← The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson
American Energy Dominance: 1 on 1 w EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin
00:33:16
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- [00:01]
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- [00:31]
Ben Ferguson
Good Friday morning, welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and we get to give you some really exciting news. You're making history, Senator, as from what I know, you are the first sitting member of Congress to ever have a syndicated radio show. So everyone listening to this podcast in a lot of markets, you're gonna be able to hear Verdict on the radio as you're driving around town on the weekend.
- [00:58]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, that's exactly right and it's a big damn deal. The Verdict podcast. Thanks to our incredible listeners, we have about a million unique listeners that listen regularly to this show. We beat CNN every single week. And as of this weekend, we will be on air starting in 84 stations all over the country on syndicated radio, playing on Saturday and Sunday. Our Friday podcast will air either Saturday or Sunday on radio. That number I hope and expect will grow. But it's another chance to really communicate with people across this country and to bring them behind the scenes to let them know what's going on, what's happening. And today we've got a special guest on the podcast. Ben, you and I are in Midland, Texas. Midland is an extraordinary town. Midland is the, I believe, the most entrepreneurial city on the face of the planet. It is driving the shale revolution. It is driving energy production in Texas and America. And we're here with a special guest. We're here with the administrator of the epa, Lee Zeldin. Now, Lee is a good friend. I'm going to introduce him to you momentarily. Lee is a veteran. He spent 22 years in active duty in the reserves. He was a member of Congress for eight years from the great state of New York. I'll tell you, I actually went and campaigned with Lee when he first ran. I went to Long island and campaigned alongside him. He is smart, he is principled, he is a fighter. Lee was almost the governor of New York. Lee should have been the governor of New York. It would have been much better for the entire state of New York if Lee had been the governor of New York. But Tragically, New Yorkers decided they wanted more crime and less jobs and more insanity. And so they voted to re elect Democrats. And I will say the loss to the great state of New York ended up being a win to the United States of America. Because if Lee were governor of New York, he would not have been able to say yes to the job he's in now, which is Administrator of the epa. The EPA has a massive impact on our lives, on our health and safety, but also on the economy. And I'll tell you what, Lee Zeldin is the very first administrator of the EPA in history to come to the Permian Basin, to come to Midland, Odessa. He came because I invited him to come. Lee, welcome, welcome to verdict.
- [03:18]
Lee Zeldin
Senator Cruz, it's great to be with you on the ground in Texas. You feel the freedom here. I mean he's leaving the airport. I'm thinking of all that budget surplus government being well run. A whole lot of New Yorkers have come down to Texas. They're not looking back. A whole lot of people fleeing these blue states and they're heading to these freedom loving states because they feel like their money's going to go further. They'll feel safer, they'll live life freer. Senator Cruz, you've been at the tip of the spear here in Texas and it's been an awesome day. When I end up heading back to D.C. as you well know, I'm going to be heading back with some oil stains here on the boots, my own little souvenir that you provided to me and the staffers who enjoyed the trip to the rig and speaking to a whole bunch of great.
- [04:04]
Ben Ferguson
Now what's so cool about you inviting him down here is you guys went to an oil rig basically like in the city. You're on it, you're seeing what's actually happening and it's shocking that no one in the EPA role that you're in has ever done this before.
- [04:17]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, it was fantastic. So we started the day we went, went to a rig that is drilling right now and, and they're drilling 60 wells and, and it's in Midland, it's in the city. It's, it's, it's not too far from downtown Midland and they built baffles around the rig so it doesn't make much sound, it's not disturbing people. And what they, they're doing, they're drilling down, they're going horizontal and they're going horizontal under people's homes, under people's businesses. Now this is a bonanza for the people in Midland. Why? Because in Texas, look, you own your mineral rights, you own the rights to everything from the surface all the way down to the core of planet Earth. And that means literally, as they drill a two and a half mile long horizontal well and they're drilling 60 of these, and if they go under your home bend, you know what you get? You get a check every month, a royalty check. They've literally got 10,000 people. They might just be sitting in an ordinary three bedroom home with their kids playing out out back. And they get every week mailbox money of money coming in because a mile or two miles down this well is producing oil and producing natural gas. And we saw it all, it was incredible and it was a lot of fun.
- [05:34]
Lee Zeldin
And the check ends up coming for many decades, like 40 years. And there was, they said there was a thousand workers involved in this project. I mean, the benefits, economically, the work that they do to protect the environment, I mean the innovation that they tap into, the way that they are able to do things better for the economy and the environment than so many other countries around the rest of the world. The EPA administrator, Ben, should be seeing this stuff firsthand. Every administrator, if you're gonna have a concern enough to regulate these types of industries, you should make sure that you get your facts straight, that you're talking to the people on the ground and that you're applying common sense. And I think that I'm gonna be able to do a better job going forward. And we've hit the ground running. We're almost done here with the first 100 days of President Trump's administration. We have a good team around us and there's a lot that we're proud of. I feel like today's visit will only make our team stronger.
- [06:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, you know, one of the striking things, Ben, as, as Lee, Lee and I were touring the rig as he was looking around and we were hearing about 10,000 Midlanders who were getting checks in the mail every month. And I got to say, it was interesting watching Lee's perspective as someone who represented New York for eight years in Congress and who ran for governor. And look, there's a significant portion of New York state that has massive natural gas resources. The Marcellus Shale extends underneath Pennsylvania and New York. And in Pennsylvania, just like here in West Texas, there are people making enormous amount of money, ordinary families, school teachers and cops who are getting mailbox money every month because of the resources being extracted from their property. And I gotta say, I think Lee was struck that he's visited with those New Yorkers who have that natural gas under their property. And yet idiot politicians in New York won't let them develop it. And it was striking watching Lee making that observation.
- [07:36]
Lee Zeldin
And they're desperate to tap into it. And in New York, they, they banned the extraction of natural gas. They won't approve new pipelines, they're banning gas hookups to new construction. They're trying to move the state residents off of gas powered vehicles altogether. And that list goes on. And those people who have all this resource under their property and they see over the border into Pennsylvania where they are tapping into it, and they're driving Cadillacs, and they're driving Cadillacs on the New York side. They're not bad policy in New York, good policy in Texas.
- [08:08]
Ben Ferguson
And I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, and this has been A lot of the headlines that you have been in is about you uncovering just an incredible amount of waste within your agency. And you guys are really going after that. Tell us a little bit more.
- [08:23]
Lee Zeldin
EPA's annual budget is about $10 billion. So far I've canceled $22 billion worth of grants. And how is that possible, one might ask? Well, in 2024, the amount that EPA obligated and spent was over $60 billion. A lot of money came through the Inflation Reduction act when Democrats were in charge of Congress. And a lot of that money went through epa. They created these green slush funds and in one case $20 billion, which they couldn't get out on their own fast enough. They ended up parking at an outside bank towards the end of the Biden administration to give through eight pass through NGOs. Many of them were brand new. One is that Stacey Abrams linked NGO that received 2 billion even though they only received $100 in 2023. And because of self dealing.
- [09:15]
Senator Ted Cruz
Wait, hold on a second. They went from $100 to, to $2 billion.
- [09:21]
Lee Zeldin
How crazy is that? And then on page seven of their grant agreement, the Biden EPA gives them 90 days to complete a training called how to develop a Budget. Now, if you feel like this is.
- [09:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
You know, with $2 billion, you don't need much of a budget, just spend on whatever you want.
- [09:38]
Lee Zeldin
Oh, I'll add another dynamic to it. On page one of the grant agreement, they have 21 days to start spending the money. So from day zero, they have 21 days to start Spending money. They have 90 days to complete a training called how to develop a Budget.
- [09:53]
Senator Ted Cruz
Look, this is insane. And you described what you found as essentially $20 billion in gold bars that were being thrown off the Titanic, that the Biden administration, they realized, oh no, Trump is coming in. Let's just throw this all out the window. I mean, is that what you found?
- [10:12]
Lee Zeldin
That's exactly what happened and what alerted Senate Republicans like Senator Cru. This was something that Senator Cruz and I spoke about back in December when we met before my confirmation hearing. There was this video that came out of a Biden EPA political appointee, a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic, rushing to get billions of dollars out the door before inauguration.
- [10:37]
Senator Ted Cruz
This was a Biden phrase that was.
- [10:39]
Lee Zeldin
It was the Biden EPA political appointee.
- [10:42]
Senator Ted Cruz
Oh, I thought that was you being clever. They called it that. You gotta be kidding me.
- [10:47]
Lee Zeldin
Yes. And they were doing it with an eye towards getting themselves jobs at the recipient NGOs. So this was us fulfilling a commitment to figure out, go find the gold bars. A commitment to bringing those gold bars back into the treasury on behalf of the American taxpayer.
- [11:05]
Senator Ted Cruz
By the way, Lee, I will say the last Democrat I'm aware of who was intimately involved with gold bars was your former neighboring colleague Bob Menendez, who was sticking gold bars in his pockets and down his pants. And I will say Bob is currently a resident of government housing.
- [11:22]
Lee Zeldin
Well, there are talking about resident of government and feeding off the taxpayer and abusing tax dollars. This whole scheme is riddled with self dealing and conflicts of interest, unqualified recipients and a lack of EPA oversight. Deliberately reducing EPA oversight. $20 billion, that's a lot of money. And when that goes through those first eight pass through entities, a lot of that money goes through more pass through entities. And we found with one program that there was money that by the time it was getting to the ultimate recipient, it was going through four middlemen. And each of these middlemen are getting their own fee for being middlemen. Now, I want to add one other thing we've heard so much about. We've heard the term climate change, we've heard the term environmental justice. And you could build support for your term by the way that you define it, the way you argue and advocate for it. For example, one might say, so if.
- [12:22]
Senator Ted Cruz
You call it gold bars off the Titanic, that's not the best messaging.
- [12:25]
Lee Zeldin
Amen. If you say that we need to combat environmental justice because there's a community, there are communities that are left behind and they need help. A lot of Americans like, okay, there are communities that are left behind, they need help. What do we need to do? But here's the problem. In the name of environmental justice, they will give money to their left wing activist friends instead of actually remediating environmental issues. So one of the grants I canceled was a $50 million grant to a group called Climate Justice Alliance. They say that climate justice runs through a free Palestine. I say that if you are gonna give, if you're gonna spend $50 million in the name of environmental justice, that money should go towards actually remediating an environmental issue in the name of climate change. They're willing to spend trillions of dollars bankrupting this country. And we as Americans need to get smart. As to what the left has been.
- [13:22]
Senator Ted Cruz
Up to, let me say something on this which is you're really underscoring a very important point, that when corrupt Democrats waste billions of dollars, they're doing multiple things. One, they're paying off their buddies and engaging in political corruption. So the $2 billion that was given to Stacey Abrams and her group was to buy new appliances for Georgians. Now, mind you, Stacey Abrams ran for governor of Georgia. She claimed she was the original election denier. She claims she won. Never mind the fact that she didn't. But the Democrats are giving her $2 billion because it turns out if you give someone a brand new dishwasher, maybe, maybe they'll vote for you next time. It's just buying votes. That's one consequence of it. But another consequence of it is that's $2 billion that's not being spent to clean up a superfund site. That's $2 billion that's not being spent if you have a toxic waste dump. Look, the EPA has really important missions. Every one of us wants clean air and clean water because we all breathe and we all drink water. And if you're wasting $22 billion in cronyism and corruption, that's $22 billion that are not going to clean up the environment and make our kids safer. Is that right?
- [14:37]
Lee Zeldin
100% right. And we're not here saying we want to take money from a left wing activist organization and give it to a right wing activist organization. We're talking about the money belongs to the taxpayers. And if you're going to spend the money on protecting the environment, it needs to go directly towards remediating an environmental issue, period. I don't want to spend a dollar more than what we need. And by the way, when someone comes to me and they say, I have an idea on how to save $5,000, that's a lot of money to me. Let's save $5,000. Let's save $5 million. We save $5 billion. And what's so frustrating is that there are people when you say, I have an idea to save a billion dollars, the response is, well, that's only.003% of some larger pot of money. So you know who gives? Well, I give. And whether it's a B an M, you're talking about $1,000. Whatever it is, when you're a steward of tax dollars, you need to treat it as if it's your own money. You need to treat it with even more care and concern. And unfortunately, there are too many people in government who love wasting money and, and they're paying it off to their friends. In this case, we're talking about former Biden and Obama appointed administration officials, former Democratic donors. These are people who they are close with because of that alliance, not because of their qualifications. Stacey Abrams and that NGO doesn't get the money because Stacey Abrams is so experienced in handling billions of dollars.
- [16:05]
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- [17:08]
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- [17:38]
Ben Ferguson
You were talking about how it's pretty clear that the Democratic Party decided they were going to take the epa, radicalize it, use it for their own personal gain and their friends and their climate, religion and the Green New Deal. The list goes on and on. Can we take a step back and explain to everyone listening around the country what is the original goal of the epa? Why was it created? What is your goal? So they understand just how far off the beaten path we've gotten.
- [18:06]
Lee Zeldin
The core mission of EPA is protecting human health and the environment. And what conservatives, moderates, liberals, Republicans, Democrats, independents, what Americans, almost all universally should be agreeing on is that we should ensure clean air, land and water for all Americans. That's a goal that we often talk about. And protecting the environment is something that conservatives care deeply about. We believe that we can both protect the environment and grow the economy. This isn't a binary choice. But what was happening under the Biden EPA was that they were strangulating the economy and they were passing these regulations that were costing trillions of dollars and they were designed to put entire industries out of business. And Americans spoke up last November. They say that they want a stronger economy, they want more energy, they want more jobs. And President Trump heard that loud and clear. He campaigned on a lot of this. And that's why there's a National Energy Dominance Council, there's a National energy emergency. And that's why EPA is doing its part. We announced on March 12 the largest deregulatory action in the history of the country. We want to fix this instantly. We're not looking to pace ourselves. I'm not saying, hey, stay tuned. In 2028, the solution's gonna finally be here. Take my word for it. I'm saying right now, we are actively walking and chewing gum at the same time. On all fronts. We're firing on all cylinders. We will fix everything. That's our commitment.
- [19:34]
Senator Ted Cruz
You know, historically, the epa, I think, has been the most dangerous and destructive regulator in the entire country. And it is under radical Democrats promulgated rules designed to destroy jobs, to destroy entire industries. And it reminds me of a joke that I have to admit I've told on the campaign trail many times, which is, what's the difference between regulators and locusts? And the answer is you can't use pesticide on the regulators. And one time, actually out here in West Texas, an old farmer leaned forward and said, want to bet? So I'll just tell you when you come in and Say I'm the regulator. West Texas is a different place. But, but I'll tell you why I'm so thrilled that Lee is doing this. Because he, he, he brings intelligence and common sense and, and an understanding that we can't protect the environment, keep our air and water clean. But that doesn't mean being a crazy zealot trying to shut down every job you can in America. And that's what under Obama and Biden, they did. And so I want to ask and look, and there's a consistent theme across President Trump's cabinet of bringing back a resurgence of common sense, bringing back a dedication to jobs, bringing back a dedication to blue collar workers. So I want to ask one of the things we do on verdict, we try to bring people behind the scenes. And so you're a member of President Trump's Cabinet. Let me just ask you, what's it like to be in Donald Trump's cabinet? Like, bring our listeners in. What does it mean? Tell us about the first cabinet meeting you go to. What's it like?
- [21:17]
Lee Zeldin
I always thought that there was pretty much two choices for a cabinet, that a president can have a cabinet where everyone gets along and maybe they're all yes men. They don't have the relationship with the president where they can push back. Just everyone just tells the president what they want to hear. And then option two is this team of rivals approach where maybe people don't get along with each other, there's some conflict. And from that conflict and debate, maybe you end up with a better cabinet. I remember from the Abe Lincoln Team of Rivals, a great book worth reading. If anyone out there hasn't read it yet, President Trump has tried something different. I really think this is the model of how to do it. He has a cabinet where everyone gets along with each other. There's great chemistry. And we all have the relationship with President Trump where we could tell him where we disagree on any topic. We all have that relationship with him where we are able to share our candid thoughts, our candid recommendations. And I think this cabinet's stronger for it. I think that the president and this administration, this country is stronger for it. Inside those cabinet meetings like we just had one last week. It was a little over three hours long. It was so positive and it was so substantive. And we were all talking about what we are working on in our own agency. In many cases, it's working with other agencies and the partnerships. I'm a member of the National Energy Dominance Council. I'm a member of the Make America Healthy Again Commission. With Secretary Kennedy, and that cooperation between agencies ends up allowing us to accomplish so many other goals, like Senator Cruz has been fighting for permitting reform. Well, one of the best ways to achieve permitting reform is to have agencies working on this stuff at the same time, rather than having to go through 12 months in one agency and then you go to some other agency, and they're gumming up the works. And the person who's applying for the permit is like, hey, why didn't you just tell us that a year ago? Well, we want to make sure that we are doing things efficiently in a way that we are all making the American public proud. It's a new way to be a cab, to have a cabinet. I think this is the way presidents should do it going forward.
- [23:23]
Senator Ted Cruz
You know, I read something last week that was amazing, which is Donald Trump, in three months of his second term, has already answered more press questions at Cabinet meetings than Joe Biden did in four years as president. Although, to be fair, Biden may have been answering questions of voices he was hearing in his head. So I don't know about that. All right, let me ask another question, which is, how did you find out you were gonna be EPA administrator? Tell us what it's like. So you're sitting there minding your own business, like. Like, how did. How did this appointment come about?
- [23:55]
Lee Zeldin
So it was a call on a Sunday morning right after the election. I spoke to the president a few times during that week after the election, and the president was thinking through some different options. I didn't know what he was gonna ask me to do. It was clear that he wanted me to come join the team. Sunday morning, though, he calls me up, and he is locked in. He is decisive, he is motivated. He had this vision of exactly what we can be accomplishing at epa, and his motivation motivated me. I said, if you love this idea, and, I mean, I am all in. I was like. Actually, what I said was, if you like it, I love it.
- [24:32]
Senator Ted Cruz
And.
- [24:32]
Lee Zeldin
And then the rest is history. And one of the cool things about contacting me on November 11th, when you still have two and a half months before confirmation, is that is a Runway to get fully staffed up, to fully prepare for how to hit the ground running once. Once we got there. So the president, when he called me up, he had, like, 15 specific ideas he wanted us to. We're just talking about permitting reform. He's talking about making America the AI capital world. He wants to bring back American auto jobs. He wants to unleash energy dominance. And he had a lot of specific ideas on how to do it. Now, I don't know what that conversation was like eight years earlier when he was calling his then nominee to be EPA administrator, but I will tell you, when he called me up, he was deeply knowledgeable on everything that we needed to do to do a great job.
- [25:23]
Ben Ferguson
Let me ask you another question. For some of you that are listening, they hear the epa. One of the things that you're trying to do is deregulate and allow for things to flourish that can have a huge impact on every American's life. That can be at the gas pump, that can be with natural gas, their house, that can be with countless other things. Give a list of just how important the EPA is and how much it touches an average American's life. They may not even realize one is.
- [25:46]
Lee Zeldin
The EPA has tremendous power to gum up the works on a lot. I mean, if you want permitting reform before you even have to go through a legislative process, EPA could speed up a whole lot of permitting timelines by just getting out of the way. There is incredible power. Now. There's a whole bunch of landmark historic laws that are on the books. Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, CERCLA for Super Funds, Toxic Substances, Chemicals Act, Control Act. There's a lot of laws are on the books that have EPA doing different work. It is important for us to ensure that we are not overstepping these powers. And what we can do through our deregulatory action amounts to what is the largest deregulatory environment in the history of the country. There's never been a year. There's never been a presidential administration or a year in the past where the entire federal government did more deregulation than the EPA will do in 2025. That's how much we could accomplish in such a short time.
- [26:53]
Senator Ted Cruz
That's incredible. You told a story earlier today about the EPA's involvement in cleaning up the California wildfires. And it's a good example of how it impacts people's lives. Like, you wouldn't necessarily think the EPA is involved in dealing with wildfires, but you guys are deeply involved.
- [27:09]
Lee Zeldin
As soon as the wildfires hit Los Angeles, over 13,000 properties destroyed. President Trump comes into office. He inherits. It happened a few days before he got there. He signs an executive order. He says, EPA, you have 30 days to do your entire phase one hazardous material removal before phase two starts, which is the Army Corps of Engineers doing their debris removal.
- [27:31]
Senator Ted Cruz
And like with the wildfires, you have people's homes that burn to the ground. There's A lot of toxic sludge. I mean, it's a mess. It's dangerous. Like fires produce bad stuff and you guys had to figure out how to clean it up. But do it in 30 days.
- [27:44]
Lee Zeldin
Yeah. First the response was, that's impossible. This is going to take you until the summer at best. It's going to take a few months for sure. The lithium ion batteries were all over this particular area. We got it done in less than 30 days. After ramping up to 1500 workers. Proud of the effort from EPA. We do a lot like this that the American public might not know about. And that's why in just a couple days, we're heading to the Tijuana area in Southern California where a lot of Mexican raw sewage is entering for decades. We need to end it.
- [28:13]
Ben Ferguson
Number one, about you guys dealing with water issues and Tijuana and I also. And there's another one that a lot of Americans will remember, and that was the train derailment. And it seemed like the government was picking winners and losers with that cleanup or lack thereof. You guys have also gotten involved with that because what you did in the wildfires in California is incredible. That's what every American should get, no matter where they live. And politics shouldn't come into it.
- [28:40]
Lee Zeldin
This is something that really showed then junior senator J.D. vance. As someone who understands leadership in a time of crisis, when disaster strikes, your instinct as a leader should be to show up at that site and to be the voice of the people. And what was wild was JD Was like the only one there. I think that might be Congressman Bill Johnson's district.
- [29:03]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, to be fair, Donald Trump came too.
- [29:05]
Lee Zeldin
Yeah, well, and it was J. And J.D.
- [29:08]
Senator Ted Cruz
Not Joe Biden, not Pete Buttigieg. But Donald Trump came.
- [29:12]
Lee Zeldin
That's right. And I remember the conversations where JD Was engaging with President Trump to make sure that President Trump was there. And this was all in the initial days and weeks after disaster struck.
- [29:25]
Senator Ted Cruz
Yes.
- [29:26]
Lee Zeldin
And a lot of people were wondering, well, where is this person? Where is that person? Where is this agency? Where is that agency? It should be. This is the ultimate gut check and instinct check.
- [29:38]
Senator Ted Cruz
And it's amazing because Biden and the Democrats, they really like Palestinians. You would think they would have gone.
- [29:44]
Lee Zeldin
Oh, my gosh, you know.
- [29:47]
Senator Ted Cruz
All right, for the record, Lee Zeldin is officially speechless. He doesn't know what to do with that smart ass comment.
- [29:53]
Lee Zeldin
I'll tell you, it was a. It was such a missed opportunity to lead. And that EPA, over the course of time, there ended up being 220,000. We saw 220,000 tons of contaminated soil removed. We saw tens of millions of gallons of water removed. It ended up becoming a massive EPA effort that actually is still ongoing. And in a way, for the environmental and human impacts, there's going to be testing going on for a long time to come. And I would encourage anyone who's out there listening, who is in that community, in the. In the area, that maybe you used to go to East Palestine, but now you take a detour, you go somewhere else. We all need to do our part to help bring East Palestine, Ohio back.
- [30:38]
Senator Ted Cruz
Amen.
- [30:38]
Lee Zeldin
Very important to the Vice President. But unfortunately, too many of these cases have shown that lack of leadership.
- [30:46]
Senator Ted Cruz
Well, tell us what you're doing in Tijuana. Cause it's an amazing story here you.
- [30:49]
Lee Zeldin
Have an issue where for decades, Mexican raw sewage has been coming across the border. It's been poured into the Tijuana River. It ends up contaminating water and air. We have Navy SEALs getting sick. They have to do training somewhere else. So we have decided enough is enough. We're going to Tijuana in the coming days. I can't wait to get there. We're going to be on the US Side of that border. We have a whole plan of action.
- [31:14]
Senator Ted Cruz
I'm just, just warning you, when you're in the Cabinet, what happens in Tijuana does not stay in Tijuana.
- [31:20]
Lee Zeldin
Yes. Yes, sir. Good. Great advice. And especially if you drink the water, you'll be bringing that back to you, back with you to D.C. so listen, it's something that we're going to step up and tackle, and we're proud of it. EPA wants to assist. And these are Americans that we see over there. California. Do they vote red or blue? All your listeners know the answer to that one. Doesn't matter.
- [31:45]
Senator Ted Cruz
But look, you're cleaning that crap up. Literally. I mean, that is valuable. That's what we want the EPA to be doing. That's important. Let me ask you. So you and I are in Midland, Texas. We spent the day. We started by going to a rig that was drilling an oil well. We. We then had a roundtable. And actually, when you were being confirmed and you came by my office, you and I have been good friends for over a decade. But when you were being confirmed, I said, I want to ask you to commit to come to Midland, Texas, and sit down with oil and gas leaders, with entrepreneurs, with people that are producing energy and hear from them. And it's amazing. You're the first EPA administrator in history to come to Midland, Odessa, which is Astonishing. It's like saying an Ag secretary had never been to Iowa. It's like saying a secretary of state had never been to the United Kingdom or never been to Israel. Like, like your job. Every EPA administrator should be in the Permian Basin, given the importance of it and the involvement of the epa. So tell us about you met with wildcatters and business leaders, a lot of people that are good friends of mine. Give us your impression of the folks you met and what you learned on this trip. Was it valuable?
- [33:01]
Lee Zeldin
Salt of the earth job creators. You could just imagine how much sweat equity was around that table of people who have poured their lives, their heart, blood tears, creating jobs, providing energy to Texans and beyond. And these people need us to be thanking them, to be, to be praising them for their good work, to be supporting them as opposed to using our power to try to make it more difficult for them. We shouldn't be trying to.
- [33:32]
Senator Ted Cruz
So by the, by the way, these, these guys are all close friends and buddies of mine. I have had great joy in, in, in recent weeks and months asking them how much they're like Billy Bob Thornton. Have they ever been tied up and had a mask over their head? Had they been covered in gasoline by cartels? Our host, Bill Holmes, great, great, great friend. Landman, very successful businessman. I asked him. So by the way, if you haven't watched Landman, you should. It's the best show on television. I did play for President Trump in the Oval Office last week, the segment from Landman where Billy Bob Thornton talks to the left wing environmental lawyer about windmills. It's the best three minutes on television of our lifetime. And I will say at least the landmen I know in Midland tell me that they murder fewer people than they do in the show. It's still a great show.
- [34:24]
Lee Zeldin
And for Billy Bob, if you're out there listening, that was a free sponsorship from Senator Ted Cruz. So you're lucky that you have that fan playing it for President Trump in the Oval. Bringing a great show to the people. And listen, we need to get smart with energy policy. There are people promoting wind as an intermittent source, as if that's a substitute for baseload power. For all of you out there listening, let's, let's get smart, educate, advocate the people who are around, all of the above good policy.
- [34:53]
Ben Ferguson
It's a really fun show today. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Don't forget, this is exactly why we do the show three days a week. Hit that subscribe or auto download button. You don't want to ever miss an interview that we do just like this one. And make sure you share this podcast wherever you are. We would greatly appreciate that on social media. So if you're on X, if you're on Instagram, wherever you are, share this podcast and the center and I will see you back here for the weekend review on Saturday morning.
- [35:19]
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