President Donald Trump’s EPA head is slamming U.S. Sen. Ed Markey for asking for extra federal funding to interchange lead pipes in Massachusetts, arguing that the state has but to spend any of the over $155 million it has already obtained.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is scorching the Massachusetts Democrat after Markey and the remainder of the Bay State delegation requested the company launch funding for Fiscal 12 months 2025, claiming the feds are dragging their ft on the state’s $99.1 million allotment.
“More confirmation Massachusetts doesn’t send their brightest to the U.S. Senate,” Zeldin mentioned in a social media submit final week, in response to the delegation’s request. “Anyone want to guess how much Massachusetts has spent of the $155+ MILLION in lead pipe replacement funding that it has received from the EPA since the start of Fiscal Year 2023? ZERO! NOTHING! ZILCH!”
The request from the Bay State’s all-Democrat delegation comes after Gov. Maura Healey expressed concern over the funding delay in October. Healey mentioned her administration paused a program that distributes the federal cash to communities to interchange lead pipes.
“These funds are critical to efforts in Massachusetts and around the country to protect public health,” Markey wrote within the letter, “advance our shared goal of removing all lead service lines for drinking water, and provide certainty for communities worried about their water infrastructure investments.”
“The EPA needs to release this funding now,” Markey added.
State officers say Massachusetts has offered over $102 million to roughly 160 communities and public water methods to establish and change lead service strains since 2022.
Markey highlighted how states have been ordered to interchange all water service strains containing lead by 2037, following a rule that the EPA instituted underneath the Biden administration in October 2024.
Within the Biden-era Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation, Congress offered $15 billion in devoted lead pipe alternative funding, allotted at $3 billion yearly from FY 2022 to 2026. These funds, Markey mentioned, “ensure that states and communities have predictable, multi-year resources to plan and carry out this work.”
“If Ed Malarkey wants the EPA to release any more funding to Massachusetts for lead pipe replacement,” Zeldin said in his social media submit, “he will have to tell his state to submit a plan to us ASAP on how it is going to spend what it has received previously and is still sitting on. The Trump EPA isn’t messing around when it comes to TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY of precious U.S. taxpayer dollars.”
The Massachusetts delegation has requested that Zeldin reply to its letter by Dec. 4, with a “timeline identifying when these (Fiscal Year ’25) allotments will be distributed.”
