Trump officials attended conference where speaker said carbon dioxide makes planet 'greener'

A handful of Trump administration officials this week attended an America First Energy Conference hosted by a conservative think tank where some of the country’s biggest global warming skeptics spoke.

According to a report published by Reuters on Thursday, White House Special Assistant Brooke Rollins, Interior Department Assistant Secretary Joe Balash, and an assistant in the office of external affairs at Interior, Jason Funes, were among U.S. officials who attended the conference on Tuesday.

Rollins gave the lunch keynote speech, Balash gave the dinner keynote and Funes spoke on a panel about "the future of coal, oil and natural gas."

The annual event was organized by the Heartland Institute and also featured panels like “Carbon Taxes, Cap & Trade, and Other Bad Ideas” and “Why CO2 Emissions Are Not Creating A Climate Crisis.”

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift told Reuters that department officials “speak at thousands of conferences every year and share ideas with a diverse group of individuals.”

The news agency reported that over 40 speakers at the day-long event gave accolades to President Trump for pulling the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change last year and for rolling back Obama-era regulations on climate change.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/401109-trump-officials-attended-america-first-energy-conference-where