Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who anticipates chairing the Environment and Public Works Committee in the new congress, met with incoming President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Capito came away with a positive impression of Lee Zeldin, the nominee who represented a New York district in Congress from 2015 to 2023.

Capito posted on social media that she looks forward to considering Zeldin’s nomination.

“Congressman Zeldin understands the need to roll back regulatory overreach, unleash American energy, and allow Americans to build again – all while protecting public health and the environment. His skillset is well suited to implement the agenda of President Trump,” stated Capito, R-W.Va.

Zeldin, a Trump supporter, lost the 2022 New York governor’s race to Kathy Hochul. Zeldin has told Fox News that he will pull back “left-wing” regulations and focus on “unleashing economic prosperity” through the agency. He voted against the Biden administration’s 2022 climate law – as did every other House Republican.

Zeldin posted on social media that his meeting with Capitol went well. “Looking forward to collaborating with her to make the EPA work best for the American people!” he posted.

Capito has served as ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee over the past several years as Democrats controlled the chamber. Now, with Republicans flipping the Senate majority, Capito anticipates leading the committee.

Capito’s remarks in anticipation of taking the helm of the committee have focused on “just an incredible loading on of regulations to the point where people are paralyzed.”

“You can’t permit anything,” she said last month on MetroNews’ “Talkline. “Things get too expensive. It takes too long. And I think we can scrape a lot of that out of the bureaucracies and and actually move things forward.”

During a briefing with West Virginia reporters last month, Capito also described a desire to push back against environmental policies that she considers to be overreach. That day, she broadly described the policy positions of the EPA nominee.

“Obviously the EPA administrator nominee does not agree with Clean Power Plan 2.0. I think you’ll see these regulations and these rules that have come forward dramatically fall by the wayside or be reshaped,” she said during a Nov. 14 briefing.

“And I would anticipate we’ll do that through our committee. It will not stand as it is and cannot stand as it is. It’s in court right now anyway, and so I think this gives us a great opportunity to have a more reasoned, all of the above energy plan that preserves coal and natural gas as baseload energies and moves forward with research and development as we expand our nuclear and also renewables.”

She later reiterated that in the coming months, “We will be looking also at the regulatory environment, certainly in my committee, the regulatory environment, which is choking off innovation.”