Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, a prominent figure on the ideological right in the U.S. Congress and a staunch advocate for American military strength, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 89.
The Tulsa World, an Oklahoma newspaper, reported his death, citing sources close to his family. The details of the services are pending.
Inhofe, an enthusiastic pilot, famously retraced the route of aviation pioneer Wiley Post in a 1991 global flight.
Before his long tenure in the U.S. Senate, Inhofe served as the mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s second-largest city, and spent eight years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Elected to the Senate in 1994, he became Oklahoma’s longest-serving and oldest senator, retiring in 2023 at the age of 88 due to long-term effects of COVID-19.
Known for his conservative stance, Inhofe often directed sharp criticisms at his political and ideological opponents. As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, he was a leading Republican voice on climate change.
“You say something over and over and over again, and people will believe it and that’s their strategy,” Inhofe said in 2006, comparing environmentalists’ approach to propaganda tactics used by the Third Reich. He was a vocal critic of the idea that human activities were driving climate change, referring to it as a “hoax” and calling the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a “Gestapo bureaucracy.”
In 2015, Inhofe famously brought a snowball to the Senate floor to dispute global warming, prompting Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse to counter with scientific evidence from NASA and other agencies.
Inhofe opposed clean air standards during the Clinton administration and, in a 2012 radio interview promoting his book “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future,” he framed his climate change skepticism in religious terms, asserting that it was arrogant to believe humans could alter divine plans.
As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Inhofe supported a strong American military presence globally and robust defense spending, even clashing with President Donald Trump over the annual defense policy bill in 2020.
During the Iraq war, amidst global outrage over the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Inhofe controversially stated he was “more outraged at the outrage” than at the abuse itself, criticizing humanitarian groups for focusing on human rights violations over the sacrifices of U.S. troops.
In 2006, Inhofe proposed legislation to designate English as the national language of the United States, a move he said was to preserve American culture and heritage. The proposal, however, did not become law and was criticized by Democrats as regressive.
Inhofe was also a dedicated advocate for Africa, frequently visiting the continent and aiding in mediating disputes in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Born on November 17, 1934, in Tulsa, Inhofe served briefly in the U.S. Army before entering the real estate and insurance industries. He and his wife, Kay, had four children. His political career began with his election to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1966, followed by the state Senate three years later. He served as Tulsa’s mayor from 1978 to 1984 before his long tenure in the U.S. Congress.