Zeldin stars at climate denial conference

Source: Politico

04/08/2026 01:41 PM EDT


EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin embraced a community of climate change contrarians Wednesday in a speech that underscored how scientific outliers have made inroads with the Trump administration.

Zeldin acknowledged in his opening statements to the Heartland Institute’s conference in Washington that he was the first EPA chief to attend the annual gathering, which has long been shunned by Democratic and Republican administrations alike for advancing a fringe view that greenhouse gas emissions are beneficial. “For those who wanted to criticize my appearance here before this group, it really shows the desperation of just how many walls have collapsed of this last line of defense,” Zeldin said.

Greenhouse gases, primarily from burning fossil fuels, have warmed the planet 1.4 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution began, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which has determined that the last 11 years are the hottest in recorded history. Rising temperatures have intensified extreme weather and disasters like floods and wildfires, turbocharged deadly heat waves and imposed costs through death, declining agricultural productivity, health ailments and property damage, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Attendees at the Heartland annual conference disagree with most, if not all, of those conclusions. They instead championed the role carbon dioxide plays in promoting plant growth, which they argue has been ignored by mainstream climate science — and past U.S. administrations. The overwhelming body of science shows that the negative consequences of climate pollution far outweigh the possible benefits, researchers say.

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