James M. Inhofe, Senator Who Denied Climate Change, Dies at 89

An Oklahoma Republican who led the Environment Committee, he took hard-right stands on many issues but was especially vocal in challenging evidence of global warming.

Share full article
+

James M. Inhofe during a Senate hearing in 2009. The Senate Environment Committee gave him a prominent platform from which to speak out against growing scientific consensus that humans were fostering climate change by burning fossil fuels.

James M. Inhofe, a five-term Republican senator from Oklahoma and, until President Donald J. Trump’s arrival in 2017, arguably Washington’s most prominent denier of the established science of human-generated climate change, died on Tuesday. He was 89.

His family announced his death in a statement, which said the cause was a stroke, according to The Tulsa World. There was no information on where he died.

The son of an insurance executive, Mr. Inhofe (pronounced IN-hoff) was a tenacious, litigious Tulsa businessman in his 20s and early 30s, who, like Mr. Trump, made and lost fortunes as he ventured into ambitious insurance, real estate and land development deals that overlapped with the start of his political career a half-century ago.

After a decade in Oklahoma’s Legislature (1967-77), during which he lost races for governor and a seat in Congress, Mr. Inhofe became a three-term mayor of Tulsa (1978-84), before serving seven years in the House of Representatives (1987-94) and winning his Senate seat in a special election. After two years as a replacement, he was re-elected four times, in 1996, 2002, 2008, 2014 and 2020. He decided to step down two years into his fifth full term and retired in early January 2023.

Sometimes called Capitol Hill’s most conservative politician, Mr. Inhofe opposed abortion, L.G.B.T.Q. rights, health care legislation and campaign-finance reforms while supporting the death penalty, gun rights, counterterrorism powers, offshore oil drilling and constitutional amendments to require balanced budgets and ban flag desecration. His voting record got overwhelmingly positive ratings from right-wing groups like Freedom Works, and overwhelmingly negative ratings from the American Civil Liberties Union and the N.A.A.C.P.

ImageMr. Inhofe, right, with the actor and National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston at an N.R.A. rally in Oklahoma City in 2002.Credit…Bryan Terry/The Daily Oklahoman, via Associated Press

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.