‘Arrogant, out of touch’: Ted Cruz blasts John Kerry for telling oil workers ‘go make solar panels’

“So what President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices,” said Special Envoy Kerry.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Wednesday sharply criticized the statements of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, who said that American oil workers should make “better choices” and instead “go to work to make the solar panels.”

“What an arrogant, out-of-touch statement for a centimillionaire to say,” Cruz told Fox News.

“The Democratic elites have decided that blue-collar workers, that union members, that men and women with calluses on their hands, they’ve made the wrong choices, in John Kerry’s words,” he said.

Cruz said that President Joe Biden’s “radical and extreme” executive orders, such as revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, are “hurting a lot of jobs” and undermining U.S. security while increasing the nation’s reliance on foreign energy.

Cruz also said that the Biden administration’s efforts will actually cause more harm to the environment, which they aim to protect.

“The irony of what they’re doing is there will be worse pollution,” he said.

During a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Kerry was asked what message he had for oil and gas industry workers whose livelihoods are ending as a result of the Biden administration’s policies.

“So what President Biden wants to do is make sure those folks have better choices, that they have alternatives, that they can be the people who go to work to make the solar panels,” Kerry said.

He suggested that coal miners should switch careers and become solar power technicians.

“The same people can do those jobs, but the choice of doing the solar power one now is a better choice,” he said.

Prior to signing several executive orders on Wednesday, Biden said, “When we think of climate change, we think of it — this is a case where conscious and convenience cross paths, where dealing with this existential threat to the planet and increasing our economic growth and prosperity are one in the same.”

“When I think of climate change, I think of — and the answers to it — I think of jobs,” he said.