Washington: The winter has lingered on the American east coast, so much so that this month the new Republican chairman of the Senate environment and public works dommittee, James Inhofe, of Oklahoma, was able to bring a dripping snowball onto the floor of the chamber and lob it underarm toward the chair as evidence against global warming.

Props aside, Mr Inhofe's position was of no surprise. He is the author of the book The Greatest Hoax – How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future, which uses biblical arguments to support its case that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy behind the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. Only God can change the climate, he argues.

Republican Senator James Inhofe uses a snowball as a prop to argue against the science of climate change. Credit:C-SPAN

Mr Inhofe's views on climate change and scientific endeavour more broadly are not rare among Republicans who since sweeping midterm election victories have increased their control of crucial congressional committees.

In the last term one of Mr Inhofe's Republican colleagues on the House of Representative's science, space and technology committee, was Paul Broun, a medical doctor by training, who said at a speech in 2012, "All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell."