When Vice President Kamala Harris was asked about her previous calls for a fracking ban during last week’s presidential debate, she attempted to move past it.
“I made that very clear in 2020. I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States,” she said.
Critics note that in 2019, Harris called for a fracking ban. And while she claims she “made her position clear” during the 2020 campaign, she merely said, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking.” If her position changed, she kept it to herself.
Harris touts her tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as an example that she’s amenable to fossil fuels, particularly in natural gas-rich Pennsylvania. When pressed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump about fracking she said, “I’ve made very clear my position on fracking.”
Keystone State oil and gas advocates aren’t buying it.
“Vice President Harris vocally and consistently opposed fracking in her 2019 presidential campaign, calling multiple times for an outright ban,” Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association President and CEO David Taylor told DVJournal.
Taylor criticized Harris for not explaining why she publicly changed her views on fracking. He suggested it was a “deathbed conversion” that came off as “unpersuasive.”
If history is any indication, the Biden-Harris administration is no friend to fossil fuels.
While Harris said the IRA opened up new leases on fracking, the White House has approved just three offshore oil and gas lease sales through 2029. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said the leases set, “a course for the department to support the growing offshore wind industry and protect against the potential for environmental damage and adverse impacts to coastal communities.”
No offshore oil and gas lease sales were approved this year.
The Biden-Harris administration also put a pause on LNG export facilities in January. It was forced to allow LNG exports again earlier this month after a judge blocked the ban.
The ban was unpopular with Pennsylvanians. A poll found 58 percent of resident disagreed with the LNG pause.
Harris expressed support for the Green New Deal and a bill that banned vehicles with internal combustion engines while a U.S. senator. She also supported canceling the Keystone XL pipeline as a senator and maintained that stance when Biden revoked its permit on his first day in office in 2021.
During last week’s debate, however, Harris said she believed it was important to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil.
Natural gas advocates said the best way to do that is by unleashing America’s oil and gas industry. They’ve consistently argued national security and energy security go hand-in-hand so Americans and their allies aren’t enriching foreign oil and gas producers.
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry helps power the way. The country’s second largest natural gas producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Keystone State supplies gas to five other states. It produced more than eight times as much natural gas in 2022 than it did in 2012.
Marcellus Shale Coalition President David Callahan wrote in DVJournal on the importance of Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry. He argued the Delaware Valley could help supply natural gas to the country and the world if a liquid natural gas (LNG) hub was in the region. He wrote the state had an enormous opportunity to help local workers and communities, plus increase America’s leadership “on a global energy stage.”
The natural gas industry contributed $41 billion to Pennsylvania’s economy in 2022 and paid $6 billion in royalties to private landowners and the government. The Marcellus Shale Coalition said it expects Pennsylvania will supply 58 percent of the East Coast’s natural gas.
Callahan told DVJournal that Pennsylvania’s natural gas economy could be even greater, if politicians in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C. would get out of the way.
“Pennsylvania producers and royalty owners continue to receive significantly less for their natural gas than the national average, and this is directly tied to the lack of predictable permitting and pipeline takeaway capacity,” he said.
