{mosads}Inhofe is busy stumping with GOP Senate candidates in Missouri, Montana and Ohio who oppose forthcoming and proposed environmental regulations considered detrimental to the coal industry. 

All three candidates are facing Democratic incumbents who voted against Inhofe’s bill to block Environmental Protection Agency rules that limit mercury pollution and other toxic emissions from coal-fired power plants. That bill failed in June by a 46-53 vote.

Flipping the Senate to Republicans would improve the chances of that bill passing next Congress. It also would likely make Inhofe chairman of Environment and Public Works, enabling him to set the committee’s agenda.

It is that very possibility that earned Inhofe the award, Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement on Friday.

“Senator Inhofe’s pet theory that climate change is an elaborate hoax would be hilarious, if only he weren’t an elected representative of the American people. If he were, say, a performance artist, it’d be really funny. But sadly he has the power to affect U.S. climate policy,” he said.