On April 8, 2026, the Heartland Institute—a think tank notorious for its rejection of mainstream climate science—hosted a climate change conference in Washington, DC, that quickly drew national attention. The keynote speaker was none other than Lee Zeldin, the current administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), whose appearance and remarks have sparked outrage, applause, and renewed debate over the nation’s environmental direction.
Zeldin, a former congressman from New York, is no stranger to controversy. In his speech, he wasted no time poking fun at the media for labeling him “controversial” simply for not subscribing to what he called “the dire, doom and gloom position of the day” from prominent climate advocates like John Kerry, Al Gore, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “No longer are we going to rely on bad, flawed assumptions instead of accurate, present-day facts, without apology or regret,” Zeldin declared to an enthusiastic crowd, according to The Guardian and CleanTechnica.
The Heartland Institute, which has received funding from major oil companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil and from Republican mega-donors like the Mercers, is infamous for its aggressive campaigns against the scientific consensus on climate change. In 2012, the group even put up billboards comparing climate advocates to the Unabomber. Its conference this year was a who’s who of climate science skeptics and industry allies, and Zeldin’s participation was seen by many as a tacit endorsement of their views.
During his address, Zeldin derided previous administrations for paying heed to climate scientists’ warnings about the dangers of greenhouse gas emissions. He argued that “carbon dioxide, which is required for life on Earth and happens to result from every single bit of human and animal activity on the planet, is not a pollutant and never was.” This line, echoing the Heartland Institute’s talking points, was met with cheers from the audience. Anthony Watts, a senior fellow at the Institute, had said as much in February, stating, “The carbon cycle is intrinsic to all life.”
Zeldin’s remarks also took aim at what he described as a ruling class of elites and scientists who “decide exactly which model is the chosen model, which methodology is the higher methodology.” He continued, “And if all of you in this room, if any of you in this room dare to challenge any of that, well shame on you.”
The EPA administrator was quick to point out that his actions were hardly a surprise. “What we are doing in the last 14 months is no surprise,” he said. “It is what I pledged during my confirmation hearing, and it is what the American public voted for when they put Donald J Trump back in office. And thank God they did.”
Perhaps Zeldin’s most consequential move as EPA head has been the revocation of the “endangerment finding”—the legal foundation for most US climate regulations since 2011. This finding, established during the Obama administration, declared that excessive carbon dioxide emissions posed a threat to human health and the environment. Its repeal has been met with fierce criticism from the scientific community and more than 160 environmental and public health organizations, who called for Zeldin’s resignation or removal, arguing that no EPA administrator in history “has so brazenly betrayed the agency’s core mission,” as reported by The Guardian.
James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute, was effusive in his praise for Zeldin, calling him “the greatest EPA administrator ever.” Taylor opened the conference by repeating a debunked climate myth: “Restoring CO2 and restoring warmth to our world is…a restoration to more ideal conditions. The truth is clear: there is no climate crisis.” He insisted, “The science is very clear,” despite overwhelming consensus among climate scientists to the contrary.
The conference also featured authors of a contentious Department of Energy report that was used to justify the rollback of the endangerment finding. Ross McKitrick, one of the report’s authors, said, “While the world warned, a lot of things improved and got better, and continues to do so.” Judith Curry, another panelist, criticized what she called the “monolithic consensus” on climate science. Though the government group behind the report has been disbanded, Curry said a new version is in the works for release later this year.
Not everyone was celebrating. Critics, including Joe Bonfiglio, director of the Environmental Defense Fund, condemned Zeldin’s appearance and the Heartland Institute’s influence. “The Heartland Institute is not a serious scientific organization. It’s a disinformation factory. Having the EPA administrator serve as their opening act isn’t just embarrassing, it’s a signal of how completely the Trump administration has abandoned its obligation to protect the public from pollution,” Bonfiglio told KARE News. He described it as “surreal” for the EPA chief to appear before what he called a “fringe of the conservative right,” especially as the nation reels from recent extreme weather—like the gigantic heat dome that baked the Southwest last month and shattered March heat records in 14 states.
Joanna Slaney, vice-president of the Environmental Defense Fund, echoed these concerns, saying, “Lee Zeldin is executing on the playbook of denial written by the Heartland Institute.” Posters criticizing Zeldin’s participation appeared around the conference venue, warning that climate denial does not improve Americans’ lives.
EPA spokesperson Carolyn Horan, however, pushed back against the criticism. She insisted that “the era of EPA as a vehicle for radical ideology is over,” and that Zeldin “speaks to a wide variety of ideologically different groups and individuals to promote the agenda of the Trump EPA.” Horan maintained that under Zeldin, the agency had “returned to focus on protecting human health and the environment, backed by gold standard science, not doomsday models designed to scare the public into compliance.”
The Heartland Institute has played a key role in shaping policy for Project 2025, a far-right blueprint for a second Trump administration. Under Zeldin, the EPA has not only rolled back environmental protections but has also exempted polluting facilities from regulations, shuttered climate and environmental research offices, and reduced its workforce, according to The Guardian.
Meanwhile, the broader context of the event was anything but subtle. As CleanTechnica reported, a new investigation by Emily Atkin published on April 9, 2026, revealed that America’s oil executives have pocketed $1.4 billion selling stock during the ongoing Iran war. The implication? The real beneficiaries of climate policy rollbacks may be those with the most to gain from continued fossil fuel dependence.
As temperatures climb and extreme weather events become more frequent, the debate over climate policy in the US is only growing more heated. The Heartland Institute’s conference and Zeldin’s remarks have thrown fuel on the fire, highlighting the deep divisions—and high stakes—surrounding the nation’s approach to one of the defining issues of our time.