Whitehouse Blasts EPA Nominees for Defending Polluters, Role in Project 2025, and Evasiveness Under Oath

One has made a career defending industries that destroy the environment, the other was a contributor to the EPA chapter of Project 2025—but could not keep his story straight

Washington, D.C.—Today, at a confirmation hearing for two of Trump’s nominees to help lead EPA, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, made clear that neither David Fotouhi, who was nominated to be Deputy Administrator, nor Aaron Szabo, who was nominated to be Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation, were qualified to help lead the agency. 

“David Fotouhi, nominated to serve as Deputy Administrator, has held two jobs since graduating law school:  first, he served as lawyer for a prominent white-shoe law firm where, as his own disclosures demonstrate, he defended a raft of big polluting interests including Chevron and Sunoco.  His second job was in EPA’s Office of General Counsel during the first Trump administration, where he worked hard to repeal environmental regulations meant to protect human health and the environment.  It remains difficult for me to understand how someone who has made a career defending the very industries that destroy our environment has any business now being entrusted to protect it,” highlighted Ranking Member Whitehouse in his opening statement.  

“Then there’s Aaron Szabo, who has been nominated to serve as the Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation,” continued the Ranking Member.  “He is credited by name as a contributor to the EPA chapter of Project 2025, the extremist right-wing blueprint for dismantling the federal government that Trump is now dutifully implementing …. Mr. Szabo was an advisor to the America First Policy Institute—the Trump-aligned think tank funded by Big Oil interests—and worked as a lobbyist where he pushed the interests of major polluters like the American Petroleum Institute’s members.”

“Is this really what we want for the EPA?  Is this really how we protect clean air and clean water?” asked Ranking Member Whitehouse.

WATCH: Ranking Member Whitehouse’s full opening statement

And although both nominees swore an oath to tell the truth at the hearing, Szabo did everything possible to avoid telling the truth about his role advising Project 2025:

Whitehouse:  Do you have or do they have any record of the advice that you gave?

Szabo: I am not aware of any records they may have.  I was a volunteer, and I do not have any records myself.

Whitehouse: You have no notes? You have no memos? Nothing was in writing in all of this?

Szabo: I have no records, Senator.

Whitehouse: Is that because you had records and you’ve gotten rid of them, or were there never any records?

Szabo: Senator, I have no records.

Whitehouse: That doesn’t answer the question. Is the reason you have no records because you got rid of your records of your engagement with Project 2025?  

Szabo: Senator, as a private organization, I’m not sure what their record-keeping polices were or are.  But I do not have any records.

Whitehouse: Did you submit anything in writing to them at any point, did you ever have records?  You, not them, you?

Szabo: Senator, I provided advice to Project 2025.

Whitehouse: How?  By email, by phone, personal conversations, memos?

Szabo: Senator, I provided them advice in a number of ways

Whitehouse: Including ways that were in writing?

Szabo: Senator, that’s likely. 

Whitehouse: Likely? Isn’t that something you’d actually know, since it was your advice, and you would have written it down? How is that likely? Isn’t that yes or no?

Szabo: Senator, I would have to go back, and as I said, I have no records.  I would have to go think more about whether there were.

Whitehouse: I’ll ask you to think more and also to make this records preservation request, and we’ll follow up.

Watch: EPA nominee Aaron Szabo does everything possible to avoid telling the truth about his role advising Project 2025