Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wants to make it crystal clear: If she's elected president, she won't put a stop to fracking, the drilling technique she once opposed prior to becoming vice president. At the same time, she will be holding firm on making progress on the green energy front.
"As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking," Harris told CNN during an interview on Thursday.
Her promise comes after her opponent former President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized her during recent rallies in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania for changing her stance on fracking since 2019, when she said in a democratic debate, "There's no question I'm in favor of banning fracking."
Not only is Pennsylvania a crucial swing state, it's also the second-largest producer of natural gas, behind Texas, according to government data.
“Pennsylvania knows what happens when steel and coal went away; they’re not going to let natural gas go away,” Ed Hirs, senior fellow at the University of Houston, told Yahoo Finance on Friday.
Recent polling shows the vast majority of voters in battleground states, including Pennsylvania, believe producing more natural gas and oil could help lower energy and utility costs.
"She sees that her old views aren’t where the American public is," Tim Tarpley, president of trade association Energy Workforce and Technology Council, told Yahoo Finance on Friday.
Despite her clarification, Tarpley points to efforts by the Biden administration to slow down oil and gas production, such as increasing the cost for oil companies drilling on federal land and the pause on approvals of new licenses to export US liquefied natural gas, a measure that was later successfully challenged in court.
“OK, you’ve clarified you’ve not going to ban fracking. That’s one part of the much bigger puzzle. Where do you see energy production going in the next four years? And that we haven’t yet had those discussions," said Tarpley.
Trump repeatedly brings up a promise to "drill, baby, drill" in order to lower the cost of gas and electricity. But Harris's lack of details on an energy plan in her economic proposal — and during appearances — has been noted.
Leading up to Thursday's comments, both industry watchers and Harris supporters underscored that her history over the past four years made it unlikely she would go after fracking.
"The idea that Kamala Harris was always against natural gas is just wrong. She's been vice president for almost four years and we have record oil and gas production. That's not what I'd like to see, but it's just a fact," Leah Stokes, Anton Vonk associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said in a recent interview.
Harris's explanation of her position change may have put to rest the topic while still keeping her core position on a greener climate.
"My values have not changed. I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate. And to do that, we can do what we have accomplished thus far," said Harris
She pointed to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration's biggest piece of green energy legislation aimed at accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles and other renewable technologies.
"What we’ve already done, creating over 300,000 new clean energy jobs, that tells me from my experience as vice president we can do it without banning fracking," she said on Thursday.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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