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James Inhofe

Chamber: We Want To Help On Climate Change -- Really!

Zachary Roth | November 4, 2009, 10:00AM

It looks like the Chamber of Commerce is concerned that it be seen as willing to play a constructive role in the coming Senate debate over climate change legislation -- whatever the reality.

That's the message to be drawn from a letter that the business lobby sent -- and posted on its website -- to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and James Inhofe (R-OK) yesterday.

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Topics: Barbara Boxer, Chamber of Commerce, Global Warming, James Inhofe

Rep. Barton: Obama Should Be Worried About "Carbongate"

Pete Martin | July 2, 2009, 12:25PM

Yesterday we wrote about Environmental Protection Agency economist Al Carlin, the author of a report that casts doubt on climate change. Carlin's study wasn't taken as seriously by the agency as he'd been hoping -- perhaps because he's not a scientist, and because his bosses never asked him to produce it.

But his cause has become a favorite of right-wingers, who suddenly believe science to be sacred, and are charging that the Obama administration is "suppressing" a report whose conclusions it dislikes. The anti-regulatory Competitive Enterprise Institute first publicized Carlin's report last week. Since then, Carlin has discussed his "findings" with Glenn Beck on Fox News, and on Monday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) called for a criminal investigation into the issue.

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Topics: Barack Obama, Global Warming, James Inhofe, Right-wing extremism

James Inhofe

Inhofe Aide To Launch New Global Warming Denialist Website

Zachary Roth | April 10, 2009, 5:35PM

Remember Marc Morano?

He's the staffer for Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) who's turned himself into the go-to guy for climate change denialism, sending out an email barrage to activists, journalists, Hill aides and others, in which he aggregates every misleading and flat-out false piece of "evidence" he can find to support the notion that, despite what scientists say, global warming really isn't something to worry about.

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Topics: Global Warming, James Inhofe

Fred Barnes

Barnes' Source For Global Warming Denialism?

Zachary Roth | February 10, 2009, 1:31PM

Yesterday, we told you about how Fred Barnes has learned that global warming isn't man made -- but won't tell us where he got this startling information.

But luckily, it looks like Dave Roberts of the environmental news site Grist knows the answer. Roberts writes:

Barnes gets his information on climate change the same place everyone in the right-wing media world gets it: from Marc Morano, the in-house blogger/agitator for Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

Apparently, Morano is the point man for the fringe movement of global warming deniers.

Morano's entire job is to aggregate every misleading factoid, every attack on climate science or scientists, every crank skeptical statement from anyone in the world and send it all out periodically in email blasts that get echoed throughout the right-wing blog world and eventually find their way into places like Fox News and the Weekly Standard. From there they go, via columnists like George Will and Charles Krauthammer, into mainstream outlets like Newsweek and the Washington Post.

That's where Barnes gets it. That's where Glenn Beck gets it, and Lou Dobbs, and Will, and Krauthammer, and all the rest of them.

We've written about Morano -- a former producer for the Rush Limbaugh show -- before. In November 2006, he attended a UN conference on global warming on Inhofe's behalf, prompting the senator to label the confab a "brain-washing session."

Thank God we've found Barnes' source! With any luck, Morano will be able to pass his findings on to policy-makers in time to make sure they don't do anything to address global warming, since it turns out to be all a big mistake. That was close though!