Editor's note: This piece was co-authored by H. Sterling Burnett
Vice President Kamala Harris is trying her best to convince voters that she is not against hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas, commonly called fracking.
This is because despite media attempts to slander fracking, most people are actually smart enough to realize that it is essential for unlocking hard-to-produce hydrocarbons, especially in the tight shales that grace Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and other states. Most Americans are also likely aware that fracking has been responsible for huge increases in natural gas and oil production, absent which energy prices would have climbed even higher and faster than they have under the Biden-Harris administration.
In contrast to past statements she made, claiming that she would ban fracking, Harris now says she doesn’t support a fracking ban at the federal level. However, this is a red herring because the vast majority of fracking occurs on private and state land that the president has no authority over anyway. What Harris can and has done is support and push for more regulations, expanding on those the Biden/Harris administration imposed during the past four years, like increasingly strict methane regulations and monitoring, slow walking oil and gas permits on federal lands, and canceling lease sales.
One must remember that Harris has not disavowed the policies the current administration has already imposed, which have made it more difficult to frack, develop, and ship oil and gas in general. Previously, Harris pledged to criminally charge oil companies for their supposed role in anthropogenic climate change. What’s more, she has been clear that her values haven’t changed.
One can also tease out her unchanging values by whom she chooses as her staff and advisors. Harris’ engagement director has called oil and gas workers "ecoterrorists" and wrote on X, "Onwards with the clean energy revolution. Down with the fossil dictators and oligarchs. Let’s electrify everything.” To date, Kamala has not disavowed this woman or her inflammatory statements.
Harris has also claimed that she participated in every major policy discussion during Biden’s presidency, and that she even got the last word on several significant decisions.
With that being said, fracking isn’t the only energy related issue that should cause voters to question Harris’ judgment. Harris, if we trust what she said about being a major policy influence during Biden’s administration, must have been more than aware of the recent liquified natural gas (LNG) export pause, which has harmed our economy and our allies in Europe alike. Harris was also simpatico with Biden’s killing of the Keystone XL pipeline project on her very first day as vice president, costing the United States tens of thousands of jobs and undermining American energy security. Moreover, Harris was also in line with Biden’s misguided decision to ban oil and gas production on millions of acres of federal land, and must have known about the record low issuance of energy production leases.
These are just a few of the actions Harris and Biden took to spitefully hurt the oil and gas industry in America, which served no purpose but to prop up our enemies abroad and massively increase American energy costs. In fact, U.S. households have paid more than $2,500 since 2021 in higher energy costs because of the Biden-Harris administration’s energy policies. For those who use home heating oil, they are paying an extra $3,000 in added costs. The U.S. economy is estimated to have lost more than a billion dollars per year because of these silly policies.
Last summer, the entire Democrat establishment attempted to gaslight the American public on whether or not they were seeking to ban gas stoves and other gas appliances. The Biden-Harris administration claimed that they were not going after your stove, water heaters, etc. However, they floated the idea of banning gas hookups in new construction, the way New York City and other Democrat strongholds have, which is a de-facto ban. After that failed, they tried to push extreme and unnecessary efficiency standards that would result in the ban of 96 percent of stoves and many other appliances—yet another “backdoor” ban attempt. All the while, Harris and Biden have continued to claim they are not trying to ban stoves.
Harris is in office right now, and the administration she is part of is currently pushing policies that would make natural gas hookup availability in a home something that disqualifies you from getting a mortgage from the Federal Housing Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Why hasn’t Harris acted to stop this assault on natural gas and American home ownership?
Each step of the way, Harris has supported, not acted to halt, policies that the current administration advocated that make American home ownership more difficult and expensive, that make everything more expensive. Her choice of advisors proves that she is even more extreme than Biden. A brief scroll through the Harris campaign’s climate change director, Camila Thorndike’s, X page is enough to show precisely what a Harris administration would sound like on energy issues. Here’s a hint, it’s not exactly focused on affordability and reliability.
Kamala Harris’ actions and inactions on energy and climate speak far louder than her recent words. Simply put, voters shouldn’t let her get away with lying about what she believes and would do with regards to energy policy.
Her values haven’t changed. How do we know? She tells us so.
Linnea Lueken (llueken@heartland.org, X: @LinneaLueken) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D., (hsburnett@heartland.org) is the Director of the Robinson Center.