Energy & Environment

Zeldin gives keynote address at climate skeptic conference

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by Rachel Frazin - 04/08/26 6:56 PM ET

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by Rachel Frazin - 04/08/26 6:56 PM ET

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Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin gave the keynote speech Wednesday at a conference hosted by a climate denial group.

Zeldin told the attendees of the conservative Heartland Institute’s conference to “celebrate vindication.”

He claimed that in the past, a “cabal” was deciding which climate model the U.S. would base its climate forecasts on.

“What happened for years and decades in this country is that the elite, the ruling class, the people who had run the agencies, the people who have decided that they are in charge of the science, the politicians, the biggest grifters, there would be a cabal that would decide exactly which model is the chosen model, which methodology is the higher methodology,” he said.

Before Zeldin’s speech, Heartland Institute President James Taylor argued Wednesday that increasing carbon dioxide concentrations would actually be beneficial.

Carbon dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases that is heating up the planet.

There is a consensus in the scientific community that human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, is heating up the planet via the release of planet-warming gases and that this is worsening extreme weather.

It was reported last week that Zeldin is under consideration to be President Trump’s next pick for attorney general. Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a “hoax.”

Under Zeldin’s leadership, the EPA repealed a landmark legal finding that climate change poses a threat to the public. While leading the agency, he has also praised carbon dioxide as “necessary for life.”

However, during his confirmation hearing last year, he said he believes “that climate change is real.”

During his speech Wednesday, Zeldin said the Trump administration was finishing its policies quickly so that it, rather than the next administration, would be in charge of defending them.

“So much of these decisions are getting done early in this term, so that we have the responsibility of litigating our own decisions through the court system, rather than repeating the mistakes of oh by the way, the Biden administration did by finalizing their decisions in 2023 and 2024 and allowing us to inherit their terrible decisions to have to defend in court – which we don’t,” Zeldin said.

Zeldin also defended his decision to speak at the conference.

“The reason why it might be so controversial the way that our first 14 months at the helm of EPA has gone or why it might be so controversial that I’d be here speaking to a group of Americans like all of you is because we aren’t just following blind obedience to whatever the dire doom and gloom prediction of the day is from John Kerry or Al Gore or AOC,” he said, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

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