Inhofe Uses Hearing to Continue Defending Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord

While the Trump administration’s delegation got a cold reception at this week’s United Nations climate summit in Bonn, Germany, Oklahoma U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe was still defending the President’s decision to remove the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.

During a hearing by the Senate Environment and Public Works committee where he is a ranking Republican member, Inhofe said, “They always end up talking here about the great Paris Agreement—–if there’s ever a joke, that’s it.”

Inhofe told the hearing countries around the world have tried for years to line “up to see who can get the most money out of this system.”

“Now, this great Paris Agreement—-what did we commit to in our country?” asked Inhofe.

A critic of global warming supporters, the Senator said when President Obama promised to reduce CO2 emissions by 27 percent by 2025, the EPA refused to come before his committee and explain how the nation would do it.

“I’ve never seen a time when someone in the jurisdiction of a committee refused to testify and the reason was that they couldn’t do it. They’ve tried for 21 years and this is the best they could come up with.”

In Bonn, the annual gathering of nations and environmentalists heard separate cases about the U.S. interest in the agreement. The Trump administration carried a message earlier in the week with an agenda supporting coal and other fossil fuel industries.

The meeting is designed to create an agenda laying out how countries will comply with the Paris agreement.