Jim Inhofe Spends $300,000 of Your Tax Money On His Latest Climate Chewbacca Defense

The first rule of climate science denial is that you do not talk about the temperature record or human influence on it. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) follows this rule perfectly in his latest attack on climate action.

Inhofe demanded the EPA's Inspector General investigate the Obama administration's explanation for regulating carbon pollution. Why did the Obama administration have to act? Even the conservative Supreme Court told the Bush administration its explanation for not regulating carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act was indefensible.

The EPA IG report cost $300,000 of your tax dollars to produce. What did it find?

A federal investigation, requested by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) in an April 7, 2010 letter, finds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) endangerment finding for greenhouse gases “met statutory requirements for rulemaking and generally followed requirements and guidance related to ensuring the quality of the supporting technical information.”

Wasn't that exciting? Not exactly. But to Inhofe, it's scandalous! It has to be, because to Inhofe, anything that validates climate science must not be true because he's well-compensated by the oil & coal industries to say so. And Inhofe will prove it to you by saying things that are borderline incomprehensible:

In our opinion, the endangerment finding TSD is a highly influential scientific assessment that should have been peer reviewed as outlined in Section III of OMB’s Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review.

To avoid talking about the temperature record and human influence on it, Inhofe is once again resorting to The Chewbacca Defense:


The data showing our planet is warming and man-made carbon pollution just keeps rolling in. But Sen. Inhofe doesn't want to talk to you about that. He wants to talk to you about how the EPA should actually have formally peer-reviewed the major reviews of the peer reviewed literature.

/head explodes