Vitality trade leaders are pushing for Vice President Kamala Harris to make clear her stance on fossil gas manufacturing within the remaining days of the presidential race, citing fears that she would prohibit manufacturing and add on to 4 years of complicated coverage beneath President Biden.
These considerations reached a fever pitch final week after senior marketing campaign local weather adviser Camila Thorndike mentioned in an interview that Harris has no plans to advertise fracking in workplace. The remarks, since walked again, sparked backlash and criticism from Republicans and trade teams, who re-upped their requires readability from the vice chairman.
Many considered the now-retracted remark as an indication she would crack down on fracking. This might price Harris massive time in Pennsylvania – the second-largest U.S. pure fuel producer behind Texas, and a key swing state with 19 electoral votes out for provide within the presidential race.
Harris did little to assuage voters in her city corridor occasion Wednesday night time. She denied that she had beforehand endorsed a fracking ban whereas looking for the presidency in 2019 – when she mentioned there was “no query” she is in favor of banning fracking – and as an alternative pointed to her latest endorsement of the observe.
She has additionally repeatedly famous her tie-breaking vote for the Inflation Discount Act, or the Democratic-led laws that opened new lease gross sales for fracking.
BIDEN SEEKS TO CEMENT LEGACY ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN REMAINING MONTHS AS PRESIDENT
An LNG terminal in Texas is proven right here. Vice President Kamala Harris’ stand on pure fuel and different fossil fuels is unclear, complain some within the power trade. (Lindsey Janies/Bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs)
Nevertheless, even within the Keystone State, fuel teams stay skeptical as trade leaders word that with simply days left earlier than the election, Harris has carried out little to spell out how she would lead on oil and fuel points, particularly on the subject of problems with fracking – a vital know-how to extract pure fuel in Pennsylvania.
As a substitute, one statewide trade group mentioned, her remarks have solely impressed “extra fracking confusion.”
Harris “was in opposition to it earlier than she was for it. Or is it the opposite means round now?” a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Vitality Infrastructure Alliance quipped of Harris’s fracking flip-flops in a weblog publish Wednesday.
Harris “continues to offer blended messages about her place on fracking – a difficulty central to voters in battleground states like Pennsylvania,” a spokesperson for Develop America’s Infrastructure Now Coalition instructed Fox Information in an announcement.
Whereas Harris has mentioned she would “not ban fracking,” the group mentioned, “there’s a distinct distinction between not banning fracking, and selling power manufacturing.”
KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE VOTER REGISTRATION DATA SHOWS INFLUENTIAL SHIFTS FAVORING GOP
Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris speaks throughout a CNN Presidential City Corridor at Solar Middle Studios on Oct. 23, 2024 in Aston, Pennsylvania. (Picture by Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs)
“Because the Harris marketing campaign travels via Pennsylvania … it stays to be seen whether or not she is going to make clear her place,” they added.
Successful Pennsylvania might require an embrace of fossil gas manufacturing. The state is the second-largest pure fuel producer within the U.S. and boasts a fuel trade that helps greater than 120,000 state jobs and provides roughly $41 billion yearly to the state’s economic system.
“It is apparent that the pathway to the presidency goes via Pennsylvania,” Amanda Eversole, the chief working officer of the American Petroleum Institute, instructed Fox Information earlier this month.
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Harris, thus far, has ignored calls to make clear her actual coverage positions on power manufacturing, which was a heated matter in the course of the Biden administration.
Her latest stump speeches in Pennsylvania have leaned closely on the historic ranges of U.S. oil and fuel manufacturing reached beneath President Biden – even though this manufacturing was largely a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I’m proud that as vice chairman during the last 4 years, we’ve got invested a trillion {dollars} in a clear power economic system whereas we’ve got additionally elevated home fuel manufacturing to historic ranges,” Harris mentioned in latest marketing campaign remarks.
The U.S. Oil and Fuel Affiliation described Harris’s view on social media as the most recent “change in her prior, prior, place.”
BIDEN SEEKS TO CEMENT LEGACY ON CLIMATE CHANGE IN REMAINING MONTHS AS PRESIDENT
Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks throughout a city corridor in Malvern, Pennsylvania. (AP Picture/Jacquelyn Martin)
Republicans additionally used it to grab on their wins in Pennsylvania, the place Democrats have struggled to realize momentum in latest weeks– together with each Harris and down-ballot candidates, corresponding to Sen. Bob Casey.
When requested for a remark Wednesday, a spokesperson for former President Donald Trump’s marketing campaign seized on Thorndike’s latest remarks, telling Fox Information in an announcement that they solely “cement the fact” that “the one candidate on this race who will unleash Pennsylvania power to chop utility payments and gas American development is [Trump].”
Former U.S. Vitality Secretary Rick Perry additionally criticized the interview and the confusion swirling round Harris’s coverage positions so near Election Day.
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“With the election lower than 2 weeks out, the latest feedback from Harris’ local weather director are regarding,” Perry instructed Fox Information in an announcement.
“Calling the oil and fuel trade ‘ecoterrorists’ is insulting to the tens of millions of power employees throughout the nation, and the Vice President ought to disavow these excessive feedback,” he mentioned. “Voters from PA, OH, and WI ought to imagine Vice President Harris the primary time she vowed to ban fracking.”
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