Team Harris swears Kamala won’t wipe out fracking, but will anyone believe them? – Watt?

From the Daily Caller

Nick Pope
Contributor

Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign said she no longer supports a fracking ban, but political strategists and energy experts say the sudden policy shift will do little to bolster support among key voters in November.

Harris said there was “no question” she would end fracking by 2020 if elected president, but her campaign recently told The Hill she supports President Joe Biden after he drops out of the 2024 race After footage of the ban resurfaced, she did not want the practice to be outlawed again. The campaign can revert to Harris' old fracking positions all it wants, but that may not be enough to allay concerns among key voting groups — especially Pennsylvania's more rural, blue-collar voters — that Harris could wage war politics on the industry Strategists and energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that if elected, Biden would further escalate his climate agenda to their detriment.

“She's going to find herself between a rock and a hard place on fracking and other issues like Gaza. She has all of her past statements and the record of the Biden-Harris administration against fracking and LNG exports,” The Republic Jon McHenry, a party poll analyst and vice president of Polaris Public Opinion Research, told DCNF. “That's a good thing for her base of supporters, who were upset a few weeks ago that Joe Biden represented the Democratic Party, who were excited about Kamala Harris, who wanted her to ban fracking, who were happy to have A younger, more liberal candidate ran for president. (Related: The Trump campaign’s simple plan to destroy Kamala Harris: Take her off the script)

“The problem is she has to win over independents in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona who want to see this country develop more energy and make us more energy-savvy. Independence,” McHenry continued. “She wanted to own her energy and she wanted to ban it.”

However, Harris could find politically viable solutions to public perceptions of fracking if she disavows her old positions and explains to voters what the White House experience was like (understanding, for example, how the war in Ukraine affected global energy markets). “She was trying to change her mind,” McHenry explained to DCNF.

Fracking, a technique for extracting oil and natural gas from certain underground rock formations, has fueled the U.S. natural gas boom, with U.S. natural gas consumption increasing between 2000 and 2023 as the U.S. becomes the global leader in LNG about 40%.

The Biden administration decided in January to freeze approvals of new LNG export terminals, a move that critics said was an effort to appease climate-conscious voters and deep-pocketed environmental interests ahead of the election.

“Climate change and banning fracking are at the heart of her 2020 campaign! I mean, she went on The Tonight Show and sang a song about it! No one except she's a climate fanatic Will believe anything,” political strategist and CNN on-air commentator Scott Jennings told DCNF. “She is the Greta of the U.S. government, and that should scare every energy worker in Pennsylvania and any American who would suffer because of her apparently radical views.”

Just weeks after announcing her candidacy, Harris had already secured the support of a major environmental group with deep pockets opposed to fracking. Meanwhile, two of the more radical groups in the environmental movement – the Sunrise Movement and the Climate Rebellion – have so far not received official recognition.

“If I think about the options for this November’s election, Kamala Harris is in many ways easier to apply pressure and change than a Donald Trump presidency,” Aru Heaney of the Sunrise Movement -Aru Shiney-Ajay said.

Climate Rebels protested against Harris with a disruptive demonstration and demanded a meeting with Harris to prove she is a candidate who can “usher in an era of fairness and sustainability.” The demands include ensuring that oil and gas infrastructure is no longer developed and terminating oil and gas leases on federally controlled lands and waters.

The political and electoral implications of Harris's erratic policy on fracking are most evident in Pennsylvania, a natural gas producer and a key swing state in the 2024 cycle. Former President Donald Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania in 2016 but lost to Biden in another close race in 2020; McHenry said the 2024 election in the state will be fiercely contested again. A new poll from Susquehanna Polling shows Harris favoring Trump by 4 points, with 7% of respondents unsure who they will support in November.

Pennsylvania produced more natural gas than any state except Texas in 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration; the natural gas industry directly or indirectly supported about 123,000 jobs in the state through 2022, according to an August 2023 FTI report Employment Opportunities Consulting for the Marcellus Shale Alliance. (Related: Will Joe Biden's gas moratorium cost Democrats in the Senate in November?)