Harris said in 2020 there is "No question" she would end fracking if elected president, but her campaign recently told The Hill she no longer wants to outlaw the practice after videos of her endorsing a ban resurfaced following President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race.
The campaign can walk back Harris' old fracking position as it pleases, but it likely won't be enough to allay the concerns of crucial voting blocs - particularly more rural, blue-collar voters in Pennsylvania - that Harris may wage war on the industry or otherwise escalate Biden's climate agenda to their detriment if elected, political strategists and energy experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Harris could find a politically viable solution to her public perception problem on fracking if she were to disavow her old position and explain to voters that experiences in the White House - such as seeing how global energy markets were impacted by the Ukraine war - led her to change her mind, McHenry explained to the DCNF. Fracking is a technique for extracting oil and gas from certain underground rock formations, and it enabled a natural gas boom in the U.S., with American natural gas consumption increasing by approximately 40% between 2000 and 2023 as the U.S. became the global leader in liquefied natural gas exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Harris has already racked up endorsements from major, deep-pocketed environmental organizations that oppose fracking just weeks after announcing her candidacy.
"If I'm looking at the options around the election this November, there's a lot of ways in which Kamala Harris will be immensely easier to pressure and change on that than a Donald Trump presidency would," Aru Shiney-Ajay, the Sunrise Movement's executive director, told reporters Monday, according to Politico.
Climate Defiance, which has protested against Harris with one of its disruptive demonstrations, has made demands for Harris to meet to demonstrate that she is a candidate who can "Usher in an era of equity and sustainability." The demands include ensuring that there is no more oil and gas infrastructure development and ending oil and gas leasing on federally-controlled lands and waters.
Selecting Shapiro could cause problems for Harris in other states and isolate voting blocs she needs to win due to his support of Israel and criticisms of pro-Palestinian activists, McHenry told the DCNF. "Bob Casey and Kamala Harris have opposed Pennsylvania energy every step of the way, and their anti-fossil fuel agenda would be disastrous for our commonwealth and the 600,000 workers who rely on the energy sector for a paycheck," McCormick said in a statement shared with the DCNF. "Banning fracking and abolishing the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal may be popular among the far-left, but here in Pennsylvania these radical proposals are radically out of step with the needs of working families."
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