Senate’s odd couple on even ground with new law

WASHINGTON — The oddest of Senate odd couples — California Democrat Barbara Boxer and Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe — have accomplished something highly unusual in this bitter election year: significant, bipartisan legislation on the environment that has become law.

Boxer, a staunch liberal, calls climate change the “greatest challenge to hit the planet,” battles against offshore drilling, rails about the dangers of nuclear power and has pushed to restrict greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Inhofe proudly calls himself an unabashed conservative who dismisses global warming as a hoax and famously tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to prove his point. “It’s very, very cold out,” he said last February as he lobbed the ball toward the Senate president, an incident that makes Boxer cringe.

Yet somehow, the two have managed to become friends and political partners, working closely together to find common ground and frequently gushing about the other.

Earlier this year, Inhofe and Boxer shepherded a sweeping bill to impose new regulations on tens of thousands of toxic chemicals in everyday products, from household cleaners to clothing and furniture. It was the first update of the law in 40 years.

The unlikely alliance played key roles on a 5-year, $305 billion bill to address the nation’s aging and congested transportation systems that President Obama signed into law in December. And last week, the pair secured overwhelming support for a $10 billion water projects bill that includes more than $200 million in emergency funds to address a lead-contaminated water crisis in Flint, Mich., and other cities.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) compares Boxer and Inhofe to “an old married couple who’ve sort of learned to live with each other’s idiosyncrasies. They raise their eyebrows, but get past it for the sake of the entire partnership.”

The senators have known each other since their days in the House in the 1980s.

“I’ve worked with Barbara a long time. And we like each other personally,” says Inhofe, 81.

Boxer, 75, says their friendship has its limits, but is real: “One is Venus and one is Mars, let’s be clear,” she said on the Senate floor.

“People wonder how can we possibly bridge the divide,” she mused as the Senate debated the water bill. “And it is a fact that on certain issues we can’t. There is a lesson there. ... We have never, ever taken those differences and made them personal. We respect each other and we don’t waste a lot of time arguing.”

Or as Inhofe put it, “She has every right to be wrong.”

The alliance’s success stands in stark contrast to the fierce partisanship that has consumed Capitol Hill and grown worse as the Nov. 8 election approaches.