Sean Donahue's March 26, 2025 Testimony - Nomination of Sean Donahue to be General Counsel
Testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
March 26, 2025
Chairman Capito, Ranking Member Whitehouse, and esteemed Senators, it is an honor and privilege to be here today and testify before you as you take part in the important advice and consent responsibility of this esteemed body and consider me for the General Counsel post at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
I greatly appreciated the opportunity to meet with many of you and your staff to hear about the issues impacting your constituents, your views on the EPA and how the new administration can find ways to improve EPA’s regulations and processes, ensure a predictable and durable regulatory regime for the American public, and realign the agency to put it in the best footing to fulfill its core mission of protecting human health and the environment to ensure the brightest possible future for generations to come.
I would also like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to a few others. First, I would like to thank President Donald Trump for nominating me for this position. I would also like to thank Administrator Lee Zeldin for his tireless efforts, his supportive and steady hand, and for entrusting me with this important role.
I would like to thank the dedicated and hardworking career staff at EPA for their tireless work to advance the agency’s mission. In particular, I would like to thank the impressively talented career staff attorneys in the Office of General Counsel, I believe they are watching, I hope they are, who I hope to rejoin, if confirmed. I genuinely believe they are the best and brightest the world of environmental law has to offer.
I must also take the time to thank my partner, family, friends, and colleagues, many of whom are here today.
On a personal note, I grew up on the Space Coast of Central Florida, where I had the privilege of watching what seemed at the time to be a very regular and routine thing, at least for me, space shuttle and rocket launches from the nearby Kennedy Space Center. Things changed when the space shuttle program ended in the early 2010s, and I witnessed by hometown ravaged by the loss of jobs and a crippled economy which was already severely hurt by the lingering effects of the global financial crisis.
Things got worse for me personally, aside from the lack of launches. My father lost his well-paying job, and our family situation and outlook for the future changed dramatically and rapidly.
You may remember that as a result of the cancellation of the space shuttle program, NASA was forced to rely on Russian spacecraft to get our astronauts and scientists to the International Space Station. As you might suspect, the decision to cancel the program affected many families and their livelihoods, in both tangible and direct ways in the form of economic hardship, and indirectly by posing severe and serious national security threats and limiting our Country’s scientific capabilities.
If you recall, one of the reported motivations for this tragic policy change was concerns about climate change. I share this story with you today to illustrate how short-sighted, ideologically driven policy decisions here in Washington, D.C. impact not only Americans’ livelihoods but also the security of our great Nation.
I will go ahead and answer what I believe will be a question posed by some on the committee today. Yes, according to many scientists, the climate is indeed changing. And yes, according to many scientists, human or anthropogenic causes are contributing to the experienced greenhouse gas effect.
But we should not forget that everything done here in D.C. has real world consequences that impact real people, their jobs, their futures, the price at the pump or the charging station, the cost of groceries, and our national security.
Turning next to my qualifications, I have worked in both State and Federal government and in the regulated community. While my background and interests were initially in financial services, I made the jump over to the environmental world and never looked back.
I started this journey at EPA back during the first Trump Administration, where I was in the Office of the Administrator and the Office of Land and Emergency Management. I quickly grew to love the agency, adore its capable staff, and appreciate the complex and dynamic area of environmental law, which as you all know, I am sure, is a continuously exhilarating, engaging, and intellectually stimulating area to practice in.
Following my service at EPA, I was an associate at a prominent regional firm, worked at a solar company, and recently landed back at EPA, where I have served first as the Principal Deputy General Counsel and more recently as a Senior Advisor to the Administrator.
And I sit before you today as the President’s nominee for General Counsel at the EPA. And I am running out of time, so I look forward to answering your questions both here and in the form of QFRs. Thank you for your time today.