Trump’s pick for environmental job once called belief in global warming ‘paganism’

President Trump’s pick for a top environmental post once referred to belief in global warming as ”paganism” for “secular elites.”

Kathleen Hartnett White, whom Trump nominated last week to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made the comment during a 2016 appearance on the online conservative talk show “The Right Perspective,” CNN reported Thursday.

Hartnett White referred to environmental leaders using climate policy “to undermine the system of economic growth and industrialization.”

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“There’s a real dark side of the kind of paganism — the secular elites’ religion now being, evidently, global warming,” Hartnett White said on the show.

Hartnett White is a fellow for energy and environment issues at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She was nominated last week to serve as a member, and eventually chairwoman, of the Council on Environmental Quality, the administration’s environmental policy board.

The Trump nominee has a history of criticizing climate change policy and has refuted evidence that carbon dioxide is a pollutant, saying it “makes life possible on the earth and naturally fertilizes plant growth.”

“Global warming alarmists are misleading the public about carbon dioxide emissions,” she said.

Hartnett White also slammed President Obama’s environmental initiatives, calling them a “deluded and illegitimate battle against climate change” in an op-ed for The Hill last year.