GOP senator accuses the EPA of 'brainwashing our kids'

Noted climate change skeptic Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) claimed Thursday morning on CNN's New Day that President Trump's budget plan will prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from "brainwashing our kids." The 2018 budget proposal released Thursday morning calls for cutting the EPA's budget by about 30 percent, slashing its funding from $8.3 billion to $5.7 billion.

Inhofe, the former Senate Environment and Public Works Committee chair who infamously brought a snowball to the Senate floor in 2015 to prove a point about global warming, insisted the Trump administration wants to "deliver the services" of the EPA and "make things clean" — just without all the "propaganda." "We're going to [get rid of] all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that's brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren't true," Inhofe said.

Inhofe did have one good thing to say about the EPA though: He conceded the Clean Air Act amendments "were very successful" and "have worked." "Our air is cleaner, the pollution is down in spite of the fact that we drive twice as many miles," Inhofe said, suggesting that the success of those amendments proves the EPA's work regulating carbon dioxide is done.

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Watch a snippet of the interview below. Becca Stanek