WASHINGTON >> President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency today said he believes climate change is real and a threat but that the agency he is poised to lead is just authorized, not required, to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

Former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing, said a 2007 decision by the Supreme Court gave the agency statutory authority to regulate the heat-trapping greenhouse gas but did not obligate the EPA to take action.

Zeldin told the hearing that he believes climate change is real, a departure from his predecessors who led the EPA during the first Trump administration from 2017 to 2020 and from Trump himself, who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax.

“I believe that climate change is real,” he told the committee, but did not respond directly to questions about whether the U.S. needs to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, a major driver of carbon emissions.

Zeldin said in his opening statement that the incoming Trump administration has a mandate from American voters to protect the environment, but without harming economic growth.

Trump has vowed to roll back the Biden administration’s climate-focused agenda, including EPA regulations aimed at slashing carbon dioxide, methane and other emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources.

“The American people elected President Trump last November in part due to serious concerns about upward economic mobility and their struggle to make ends meet,” Zeldin said. “We can, and we must, protect our precious environment without suffocating the economy.”