Kamala Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket has energized the Democratic base and refocused Republican attack lines. With fewer than 100 days to go until the election, defining Kamala Harris will take place at break-neck speed. This Washington Examiner series will take a closer look at various aspects of her campaign and persona. Part Five is on “Kamala the climate hawk.” Read parts one, two, three, and four.
Vice President Kamala Harris once was the left’s dream “climate” candidate — calling for a ban on fracking, launching investigations into Big Oil companies, and cosponsoring the Green New Deal. But as she looks to win the White House, she has moved toward the center to win over votes in key energy states, while also seeking to retain support from environmentalist groups.
Since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has walked back her 2019 call to ban fracking. On Wednesday, she also reversed her stance on supporting a federal job guarantee, which was included in the Green New Deal resolution she once co-sponsored.
Harris’s policy reversals show a campaign split between courting environmentalists and industry interests within energy-focused states — blocs that could be essential to winning a campaign contest against a former president who once called climate change a “hoax” and pledged to roll back the administration’s environmental regulations.
One of those states is Pennsylvania, a critical swing state that accounts for more than 3% of all U.S. energy jobs, with a large portion of those occupations in fuel and natural gas. Many fossil fuel trade groups have argued that Harris’s record of going after the industry could alienate voters in this demographic.
“I call it Pennsylvania-pandering,” American Energy Institute founder and CEO Jason Isaac said of Harris’s recent campaign statements on fracking. “I really think all this is because she recognizes the importance of the electoral votes in Pennsylvania and Ohio.”
Still, Isaac acknowledged that Harris’s updated stance could move the needle in the fossil-fuels-heavy state.
“She’s got the momentum at this point in time, and I think if the election were today, Pennsylvania would be very close — and may even actually support her,” he said.
The purple state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, is in consideration to be Harris’s running mate, and his record could serve to balance her more left-leaning efforts.
A number of environmental groups have criticized Shapiro for being more friendly to the oil and gas industry. The American Petroleum Institute endorsed Shapiro’s 10-year economic plan of “leveraging our state’s abundant natural gas resources to help accelerate economic growth.”
Under Shapiro, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection lifted a 12-year moratorium on fracking to allow Coterra Energy to drill in the town of Dimock. This came two years after Shapiro, as attorney general, reached a plea agreement with Coterra over polluting the town’s water that included $16.3 million for the construction of a new public water line. Two years later, the water line is not built, residents still do not have clean running water, and Coterra was still allowed to drill, Inside Climate News reported.
In contrast, as the attorney general of California, Harris had a more antagonistic relationship with the fossil fuel industry. In 2016, she launched an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil lied to the public and shareholders about its contributions to climate change, and whether these actions violated financial and environmental laws.
She also sued the Plains All-American Pipeline in 2015 over an oil spill in Santa Barbara County, including 46 criminal charges. The company agreed to pay over $60 million in penalties and damages.
The perception of Harris as a forceful “climate litigator” has further cemented her inroads with green groups. A number of large environmental groups have come out in support of Harris following the announcement of her presidential bid, including the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund, the Sierra Club, and Clean Action for American Action.
Seven green groups that did not endorse Biden this cycle are now backing Harris. She was also able to secure the elusive endorsement of the Green New Deal Network, which never endorsed Biden.
On Thursday, the LCV announced it was pouring $2.5 million into its GreenRoots Member Mobilization Field Program to back Harris in battleground states, as well as Senate and House candidates.
But that is not to say that Harris has all climate voters in the bag. Climate Defiance, a youth-led climate activist group that has been staunchly critical of the Biden administration over its support for fossil fuels and Israel, is staying away from endorsing any candidate in the 2024 election, so as to not split the organization’s support between Harris and the Green Party candidate, Jill Stein. But while acknowledging where the vice president may fall short on climate policies, members of the organization did make an effort to note her liberal bona fides on the issue.
“She’s not the climate candidate,” Climate Defiance organizer Maxwell Downing said. “She has those progressive inclinations within her that would make her a candidate that we could move on climate.”
Since hitting the campaign trail, Harris has sought to align herself with the climate policies of the Biden administration. In a statement, a Harris campaign official touted her casting the tiebreaking vote on the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which authorized hundreds of billions of dollars of spending on subsidies for clean energy technologies. The question is how she could distinguish herself from Biden on the topics of energy and climate.
Downing noted that Harris’s policy platform could go further in clamping down on fossil fuels.
Isaac, on the other hand, noted there was still room for Harris to make inroads with fossil fuel groups – specifically oil majors, who have warmed to the Biden White House after years of acrimony.
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Dustin Meyer, the senior vice president of policy at the American Petroleum Institute, told the Washington Examiner that the group is open to working with Harris, questioned her vision for the industry, and admonished the administration’s efforts to pause new approvals of liquefied natural gas exports and to limit offshore oil and gas leasing.
“We think that those are all fundamentally misguided decisions, and we would hope that the next administration — be it from either party — would take a different path on those issues,” Meyer said.