In Tuesday night's Texas Senate debate, Rep. Colin Allred (D) challenged Sen. Ted Cruz (R) on the incumbent's opposition to abortion rights, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his willingness to vote against a restrictive border security package in February.
But in their contest to represent America's oil and gas industry in the Senate, both candidates emphasized one thing: Their unwavering support for the state fossil fuel industry — a sector that is both a prime cause and major victim of the rise in extreme weather.
Cruz addressed the issue right out of the gate on a question about Texas' skyrocketing insurance rates. Fossil fuel emissions mean the state's current extreme weather is tomorrow's normal, The Texas Tribune reported. The Tribune also found that in 2023, state insurance premiums rose at twice the national rate, largely because Texas was hammered by a train of climate-linked disasters.
Asked if there needed to be a federal insurance solution, Cruz said no — then went into talking about how the real rising-costs problem for families was inflation, and the real solution to inflation was producing more fossil fuels.
"Nothing hurts more than the cost of energy — whether it is whether it is the natural gas that goes into fertilizers to farm crops, or whether it is the diesel in their tractor and the diesel in the trucks bringing food to the store," Cruz said — pinning the rise in prices to "Congressman Allred and [Vice President] Kamala Harris's war on Texas oil and gas."
A linchpin of Cruz's argument: Allred voted with the Democrats in February on a strict party-line House vote that sought to overturn the Biden administration's pause on permitting for new liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals to non-free trade partners.
That pause was based partially on climate concerns — but it also rested on fears by U.S. factories that connecting the national gas supply to overseas tumult and deep-pocketed foreign governments would raise prices domestically.
Allred has since called on Biden in a May op-ed in the Houston Chronicle to end the pause and expand LNG exports as part of "an all-of-the-above energy approach that harnesses everything from renewable energy to nuclear to geothermal to natural gas."
"Let me be very clear about something I opposed Joe Biden's pause on LNG exports," Allred said on Tuesday. "I want everyone out there to understand, and I will be a defender of the Texas energy economy to grow it in an 'all the above' way. And what Senator Cruz is telling you is simply not true."
Allred has voted with Democrats against some Republican pro-oil initiatives, but he has sought to be more hawkish on support for fossil fuels than even Biden and Harris, who have presided over record production. For example, he told a Houston crowd in August that he "promised to protect oil and gas jobs."
Both candidates have taken sizable donations from the oil and gas industry this cycle, according to nonpartisan watchdog OpenSecrets, though Cruz far more than Allred.
The Dallas congressman took in a little under $300,000 from fossil fuel interests this cycle, while Cruz took in nearly a million, which is more than a fifth of his lifetime haul from this industry of about $4.7 million.
Allred, however has taken in almost four times as much money from renewable energy — just under $40,000 — as Cruz's $11,000, though that means wind and solar are still behind the beer and building materials industries among the congressman's supporters.
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