Posted by: David Lungren David_Lungren@epw.senate.gov

The Hill : Blog Briefing Room

Barrasso, 'Secret Person' to Join Inhofe on Copenhagen Trip

By: Michael O'Brien 

October 22, 2009

Link to Blog

A second senator has signed onto Sen. Jim Inhofe's (R-Okla.) upcoming trip in December to an international climate change summit.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) will join Inhofe during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference 2009 in Denmark in early December, the Oklahoma conservative said Thursday.

Inhofe said that the Wyoming freshman and a third "secret person" would attent the summit during an appearance on the conservative "Morning in America" show hosted by Bill Bennett.

Inhofe's office would not say Thursday who the third person is, but anticipates an announcement in the "coming days" as to a potential third participant.

The traveling delegation marks some growing momentum for Inhofe's trip, during which he is expected to make the case for his long-standing skepticism of global warming science.

"We are clearly winning, I believe that," the senator asserted of growing skepticism for climate change science.
Barrasso is a first-term senator from Wyoming who has made a name for himself as a public opponent of healthcare reform plans before Congress, but had attracted some headlines recently for having offered an amendment barring funding to the Center on Climate Change and National Security, a CIA research program into the effects of climate change.

The ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, one of the key committees handling climate change legislation, Inhofe characterized upcoming hearings on cap-and-trade legislation as nothing more than a show leading up to the December summit.

"It's all theater leading up to this big show," he said.

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