Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin on Thursday turned the tables on CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir who attempted to “fact check” the agency.
The EPA announced it would repeal dozens of environmental regulations with the intent of lowering the cost to buy a car, run a business and heat a home. Weir claimed on “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” Wednesday that the EPA’s press release titled, “Trump EPA Announces OOOO b/c Reconsideration of Biden-Harris Rules Strangling American Energy Producers,” consisted of “typos and placeholders,” though Zeldin said the release correctly referred to a federal regulation under the Clean Air Act regarding the oil and gas industry.
“[The EPA] was putting out press releases with such a flurry, about 31 different actions and rollbacks, that some of them had typos and placeholders at the top, we have one of them there. ‘Trump EPA Announces’ zero, zero, zero, zero, you can see there,” Weir said. “It’s sort of shoot first, fill out the press release later. They’re of course, as you mentioned, vehicle emissions, power plant pollution, mercury pollution that comes out of there. Coal, waste, water, oil and gas.”
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The press release in question announced that the EPA was “reconsidering” oil and gas regulations under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act and Subpart W of the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program.
Zeldin said the press release consists of O’s, and not 0’s, and accused Weir of not having “the slightest clue what he’s talking about.”
“Another media ‘fact check’ face plant where the fact checker doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about. ‘OOOO b/c’ is not a typo. 40 CFR Part 60 Subpart OOOO, or Quad O, is a federal reg under the Clean Air Act. Also, those aren’t zeroes, it’s the letter ‘O’,” Zeldin said.
Another media “fact check” face plant where the fact checker doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about. “OOOO b/c” is not a typo.
40 CFR Part 60 Subpart OOOO, or Quad O, is a federal reg under the Clean Air Act.
Also, those aren’t zeroes, it’s the letter “O”. pic.twitter.com/adPkShbPHS
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) March 13, 2025
A spokesperson for the EPA told the Daily Caller News Foundation that CNN “failed” to accurately check the federal regulations codes before reporting on the “largest day of deregulatory action in American history.” “CNN’s Chief Climate Correspondent failed to check code of federal regulations when reporting on the largest day of deregulatory action in American history. If Fake News CNN can’t figure out what EPA does, what does this mean for the American public?” Molly Vaseliou, EPA spokeswoman, told the DCNF.
Zeldin intends to scrap several of Biden’s policies that placed strict regulations on power and coal plants in order to “unleash American energy.” The EPA administrator announced in a Wednesday press release that the agency would reconsider regulations on power plants, mercury and toxic standards that “improperly targeted coal-fired power plants” and on the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP), which “imposed significant costs on the American energy supply.”
The GHGRP requires about 8,000 facilities, including GHG emission sources, fuel and industrial gas suppliers, as well as CO2 injection sites to report their emissions annually.
The Biden administration implemented a rule requiring existing coal plants to use carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to control 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032 if they wanted to stay running past 2039 as part of their climate agenda. Power grid experts had raised concerns about the cost and the reliability problems that could be caused by the power plant regulations.
Additionally, the EPA is reconsidering its Risk Management Program (RMP) Rule, which requires facilities that use extremely hazardous substances to develop a risk management plan, stating the rule made America’s oil and natural gas refineries and chemical facilities “less safe,” according to the press release. The EPA will further be terminating any Biden-era wings of the agency related to environmental justice or diversity.
CNN did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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