Why Green Google is Hosting a Fundraiser for Climate Change Denier Jim Inhofe

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Barbara L. Salisbury / The Washington Times/Landov

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R, Oklahoma

Silicon Valley tech giant Google on Thursday is hosting a fundraising lunch for Oklahoma Republican U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe.

Politically correct Google is among the biggest corporate champions of renewable energy. So why would a company that “has made combating climate change a core part of its business operating strategy and brand,” help raise funds for a big climate change denier like Inhofe, The Daily Beast’s William O’Connor asks?

Inhofe isn’t just an ordinary denier of climate-change science. He’s one of its more truculent opponents. Inhofe has called it a mass delusion.

By their words and deeds, Google’s leaders express contempt for the type of flat-eartherism that Inhofe represents.

One reason, O’Connor writes, is that Google has a big data center in Pryor, Oklahoma. The tech company explained it this way to The Guardian:

“We regularly host fundraisers for candidates, on both sides of the aisle, but that doesn’t mean we endorse all of their positions. And while we disagree on climate-change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.”

But Google and Inhofe might see eye-to-eye on another, non-environmental issue: reducing corporate taxes, O’Connor writes:

But as an uncooperative member of an uncooperative minority, he has little ability to move legislation. And so long as Inhofe and his allies populate the halls of Congress, Google will find Washington reluctant to make progress on a host of issues that are near and dear to its corporate heart.