Former Senator Jim Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who once threw a snowball onto the Senate floor to make a point about climate change, has died.

Inhofe passed away on Tuesday, July 9, after suffering a stroke. He was 89.

Inhofe’s death was confirmed by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former Inhofe staffer.

“Former Sen Jim Inhofe passed away this morning. He was a devout Christian and family man. He was also devoted to his former staff who he considered his extended family,” Wheeler wrote on X.

Inhofe called climate change a “hoax” and frequently sounded off against the global warming narrative, at one point even bringing a snowball onto the Senate floor to argue that human activity does not cause global warming.

“In case we have forgotten, because we keep hearing that 2014 has been the warmest year on record, I ask the chair, you know what this is?” Inhofe said during a floor speech in February 2015 as he produced a snowball from a bag beside his podium.

Senator James Inhofe famously throws a snowball in the Senate to discredit "climate change"#JamesInhofe #Inhofe #JimInhofe #Snowball #ClimageChange #ClimageChangeHoax pic.twitter.com/sta5G4gFgi

— Mister Montgomery (@MAGA_Montgomery) July 9, 2024

“It’s a snowball,” he said. “From outside here. So it’s very, very cold out.”

“So here, Mr. President, catch this,” Inhofe added as he tossed the snowball.

As chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe was a vocal critic of over-the-top environmental regulation. Some of his staffers went on to be influential in environmental policy in the Trump administration’s EPA.

Inhofe was friendly with former California Sen. Barbara Boxer, a staunch liberal Democrat, despite their differences. The two worked together on several major highway and water infrastructure bills.

Inhofe was the longest-serving senator from Oklahoma and was in office from 1994 to 2023.

He retired last year after 29 years in the Senate. Prior to his Senate career, he was a congressman from Oklahoma from 1987 to 1994. Before being elected to the federal government, he was mayor of Tulsa for six years and a member of the state House and then the state Senate.

In his 20s, Inhofe was drafted into the Army and served about a year.