With less than two weeks until Election Day, Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign committed what critics called an unforced error on fracking.
In a recent interview with Politico, the Harris campaign’s new climate engagement director, Camila Thorndike, said voters concerned about climate change shouldn’t fear a Harris presidency.
“(Harris) is not promoting expansion (of fossil fuel drilling). She’s just said that they wouldn’t ban fracking,” Thorndike said.
That appeared to take Harris back to her original and long-held position of opposing expanded fossil fuel use. Harris famously promised to ban fracking during her 2020 run for the White House. Harris reversed course once she became the Democratic nominee for president, telling CNN in August, “I will not ban fracking.”
After Thorndike’s comments caught the attention of the Trump campaign, Thorndike posted an updated statement on social media declaring Harris “doesn’t support banning fracking.” She repeated Harris’s comment from last month’s presidential debate that her tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act “opened new fracking leases.”
Energy groups said Thorndike’s comment proves Harris can’t be trusted.
“Wait! Change of plan from earlier this morning,” the U.S. Oil and Gas Association posted on social media. “As of this afternoon, Harris now supports fracking which is a change of position from this morning in which they opposed fracking. … Which was a change from their July position in which they supported fracking. … Which was a change from their June position in which they … opposed fracking. Got it? Got it.”
The reaction was negative in Pennsylvania, where fracking is a significant part of the state’s energy industry.
“The entire Harris campaign is a con,” scoffed Pennsylvania Manufacturers Association president and CEO David N. Taylor.
American Petroleum Institute Executive Vice President Amanda Eversole said Harris’s fracking declaration meant nothing.
“You can say ‘I support fracking’ and still not provide any new lease sales, either onshore, in federal waters or on federal lands, which account for 25 percent of production,” she said.
The White House approved three offshore oil and gas lease sales through 2029. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said those sales were so the department could start supporting the offshore wind industry.
No offshore oil and gas leases were approved this year. The White House previously canceled all leases given out by the Trump administration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
President Biden announced a “temporary pause” on new liquid natural gas exports and export terminals in January. He cited climate change as the reason. A National Association of Manufacturers study said the LNG pause threatened 900,000 jobs. A federal judge overruled the pause months later.
“(A Harris administration is) going to be exactly like the Biden administration, which is very very antidomestic oil and gas and very combative against the industry,” said energy consultant Trisha Curtis of PetroNerds.
Despite the administrative headaches, the energy industry made the United States the world’s largest producer of crude oil last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Russia ranked second, followed by Saudi Arabia.
The United States also led the world in natural gas production, primarily because of Europe pivoting from Russian natural gas due to the war in Ukraine.
However, Taylor said any gains by the oil and gas industry during the Biden-Harris administration were “despite the administration’s actions, not because of them.”
Energy groups see natural gas as key for future economic growth. A Marcellus Shale Coalition analysis found the industry generated $40 billion of economic activity and supported more than 123,000 jobs in 2022 in Pennsylvania. Those jobs paid an average of $97,482 annually.
Donald Trump consistently promotes his oil and gas position during Pennsylvania rallies as he seeks the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.
“On day one, I will tell Pennsylvania energy workers to frack, frack, frack, and drill, drill, drill, baby, drill,” he said at a recent rally in Scranton. That message may be working.
Polls show Trump leading Harris in Pennsylvania by about a point, according to the RealClearPolitics poll average.
Curtis says the Harris campaign has an identity crisis as it tries to explain previous positions. “(Harris became) basically a centrist Republican overnight. … It’s not genuine and it’s not truthful.”
Taylor Millard writes about politics and public policy for InsideSources.com.
