Jim Inhofe

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Template:Infobox Senator James Mountain Inhofe, usually known as Jim Inhofe (born November 17 1934) is an American politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as the senior United States Senator from Oklahoma.

Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa and moved with his family to Tulsa when he was a child. He served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1956 (though other sources claim he served from 1957 to 1958) never rising above private and never leaving American shores. [1]

Several years later he became president of the Quaker Life Insurance Company. He became active in Republican politics in the mid-1960s. He was a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1967 to 1969, and a member of the Oklahoma Senate from 1969 until 1977, the last four of those years as minority leader. During his tenure there Inhofe ran twice for election to other positions: for Governor of Oklahoma in 1974, losing to Democrat David Boren, and in 1976 losing a race to represent Oklahoma's First Congressional District (which was based in Tulsa) to incumbent Democrat James R. Jones.

Inhofe's political career was revived in 1978 when he was elected mayor of Tulsa, a position he held until 1984. In 1986, he made another bid for the First District after Jones retired. This time he won, and he served there from 1987 until 1994, being handily reelected every two years in what rapidly became a strongly Republican district. He first came to national attention in 1993, when he led the effort to reform the House's "discharge provision" rule, which the House leadership had long used to bottle up bills in committee.

In 1994, Boren, who had been serving in the Senate since 1979, was elected president of the University of Oklahoma and announced he would resign as soon as a successor was elected. Inhofe won the Republican nomination for the special election that November, and swept to victory amid a strong Republican tide that saw the Republicans take both houses of Congress, as well as elect a Republican to the governorship for only the second time ever. He took office on November 17 to serve the last two years of Boren's term and won the seat in his own right in 1996. He was handily reelected in 2002.

Inhofe has been chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee since January 2003, and is a member of the Armed Services and Indian Affairs committees.

1 Views
2 External links

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Views

Inhofe is one of the most conservative members of either house of Congress; among other political stances, he strongly opposes abortion and is a critic of gay rights. As a member of the Armed Services Committee, he was among the panelists questioning witnesses about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. There he made news by claiming he was "outraged by the outrage" over the revelations of abuse, suggesting that shock at the crimes was more offensive than the crimes themselves. He has also criticized the Red Cross as a "bleeding heart." Against the wishes of the Bush administration, the Pentagon, and the American Petroleum Institute, Inhofe has persistently blocked American ratification of the international Convention on the Law of the Sea, claiming that the treaty would infringe on American sovereignty.

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Inhofe on Religion

Senator Inhofe is a leading proponent of dominionism, a theocratic form of evangelicalism which believes Christians are compelled to bring all societies under Christian rule. In a speech on the floor of the United States Senate, Inhofe argued that America should base its Israel policy entirely upon the text of the Bible:

I believe very strongly that we ought to support Israel; that it has a right to the land. This is the most important reason: Because God said so. As I said a minute ago, look it up in the book of Genesis. It is right up there on the desk. In Genesis 13:14-17, the Bible says: The Lord said to Abram, "Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are northward, and southward, and eastward and westward: for all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed forever. . . . Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee." That is God talking. The Bible says that Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar before the Lord. Hebron is in the West Bank. It is at this place where God appeared to Abram and said, ``I am giving you this land,--the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.

In March 2002, Inhofe also made a speech before the U.S. Senate which included the explicit suggestion that the 9/11 attacks were a form of divine retribution against the U.S. for failing to defend Israel. In his words: "One of the reasons I believe the spiritual door was opened for an attack against the United States of America is that the policy of our Government has been to ask the Israelis, and demand it with pressure, not to retaliate in a significant way against the terrorist strikes that have been launched against them." [2]

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Inhofe on Labor

Inhofe outraged federal employees on the day of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building by stating on National television that there probably weren't very many casualties because federal employees wouldn't be at their desks at 9:00 instead they would be off having coffee somewhere. AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees) responded that maybe that was how Inhofe ran his office.

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Inhofe on the Environment

Inhofe's views are hostile to the claims of environmentalists. In 2003, he called "catastrophic global warming" a "hoax" and stated that "natural variability, not fossil fuel emissions, is the overwhelming factor influencing climate change" - an assertion allegedly supported by more than 17,000 scientists who are signatories to the Oregon Petition. Inhofe also states that, "satellite data, confirmed by NOAA balloon measurements, confirms that no meaningful warming has occurred over the last century" and claimed that his conclusion was supported by the "painstaking work of the nation's top climate scientists." [3].

Inhofe, claiming uncertainties related to climate science and the adverse impact that mandatory emissions reductions would have on the U.S. economy, voted on June 22, 2005 to reject an amendment to an energy bill that would have forced reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases and created a mandatory emissions trading scheme. "Global warming is still considered to be a theory and has not come close to being sufficiently proven," he said.

In the 2002 election cycle oil and gas companies contributed more money to Inhofe's campaign than any other congressman except Texas senator John Cornyn [4]. The contributions Inhofe has received from the energy and natural resource sector since taking office have exceeded one million dollars [5].

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