator [Sheldon] Whitehouse and Senator [Dan] Sullivan on Save our Seas and Save our Seas 2.0, should be a model to be followed, of bipartisanship, to go even further," Zeldin said.
Sullivan, an Alaska Republican, also noted the bipartisan support of the SOS laws and said Trump supported them. He asked Zeldin to commit to implementing SOS 2.0, as he said he and Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, were working together on the third version of Save our Seas.
But Democrats and Republicans on the committee also actively sparred over the role of the fossil fuel industry, among other topics.
Sullivan, for example, credited natural resources extraction for helping raise lifespans in Alaska, while Whitehouse said the fossil fuel industry had worked to hide the science of climate change.
The hearing did not suggest any major new direction in plastics policy, but Merkley urged Zeldin to be wary of what he described as attempts by the plastics industry to oversell what chemical recycling can do to address plastic waste.
"They're trying to sell it as the absolute cure, [as] 'Don't worry, we can go from 8 percent recycling in America to a high percentage,'" Merkley said. "Have you made yourself knowledgeable of the inaccuracies that are being publicized about this thermal strategy?"
Zeldin replied that he was "researching and reading all that was being provided on all sides of this issue."
With each senator only getting five minutes to question Zeldin, Merkley closed his time by saying: "In plastics, there's a big story trying to be sold about 'Don't worry.' It will be your responsibility to make sure you speak the truth to the American people."
EPW Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., closed the hearing by saying that she thought Zeldin would be confirmed as the next EPA administrator.
She gave Zeldin until Jan. 21, the day after Trump is inaugurated, to reply to any written questions from senators, suggesting a quick confirmation vote.
"You will be an excellent administrator to the EPA and I fully expect that your confirmation will be very positive," Capito said.