On Twitter on Wednesday, Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw criticized climate envoy John Kerry for suggesting that laid-off workers in the fossil fuels industry can get jobs in clean energy.
“John Kerry – worth hundreds of millions — telling blue-collar workers to just ‘go to work to make the solar panels.’ By the way, solar will pay on average $20K less than oil and gas jobs,” Crenshaw tweeted. “John Kerry thinks you should just shutup and accept it. No.”
Kerry made an appearance at a press briefing Wednesday to defend President Joe Biden’s climate change plan and answer questions on coal and gas and oil development in the U.S. He blamed job losses in the oil and gas industry on “market forces,” while at the same time assuming those same laid-off workers could get jobs in clean energy.
“With respect to those workers, no two people are more, in this room, are more concerned about it. And the president of the United States has expressed in every comment he has made about climate the need to grow the new jobs that pay better, that are cleaner,” Kerry said.
“You know, you look at the consequences of black lung for a miner, for instance, and measure that against the fastest growing job in the United States before COVID was solar power technician. The same people can do those jobs, but the choice of doing the solar power one now is a better choice,” Kerry added.
In other words, displaced oil workers should be grateful to the Biden administration for the havoc it will wreak through its pursuit of saving the planet.