Jim Inhofe, Former Oklahoma Senator, Dies at 89

Former Republican Sen.

James Inhofe of Oklahoma has died, according to a statement from his family. He was 89 years old.

Inhofe had a stroke over the holiday weekend, according to his family. He died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his wife Kay, and his three surviving children, Molly, Jimmy and Katy.

Inhofe, a veteran and staunch conservative, served in the U.S. Senate for nearly 30 years before retiring in 2023.

Inhofe was a proponent of the U.S. energy industry and had been a climate science denier. He once earned headlines when as chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works he brought a snowball onto the Senate floor in an attempt to disprove global warming in 2015.

“Climate is changing and climate has always changed,” Inhofe said on the Senate floor in 2015. “The hoax is that there are some people who are so arrogant to think that they are so powerful they can change climate.

Man can’t change climate.”