The Heartland Institute, along with the Heritage Foundation, gave Inhofe the Political Leadership on Climate Change Award for his work against environmental policies. In presenting the award, Jim DeMint, a former Republican senator and now president of Heritage, said Inhofe “has championed an ethic of rational conversation and conservatism that we must preserve our environment for the sake of people, not hurt them by entertaining ill-conceived doomsday prophecies which are neither honest nor scientific.”

In his speech opening the annual convention and accepting the award, Inhofe praised the institute’s members, saying they “are on the right side of the Lord on all of these things,” and God “will richly bless you for it.” He gave the attendees handouts that he said would help them rebut many of the arguments for why climate change is real and caused by humans, a position that 97 percent of climate scientists agree on. “These are old arguments that have been refuted over and over again,” he said, pointing specifically to arguments that ice in Antarctica is retreating and that the polar bear population is declining. “There is a problem with polar bears right now: It’s overpopulation,” he said. “If you look at the alarmists, [they say] the polar bears are disappearing. Well, that’s not quite true.”

He specifically criticized the Obama administration’s policies, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed carbon limits for power plants, and implied that EPA head Gina McCarthy is a liar and has no problem doing it. Inhofe noted that leaders in 32 states oppose the rule. “Two states, including my state of Oklahoma, have formally announced their intent just to say ‘no,’ because what they’re trying to do is illegal. And despite this, the president is choosing to ignore the will of Congress,” he said.

Inhofe also made reference to the time in February that he threw a snowball on the Senate floor to rebut climate change models. He’s been mocked repeatedly for the stunt by Democrats, including President Obama. But it’s also become an indicator of how he sees his role overseeing the federal government’s environmental policies. “You can’t take these things too seriously,” he said of the snowball. “You’ve got to have fun in life.”