Longtime Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, who infamously brought a snowball to the Senate floor to argue climate science is a “hoax,” is dead at 89.
The conservative lawmaker suffered a stroke over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and died Tuesday, his family said in a statement to media outlets.
Inhofe retired from politics in 2023 after being reelected in 2020 to the Senate seat he first won in 1994. That tenure made him the Sooner State’s longest-serving senator. Inhofe previously served in the House of Representatives from 1987 to 1994.
An Army veteran and licensed pilot, Inhofe chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee after fellow Republican pilot Sen. John McCain of Arizona died in 2018.
Veteran Sen. Mitch McConnell mourned Inhofe Tuesday in a statement recalling his former colleague’s “laser focus on growing and modernizing the U.S. military.”
He noted Inhofe’s reliability did justice to his middle name, which was Mountain.
Inhofe was a staunch conservative who once said scientific claims that human beings contribute to climate change was “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
In February 2015, he brought a snowball into the U.S. Capitol and wondered aloud why scientists were worried about the Earth getting warmer when it was freezing outside.
Inhofe was also a MAGA enthusiast who broke with more vocal Republicans by voting to certify Joe Biden’s presidential election win over Donald Trump. He voted against convicting Trump at the 45th president’s unprecedented 2019 and 2021 impeachment trials.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who celebrated his 69th birthday on Tuesday, was saddened by his good friend and former colleague’s death.
“Jim was highly respected by both sides of the aisle and left a great mark on our military and national security,” Graham posted on social media. “My condolences to his beautiful family and many friends.”
Inhofe is survived by his wife, Kay, and three of their children. His son Dr. Perry Dyson Inhofe II died in a 2013 plane crash near Tulsa.
With News Wire Services
