Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) may travel to Paris in an effort to derail the global climate deal scheduled to be negotiated there in December, The Hill reported Monday.
Inhofe, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, openly rejects mainstream climate science. He told The Hill that he may “go over and be the bad guy, the one-man truth squad, and tell the truth, that they’re going to be lied to by the Obama administration.”
The senator may be best known for bringing a snowball—made of real DC snow—onto the Senate floor to try to prove that the threat of global warming is exaggerated. Inhofe also wrote a book about global warming called “The Greatest Hoax.”
As he told The Hill, he has tried “several times before” to publicize his views on climate change on an international stage. In 2009, Inhofe traveled to the international climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark to spread the message that global warming is a “hoax” and condemn cap-and-trade policies.
Other Republicans, including Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY), have suggested that they may send a delegation to Paris to present an opposing view on President Obama’s proposed climate efforts. The administration’s Clean Power Plan promises to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030—a goal that the GOP has deemed unrealistic.
“We may send a group over to Paris, just to let them know that there’s another branch of government, in addition to the executive branch, on these issues,” Whitfield told The Hill.
These efforts to publicly undermine Obama recall a stunt used by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) to disrupt negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. In March, Cotton and 46 other GOP senators sent a letter to the Iranian government warning that any nuclear agreement struck with the Obama administration would not last past the end of his presidency.
