Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)

James Mountain Inhofe (born November 17 1934) is an American politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Republican Party, he currently serves as a United States Senator from Oklahoma.

He is best known for being one of the most conservative members of Congress. Inhofe has been chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee since January 2003, and is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee.

Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa and moved with his family to Oklahoma when he was a child. He served in the United States Army from 1955 to 1956. Several years later he became president of the Quaker Life Insurance Company. By the mid 1960s, he had entered politics in the Oklahoma state legislature. He was a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1967 to 1969, when he was elected a state senator. He was a member of the Oklahoma Senate until 1977. 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 to incumbent Democrat James R. Jones .

Inhofe's political career was revived in 1978 when he was elected mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a position he held until 1984. In 1986, he again sought a seat in the House of Representatives and won. He was a member of that body from 1987 until 1994, being elected every two years. He resigned upon his election to the United States Senate on November 15, 1994, filling the seat left vacant by the resignation of David Boren. Inhofe was elected to a full term in 1996 and reelected in 2002.

Inhofe currently serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and was among the panelists questioning witnesses about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse. There he made news by intimating that shock at the crimes was more offensive than the crimes themselves and for criticizing the Red Cross as "bleeding heart". His statement that he was "outraged by the outrage" attracted a slew of publicity.

Inhofe has called "catastrophic global warming" a "hoax". [1]

External links

• Official website
• Congressional biography
• "Catastrophic global warming alarmism not based on objective science" - Monday, July 28, 2003

|- style="text-align: center;" | width="30%" |Preceded by:
David L. Boren | width="40%" style="text-align: center;" |U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Oklahoma
1994- | width="30%" |Succeeded by:
Incumbent