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 …