On Wednesday, April 8, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency—the federal agency with the legal authority and responsibility to limit the pollution that is driving climate change and making life more risky and more expensive—is scheduled to give the opening address at a conference of an organization that has made doubting climate change one of its central missions.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s appearance at the Heartland Institute’s 16th International Conference on Climate Change is a stunning decision given his role. His scheduled keynote comes less than two months after he announced the repeal of the Endangerment Finding, the foundational legal and scientific determination that climate pollution is threatening our health and safety. The repeal ignores the clear link between pollution and the rising dangers Americans see and feel every day – from extreme weather and rising costs to health consequences like asthma and heart disease. In fact, among many severe and pervasive flaws, Zeldin’s repeal of the Endangerment Finding places no value whatsoever on the health harms that it will cause.

The majority of Americans know all too well how climate change is worsening extreme weather, threatening our safety and stability in the most vicious of cycles. Environmental protections and economic prosperity go hand in hand. With Administrator Zeldin, though, the American people are getting neither.

This administration has a track record of redaction and denial. But when heat in Arizona is shattering records and the Midwest is facing tornadoes one day and blizzard conditions the next, denial can be deadly.