Former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin’s nomination by President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Environmental Protection Agency has fueled an already intense debate over how Trump’s second term will impact climate policy both at the state and federal level.

Environmental advocates like Judith Enck, former Region 2 EPA regional aministrator under President Barack Obama, are already concerned at the prospect of a Trump presidency and have expressed further concern with Zeldin’s nomination.

“I don’t know why Lee Zeldin was chosen,” Enck said, calling his environmental record “abysmal.”

“He has not distinguished himself as someone particularly committed to environmental protection, or even interested in environmental protection," she said.

While Zeldin received just a 14% score from the New York state League of Conservation Voters amid concerns about his stance on climate change, Pete Lopez, who served in the same role during Trump’s first term, is among the voices pointing out that Zeldin has received credit for conservation efforts, citing work on Long Island Sound in particular.

“I was very impressed by his intensity and passion working at the ground level in a bipartisan fashion,” he said.

Gov. Kathy Hochul unsurprisingly is not enthusiastic about the pick.

“Donald Trump won the election. It's his prerogative to select who he chooses,” she told reporters Tuesday.

She also seemed to give her former 2022 gubernatorial opponent some pointers.

“The EPA is a very important position to the residents all across the state but particularly Long Island,” she said. “Clean water, clean air, building up climate resiliency, acknowledging climate change.”

While Trump and Zeldin have stressed the importance of clean air and water, both have also pushed to roll back environmental protections and regulations that they say hold back businesses.

“It is an honor to join President Trump’s Cabinet as EPA Administrator,” Zeldin wrote in a post on X. “We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water.”

Lopez insists both are possible.

“Achieving environmental objectives is not mutually exclusive with ensuring that our farmers are liable that are small businesses can be successful,” he said.

Enck stressed though that the kind of intense deregulation that the Trump administration is striving for can only have one result.

“The states are going to be on their own in terms of tackling climate change," she said.

At a time when New York is already struggling to meet its own lofty climate goals, Enck said the governor and the state Legislature need to be ready to respond.

“They need to look at this terrible avalanche of environmental rollbacks that will be coming our way nationwide, figuring out how do we patch that up at the state level,” she said.

She pushed the governor to respond to Trump’s election by signing climate related bills that were passed this session, like the Climate Change Superfund Act, which could help offset any gaps from federal funding likely to dry up when President Joe Biden leaves office.