Dan Crenshaw Slams John Kerry for Telling Laid-Off Oil Workers to ‘Make Solar Panels’

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) criticized climate envoy John Kerry Wednesday 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 on Wednesday. “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.

Kerry also 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.

Crenshaw was not the only congressman to push back on Kerry’s remarks. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) criticized Kerry and the Biden administration for its anti-fossil fuel production policies as part of Biden’s plan to fight climate change.

“John Kerry’s message to the tens of thousands of Americans who lost their jobs thanks to the Biden administration: go make solar panels. Where is the empathy that Joe Biden promised in his inauguration?” Cotton tweeted on Wednesday.