Inhofe: 'We won,' cap and trade is 'dead'

Climate change skeptics have won the battle against cap and trade legislation, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) declared today.

Debating Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), House co-sponsor of climate legislation, on CNN's Situation Room, Inhofe argued the Climate Gate emails show that global warming science is false.

"Your bill is dead," Inhofe told Markey. "The Boxer bill is dead," he added, referring to the Senate version of the legislation.

Inhofe and other climate change skeptics say the so-called "ClimateGate" emails prove that scientists at a major research institution in Great Britain attempted to suppress evidence against global warming.

Proponents of man-made global warming claim the emails show only a few cases of unethical behavior and do not undermine the scientific consensus about climate change.

Inhofe, probably the most prominent global warming skeptic in Congress, said the EPA issued an endangerment finding today simply so that the U.S. could save face going into the international climate change conference in Copenhagen. The executive branch stepping up is a sign that Democrats have failed in Congress, he said.

"And the fact that they are going into an endangerment finding using this as the science, that makes it that much worse," Inhofe said of the ClimateGate scandal.  "It's a recognition that we have won and they have lost in terms of a legislative cure for this."

The EPA was ordered by the Supreme Court in 2007 to issue a decision on whether greenhouse gases were hazardous to human health. Under that ruling, the agency will have to regulate carbon dioxide emissions if Congress does not come up with a solution.

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