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Senator James M. Inhofe


Self Description

May 2012: "As a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, minority leader of the Oklahoma Senate, mayor of Tulsa, congressman from Oklahoma’s First Congressional District, to his present role as Oklahoma’s senior U.S. Senator, Jim has served Oklahomans with pride and honor. Simply put, no one consistently represents common sense, conservative Oklahoma values more than Jim.

Jim considers one of his unique qualifications for office to be the 30 years he’s spent in the business community being over regulated by the federal bureaucracy. Throughout his political career, Jim has been a strong advocate for the principles of limited government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility. He believes that the federal government works best when it returns dollars, decisions, and freedom to our local communities and families.

During his tenure in Congress, Jim has forged a distinguished legislative record on a diverse range of issues: surface transportation and highway funding; environmental regulation and land management; strengthening and supporting America’s national defense; rural education funding; and improving America’s energy independence. In addition, Jim has sponsored legislation to reduce taxes and reform the tax code; reign in out of control federal bureaucracies; promote fiscal responsibility; and reform the way Congress works.

As chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Jim played a key role in passage of the 2005 Highway Bill, shepherding the important legislation through the U.S. Senate. By doing so, he ended Oklahoma’s status as a ‘donor state’ as Oklahoma now receives more money than it sends to Washington in federal highway funding. This historic legislation also lessened the federal bureaucracy over highway trust funds by returning the decision-making process back to the states. Jim has also been a champion for restoring common sense and sound science to important environmental and regulatory issues like clean air mandates, wetlands, and endangered species.

From his post as the second ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jim has gained a reputation as an expert on defense and national security issues. Not only is Jim a strong supporter of Oklahoma’s defense industry and military community, he has also been a tireless advocate for providing greater resources, the necessary equipment, and proper training to our military personnel fighting the War on Terror and combating global threats to our nation’s security. Jim has been to Iraq and Afghanistan as much as any other member of Congress since the beginning of the War on Terror.

Jim is a reform-minded leader whose efforts to change the House of Representatives’ arcane discharge petition rule brought him national attention and praise. The rule change eliminated much of the secrecy in the legislative process and prevented Congressional leaders from keeping popular bills bottled up in committee. Jim has taken that same approach to shine light on the workings of the United States Senate, by sponsoring legislation to end a Senator’s ability to anonymously and indefinitely obstruct the Senate’s consideration of nominations and legislation.

Jim was recently voted the #1 Conseratvative in the U.S. Senate by National Journal and “Most Outstanding Conservative U.S. Senator” by Human Events Newspaper and the American Conservative Union. He repeatedly receives various awards and recognitions, including the “Lifetime Service Award” from the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association, the National Taxpayers Association’s “Friends of the Taxpayer” Award, the “Hero of the Taxpayer Award” from Americans for Tax Reform, the American Farm Bureau’s “Friend of the Farm Bureau” Award, the Center for Security Policy’s “Keeper of the Flame” Award, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s “Spirit of Enterprise” Award, and an “A+” rating from the National Rifle Association.

Jim is a lifelong Oklahoman who grew up in Tulsa and graduated from the University of Tulsa with a degree in economics. He served in the U.S. Army and has been a small businessman working in aviation, real estate, and insurance for over 30 years. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1994 to complete the unexpired term of Senator David Boren, who resigned to become president of the University of Oklahoma. Jim was re-elected in 1996, 2002, and 2008.

Inhofe has been married 51 years to his wife, Kay, and has four grown children and twelve grandchildren. During his service in Washington, he commutes back home to Oklahoma almost every weekend."

http://inhofe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorInhofe.Biography

Third-Party Descriptions

January 2013: 'Congress was furious. "We've been lied to," fumed Rep. David Scott, a Democrat from Georgia. Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, raged at transparently douchey TARP administrator (and Goldman banker) Neel Kashkari, calling him a "chump" for the banks. And the anger was bipartisan: Republican senators David Vitter of Louisiana and James Inhofe of Oklahoma were so mad about the unilateral changes and lack of oversight that they sponsored a bill in January 2009 to cancel the remaining $350 billion of TARP.'

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

May 2012: "Several Republicans agree it is a clear choice: they say the treaty ought to be mothballed for good. Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, complained that under the terms of the agreement, the United States would have to transfer billions of dollars in royalties from oil and gas production on the continental shelf to an international authority, which would redistribute the money to less developed countries."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/world/americas/law-of-the-sea-treaty-is-found-on-capitol-hill-again.html

June 2008: "At the same time, Republicans are expected to fall out over the size of the federal role in curbing the problem. Sen. James Inhofe (R) of Oklahoma, who is leading opposition to the bill in the Senate, says the bill will increase household costs for an Oklahoma family of four by $3,298 a year and raise taxes on Americans by $1 trillion over the next 10 years."

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/06/01/warm-up-for-a-global-warming-law/

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Member of (past or present) Republican Party (U.S.) / Republican National Committee Organization May 24, 2012
Member of (past or present) US Senate Organization May 24, 2012

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jan 04, 2013 Secret and Lies of the Bailout:The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come

QUOTE: Not only did [the 2009 banking system bailout--Ed.] prevent another Great Depression, we've been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right? Wrong. It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in – only temporarily, mind you – to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. The result is one of those deals where one wrong decision early on blossoms into a lush nightmare of unintended consequences.

 Rolling Stone
May 23, 2012 Law of the Sea Treaty Is Found on Capitol Hill, Again

QUOTE: Thirty years after it was signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the United Nations treaty that governs the world’s oceans is undergoing one of its periodic resurrections in Congress... The Senate has never ratified the treaty...its opponents — a handful of conservative Republicans who view it as an infringement on American sovereignty...

 New York Times
Mar 03, 2011 Pressure Limits Efforts to Police Drilling for Gas

QUOTE: Natural gas drilling companies have major exemptions from parts of at least 7 of the 15 sweeping federal environmental laws that regulate most other heavy industries and were written to protect air and drinking water from radioactive and hazardous chemicals. Coal mine operators that want to inject toxic wastewater into the ground must get permission from the federal authorities. But when natural gas companies want to inject chemical-laced water and sand into the ground during hydrofracking, they do not have to follow the same rules.

 New York Times
Nov 19, 2009 Zombie Nuke Plants

QUOTE: More than half of America's nuclear plants have received new twenty-year operating licenses. In fact, the NRC has not rejected a single license-renewal application. Many of these plants have also received "power up-rates" that allow them to run at up to 120 percent of their originally intended capacity. That means their systems are subjected to unprecedented amounts of heat, pressure, corrosion, stress and embrittling radiation.

 Nation
Jun 14, 2009 Some projects raise question: Where's the stimulus?

QUOTE: As President Obama moves to accelerate the flow of federal funds intended to rev up the economy and energy efficiency, public officials are voicing concerns about the merit of some plans.

 Los Angeles Times
Jun 01, 2008 Warm-up for a global-warming law: Congress to begin work on a bill the next president would be willing to sign.

QUOTE: The top presidential nominees in both parties back a cap-and-trade system to limit US emissions of greenhouse gases. President Bush opposes it, and the White House is expected to detail objections to the 494-page Senate bill on Monday.

 Christian Science Monitor
Jun 01, 2004 Atomic Waste Disposal Rules Set for Debate by Congress

QUOTE: A dispute over whether millions of gallons of radioactive waste can be safely left in aging steel tanks has become an issue in the military authorization bill for the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.

 New York Times