BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has brought Texas values to New York, telling voters that the Empire State’s law banning fracking is hurting the economy and diverting jobs to neighboring states.
The Texas senator said Thursday during the taping of an MSNBC town hall meeting in Buffalo that the state is wrong to have a law banning hydraulic fracturing, an oil-and-gas extraction method known as fracking. The method is widely used in Texas and other gas and oil producing states.
He said legalizing fracking could put thousands of people to work in upstate New York, where there are large shale reserves that could be tapped.
Cruz blamed the anti-fracking law on “knuckleheaded Democratic politicians.” His comments came after being asked yet again to defend his criticism of “New York values” as he campaigns ahead of New York’s April 19 presidential primary.
Cruz said the people of upstate New York “have been suffering under the misguided policies of liberal Democratic politicians for a long, long time.”