August 30, 2024
(Bloomberg) – Vice President Kamala Harris stated she wouldn’t halt fracing if elected president, reversing her prior opposition to the method used to provide most U.S. oil and fuel in the present day.
Vice President Kamala Harris
“As vice chairman, I didn’t ban fracing,” Harris stated in an interview on CNN, her most definitive assertion on the problem since changing into the Democratic nominee. “As president, I can’t ban fracing.”
The problem looms giant for the Harris marketing campaign, particularly in Pennsylvania, which is each the second-largest U.S. producer of pure fuel and a key swing state. Harris’ shifting stance on the problem has offered a potent assault line for her Republican rival, Donald Trump, within the Keystone State. He has sought to solid her view as a part of an excessive strategy to power coverage that may price jobs and lift gasoline costs.
The U.S. can meet its local weather objectives with out imposing any type of fracing ban, Harris stated, pointing to the clear power incentives within the sweeping Inflation Discount Act as a option to drive progress on the problem. The 2022 legislation has triggered a wave of funding in manufacturing and deploying photo voltaic panels, batteries and different superior expertise.
“That tells me, from my expertise as vice chairman, we will do it with out banning fracing,” Harris stated.
Questions have swirled over the candidate’s place on the problem due to a press release she made at a CNN presidential discussion board throughout her short-lived 2019 bid for the White Home. Requested on the time if she would decide to a ban on fracing her first day in workplace, Harris stated to applause: “There’s no query I’m in favor of banning fracing.”
Harris later moderated her stance, becoming a member of with President Joe Biden calling for harder rules of the strategy.
Shortly after Biden dropped out of the presidential election in July and Harris grew to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, a marketing campaign spokesperson stated she wouldn’t ban fracing if elected.
Hydraulic fracturing entails pumping water, sand and chemical compounds underground to free oil and fuel from dense rock formations. It’s chargeable for the overwhelming majority of U.S. oil and fuel manufacturing in the present day — used at roughly 95% of the nation’s wells.
On Thursday, Harris took pains to level out her assist for the Inflation Discount Act, which included provisions meant to encourage extra oil and fuel leasing on federal lands and waters. The legislation made the federal government’s award of wind and photo voltaic rights on federal lands contingent on the sale of extra oil and fuel leases.
“I solid the tie-breaking vote that truly elevated leases for fracing as vice chairman,” she stated in the course of the interview Thursday. “So, I’m very clear about the place I’m standing.”