Inhofe makes appearance at climate bill mark-up

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) made a brief appearance at the Senate's climate bill mark-up Wednesday, marking a brief hiatus in the GOP boycott of the process.

Inhofe appeared at the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee's mark-up of the Senate climate change bill this morning to deliver brief remarks and a letter containing Republican demands on how to proceed with the bill.

The seven members of that committee, on which Inhofe serves as ranking member, have boycotted the mark-up being held by Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).

Committee Democrats seemed more bemused by the Oklahoma conservative's brief appearance.

"Thanks for stopping by," Boxer told Inhofe.

The letter Inhofe delivered was from fellow committee Republican Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio), who wrote EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to ask for an agency assessment of the Senate's climate bill. (The Environmental Protection Agency had provided similar estimates for the House bill.)

Boxer stopped Inhofe before he left to publicly argue that enough analysis of the bill, which she is co-sopnsoring, had been done.

"This is a timeline comparison of all the recent climate change bills," she said to Inhofe, handing him a document. "And what you find out here is there's an unprecedented amount of analysis done."

"And we did it because you wanted us to," she added.