On Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt went on CNBC’s show Squawk Box and explained that he didn’t believe that carbon dioxide was a chief cause of global warming, despite evidence from scientists and claims by his own department to the contrary.

“I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact, so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see,” Pruitt said. He also suggested that scientists and government officials needed to “continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.” CNBC pointed out that Pruitt’s comments are a direct contradiction of a report published by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which states that increases in temperature have been largely due to carbon dioxide emissions.

To recap, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, global warming is the idea that certain types of “greenhouse gases,” chiefly carbon dioxide produced from activities like burning fossil fuels for electricity and transportation, become trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere and absorb sunlight, increasing temperatures all over the planet and creating serious environmental problems. There’s consensus among scientists that human activities like fossil fuel consumption cause these problems; in fact, NASA stated that at least 97 percent of “actively publishing” climate scientists agree that “climate-warming trends” are due to human actions. Interestingly, the EPA’s own website also notes that carbon dioxide is “responsible for most of the warming” through greenhouse gases because it’s produced more than other type of gas that causes the Earth to heat up.

Pruitt’s skepticism over global warming isn’t new. When he was still the Oklahoma attorney general, he stated that the debate over climate change was “far from settled” in a National Review op-ed co-written with Luther Strange. He also argued at his Senate confirmation hearing in January that whether or not humans and fossil fuels were to blame for climate change was still being discussed and researched. “The ability to measure and pursue the degree and the extent of that impact and what to do about it are subject to continuing debate and dialogue,” he had said at the time, according to USA Today.

He also stated during his CNBC interview that he believed the Paris Agreement, an international effort meant to work on decreasing the effects of climate change, is “a bad deal,” and he wants Congress to revisit a 2009 EPA study that found carbon dioxide to be a cause of public health problems.

Some who work in the field criticized Pruitt shortly after his television appearance. “His comments are an embarrassment and will not be forgotten by those who oppose his efforts to dismantle the agency,” Liz Purchia, an acting associate administrator at the EPA during the Obama administration, stated in an email to Bloomberg. She added: “He apparently hasn’t listened to the scientists who work for him at EPA.”

Related: Trump’s Pick for EPA Administrator Says Climate Change’s Effects Are Still Up for Debate

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