Jim Inhofe

The Endangered Species Act must be reformed to clarify the focus and achieve real results.

The Endangered Species Act has gone from a well-intentioned piece of legislation in the 1970s to one that is dictated by environmental activist groups taking advantage of the adversarial system.

I believe much more progress could have been made if the Fish and Wildlife Service had taken the funds it is using the list the northern long-eared bat and use those funds for research and other tools to diminish the effects of the white…

We all know that Congress stepped in and took control of another ESA listing by removing the northern Rockies gray wolf off the ESA list because the Fish and Wildlife Service was too timid to do it.

I saw what happened. In fact, that first bill was the McCain-Lieberman bill; and McCain was a Republican. We decisively defeated that bill and every bill since that time.

I think it is less about the Tenth Amendment, less about States' rights under the Tenth Amendment, and more about statutory construction.

Should it be the role of an administrative agency to be forcing States to take this kind of action?

That does not sound like cooperation. That does not sound like partnership.

The Clean Power Plan proposal throws the cooperative relationship between the States and the Federal Government off balance.

The EPA, under this Administration, treats States like a vessel of Federal will.

Richard Lindzen is an MIT professor who is recognized as being one of the top professors around in the climate... He said, it is a power grab. He said, and these are his words, regulation of carbon is a bureaucrat's dream. If you regulate…

Do you think this is consistent with the Tenth Amendment?

In their wisdom, Congress gave States a primary role in emissions regulation.

This proposal is another attempt by the Obama administration to circumvent the role of Congress and achieve through regulatory fiat what the President could not achieve through legislation.

The EPA was attempting an unconstitutional trifecta, usurping the prerogatives of the States, Congress, and the Federal Courts all at once.

If we are reliant upon fossil fuel for 50 percent of the power to run this machine called America and they take that away, how do you run the machine called America?

The question is how, but for shuttering coal generation in the State of Oklahoma.

Quite simply, Madam Chairwoman, the EPA does not possess the authority under the Clean Air Act to do what it is seeking to accomplish in the so-called Clean Power Plan.

The President's own constitutional law professor, Lawrence Tribe, recently testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing that his EPA was attempting an 'unconstitutional trifecta usurping the prerogatives of the States…

Putin thinks he has got more endurance than the Europeans do and than the Americans do.

But virtually all the Clean Air regulations under the Obama administration have been justified by data collected over 30 years ago.

Oklahoma is enough like Mississippi that we have an equal interest.

I oppose the Markey Amendment No. 1. This amendment would strike the most important provision of the bill.

I urge a no vote on the amendment.

I strongly recommend a no vote.