James Inhofe

Sen. James Inhofe was a Republican Senator from Oklahoma who won his first election to the Senate in 1994 and retired in 2023. Inhofe served the United States Army from 1957 to 1958. He later attended the University of Tulsa, completing most of his undergraduate coursework in economics by 1959 but did not graduate until 1973. Before starting his career as a politician, Inhofe spent more than 30 years working as a businessman in a diverse range of fields, including insurance and real estate development. Inhofe died at age 89 in 2024.  

Inhofe sat as the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works from 2003-2007 and again from 2015-2017. He was famous for his denial of climate change; he co-sponsored a letter to President Trump along with 22 other senators urging withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

Inhofe was one of the most outspoken politicians against climate change and believed that climate change is a hoax. He notoriously stated that “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” During a speech in 2015, Inhofe said, “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

In 2017, Inhofe claimed, “First of all, the one degree Fahrenheit rise coincided with the greatest advancement of living standards, life expectancy, food production and human health in the history of our planet. So it is hard to argue that the global warming we experienced in the 20th century was somehow negative”.

Senator Inhofe also wrote The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, a 2012 book denying climate change. He received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the fossil fuel industry and consistently pushed legislation sponsored by big-oil.

Since he arrived in Washington, Inhofe was not been shy about receiving massive donations from oil and gas companies. From 2015-2020 Inhofe accepted approximately $442,912 in donations from oil and gas companies. His strong stance against global warming made him an important ally in Congress for oil and gas companies, and a danger to the global climate.

See Also: Sen. Cory Gardner