Some people had resorted to shouting, and others to physical violence; Lee Zeldin, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, sat quietly as his Hamptons audience around him devolved into chaos.
The former congressman was delivering a speech at the Global Breakfast Forum at The Hamptons Synagogue on July 27, in which he emphasized the economic worries of New Yorkers that he contended are causing them to leave en masse for places like Florida. He sat quietly when he was interrupted by protesters from the youth-led climate activist organization Climate Defiance, who shouted as others in the audience resorted to physical violence.
“What are you going to say to your children when the Hamptons are underwater?” shouted one man who had stood up in the audience. Behind him, an older man had already grabbed a chair to use as a weapon and hit the activist in the back with it. The man then turned his focus toward a young woman who was recording with her phone. He thrust the chair at her, legs-first, seeming to aim for her upper body and head, and followed her as she retreated. No one moved to stop him.
Zeldin represented the Hamptons and most of Suffolk County in Congress from 2015 to 2023. In 2025, he was selected by President Donald Trump to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. Under Zeldin, the EPA has undergone the most rollbacks in its history.
“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” Zeldin said in a statement in March.
Protesters claimed that by promoting deregulation at the U.S. environmental agency, Zeldin is endangering his original district as the Hamptons — and much of Long Island — is at particular isk of coastal erosion, rising sea levels, local flooding and intensifying storms associated with climate change.
The Global Breakfast Forum is a weekly rabbi-led discussion on diplomacy, politics and Jewish faith at The Hamptons Synagogue. Zeldin is the first Jewish head of the EPA.
Some Jewish activists claimed that his substantial deregulation of an agency originally designed to protect the environment is at odds with core Jewish beliefs.
“The Torah compels us to be stewards of the earth,” one protester cried out.
“History is going to remember you as a monster,” he shouted at Zeldin as another man grabbed the activist and attempted to physically drag him away.
The local protests came just days before Zeldin continued his rollback of EPA policies.
On July 30, Zeldin announced plans to revoke a 2009 scientific declaration known as the Endangerment Finding, which determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are threats to public health.
The Obama and Biden administrations utilized the Endangerment Findings to limit greenhouse gas emissions for several sources of pollution.
Jane Fasullo, chair of the Sierra Club Long Island chapter, said she is no fan of Zeldin’s rollbacks to the federal agency, saying the recent cuts to the EPA will leave the region with more problems than solutions.
“The EPA cuts are killing us,” she said. “We’re in deep trouble.”
Although environmental laws vary in each state, Fasullo said, those decisions have impacts on other areas. She specifically mentioned the preservation of currently protected areas, the burning of wood and fossil fuels and clean water regulation.
Federal regulation is needed to control environmental impacts across the country, she added.
“The approach to let corporations or individual states take control is not going to work,” she said. “Federal regulations have to be in place, and they’re wiping them out left and right.”
