Climate Skeptic Jim Inhofe to Quit U.S. Senate, Back His Chief of Staff

(Bloomberg) -- Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, a leading skeptic of climate change who is his party’s ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, plans to resign the seat that he has held since 1994.

Inhofe, 87, told the Oklahoman newspaper that he’s endorsing Luke Holland, his chief of staff, as his replacement to finish out his term, which ends in January 2027. He plans to remain in office through the end of the year.

Inhofe, who was elected to a fifth six-year term in 2020, told the Oklahoman that he and his wife, Kay, “have decided that we need to have time together.” 

As the top Republican of the Senate Armed Services Committee,  Inhofe is a prominent voice on national security and military spending issues. Inhofe, who also previously led the Senate’s environmental panel, vigorously defended his home state’s oil and gas industry and is one of the party’s leading skeptics on climate change. He made headlines for bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor during debate over the issue in 2015.

Other potential Republican contenders for Inhofe’s seat include include Matt Pinnell, the state’s lieutenant governor; T.W. Shannon, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives; and R. Trent Shores, a former U.S. attorney in the state, according to the New York Times, which earlier reported on Inhofe’s plans. 

Under Oklahoma law, candidates for Inhofe’s seat would have to file by the mid-April deadline in order to run in the June primary. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote, the top-two vote-getters would compete in the August run-off. Whoever wins the GOP nomination would be favored to win the November election given the state’s solidly Republican history.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.