Bridenstine’s new comments came a day after Alabama Republican Congressmember Mo Brooks suggested during a House Science Committee hearing that coastal erosion—and not greenhouse gas emissions—is to blame for rising sea levels. Rep. Brooks made the comments as he questioned Philip Duffy, president of the Woods Hole Research Center.

Rep. Mo Brooks: “What about the white cliffs of Dover, California, where you have the waves crashing against the shorelines, and, time and time again, you’re having the cliffs crash into the sea? All of that displaces water, which forces it to rise, does it not?”

Philip Duffy: “I’m pretty sure that on human time scales, those are minuscule effects.”

President Trump has dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax and has ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.