Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), a longtime member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, recently brushed aside concern that the wildfires currently scorching across his state and causing millions of dollars of damage have anything to do with climate change. In fact, he told constituents at a town hall that “global warming is a total fraud,” employed by liberals to “create global government.”

In a video captured by Lee Fang of The Nation, Rohrabacher laughed off a claim made last week by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that the unusual intensity of this year’s wildfire season should give rise to a more serious debate about how climate change is affecting the temperature and length of the dry season.

“Just so you’ll know, global warming is a total fraud and it’s being designed because what you’ve got is you’ve got liberals who get elected at the local level want state government to do the work and let them make the decisions,” Rohrabacher said. “Then, at the state level, they want the federal government to do it. And at the federal government, they want to create global government to control all of our lives.”

The friendly town hall audience seemed to agree with Rohrabacher’s contention that humans were incapable of changing earth’s climate, giving a collective chuckle. The congressman then appeared to make an offhand reference to Agenda 21, a set of UN-created sustainable development recommendations that the tea party and other Republicans have put forth as an example of how the government will use the threat of climate change to seize property and control the lives of its citizens.

“It’s step by step by step, more and bigger control over our lives by higher levels of government. And global warming is that strategy in spades,” Rohrabacher said. “Our freedom to make our choices on transportation and everything else? No, that’s gotta be done by a government official who, by the way, probably comes from Nigeria because he’s a UN government official, not a US government official.”

More: Dana Rohrabacher, GOP House Science Committee Member: ‘Global Warming Is a Total Fraud’