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Inhofe was speaking in the context of deep cuts proposed by the White House for the agency
He did not point to any specific examples to back up his claim
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe accused the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday of creating “propaganda” and “brainwashing” American children.
“We are going to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that is brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren’t true, allegations,” the Republican told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on “New Day.”
He did not point to any specific examples to back up his claim.
Inhofe was speaking in the context of deep cuts proposed by the White House for the agency in the $1.1 trillion budget outline it released Thursday morning.
Later in the interview, Harlow asked the senator to clarify the brainwashing remark, but he instead defended EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who made a name for himself as Oklahoma attorney general suing the agency.
“I think he has done a good job,” said Inhofe. “In fact, you can’t find – I don’t believe you can find an attorney general that doesn’t think very highly of Scott Pruitt and the job he did as the attorney general for Oklahoma.”
Inhofe was also asked about the rash of earthquakes in Oklahoma that have been linked to the pumpong of wastewater created by fracking. He argued the budgetary cuts planned for the agency would not effect regulation of the state’s energy industry, which scientists have linked to that recent surge in earthquake activity.
It’s not the first time Inhofe, an outspoken climate change skeptic and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has accused the EPA of deceiving children.
“Our kids are being brainwashed,” the Republican senator told conservative radio host Eric Metaxas in July.
“I did some checking,” Inhofe said later in that interview. “(T)he stuff that they teach our kids nowadays, they are brainwash – you have to un-brainwash them when they get out.”