When he served as a Republican congressman from New York, Lee Zeldin delighted environmentalists by championing efforts to protect critical wildlife habitat from potential development efforts, including a golf course proposed by Donald Trump.
The choice of Mr. Zeldin, a former Republican congressman of New York, to be the next E.P.A. administrator caught even some of his closest allies by surprise.
When he ran for governor of New York two years ago, fellow Republicans privately exhorted former Representative Lee Zeldin to distance himself from Donald J. Trump and his debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
