Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump say they don’t want to get rid of fracking, but that seems to be where their similarities end when it comes to their positions on the environment.
Harris turned around and took the fracking stance. While running for president in 2019, she said she wanted to ban fracking, but changed her mind when she became President Joe Biden’s running mate. Now she says she wouldn’t ban fracking if elected president.
“Let’s talk about fracking because we’re here in Pennsylvania,” Harris said during last month’s presidential debate in Philadelphia. “I have made it clear that I will not introduce a fracking ban in 2020. As vice president of the United States, he did not ban fracking. … My position is that we need to invest in a variety of energy sources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”
Pennsylvania is a key swing state in this year’s election and one of the nation’s largest producers of natural gas.
Trump, who immediately noted Harris’ change in stance on fracking, says he wants to augment fracking leases on federal lands.
“We’re going to drill, baby, drill,” Trump said during the Republican National Convention over the summer.
Despite the change in stance on fracking, Save Ohio Parks does not believe it will harm Harris.
“I think I personally see it as a way to soften her stance,” she said Melinda Zemper, volunteer at Save Ohio Parks. “Harris has supported clean energy in the past, so we see her as more flexible when it comes to crafting an energy policy that is aggressive enough to ensure that our children and grandchildren can exist on a livable planet.”
Fracking is the process of injecting fluid under high pressure into the ground to extract oil or gas. It has been documented in more than 30 states, according to the report Center for Biological Diversity. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, Vermont, New York, Maryland, Washington and California ban fracking.
According to A from a recent Pew Research Center study44% of Americans support increasing oil and gas fracking in the United States, while 53% oppose it. The United States is producing more oil AND natural gas than ever before and much more than in any other country.
Drilling companies can frack in Ohio state parks and The Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission has granted rights to a number of oil and gas companies to frack under land owned by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
According to data, between 2018 and September 2023, there were more than 1,400 fracking incidents related to oil and gas drilling in Ohio FracTracker Alliance — a nonprofit organization that collects data on fracking pipelines. About 10% of these incidents were reported as fires or explosions.
“You end up taking places like the Appalachian Mountains, eastern Ohio, southeastern Ohio and, frankly, making them a sacrifice zone in the name of resource colonization,” said Ted Auch, Fractracker Alliance Midwest Program Director. “INWe did it with coal, we do it with steel, we do it with wood, and now we do it with oil and gas.
Without congressional support, the president has no ability to ban fracking. However, the president can influence fracking on federal lands, Auch said.
“From my perspective, Democrats talk the huge game, end up doing very little in terms of pushing for a renewable future, and are more polite and circumspect in how they do business, while Republicans let’s say the silent part out thunderous, but ultimately both sides are dependent to varying degrees on the fossil fuel industry,” he said.
Harris
When Harris was attorney general of California, she resulted in criminal liability towards an entity dealing in fossil fuels for the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill.
As vice president, she cast the deciding vote in favor of the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act. As a result, 109,000 families in Ohio saved over $150 million in immaculate energy investments and 18 projects in Ohio received $7.1 billion in investments, says Save Ohio Parks.
“She has a very good background in terms of our climate, environment and things like that that would influence what she said about fracking,” said Cathy Cowan Becker, a steering committee member at Save Ohio Park.
Biden tried to stop drilling on modern public lands, but his order to halt leasing was overturned by a federal judge.
Trump
Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, but Biden rejoined it An agreement was reached on the first day in office. Trump also rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations during his four years in office.
Many times Trump hacalls climate change a “hoax,” and Save Ohio Parks fears that if Trump were elected, fracking would augment in Ohio.
“Trump doesn’t control what happens at the state level, but he sets the tone at the federal level,” Becker said. “We are literally looking at an uninhabitable planet if Trump wins.”
Under Trump, the federal government has leased more land for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska and Utah.
Project 2025written by the Heritage Foundation would make a significant difference Environmental Protection Agency, changes the Department of the Interior and talks about breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the parent agency of the National Weather Service.
“Frankly, what is described in this document for these agencies is quite appalling,” Auch said.
Project to change the president defines the first 180 days of the next right-wing administration’s term in office. Although Trump has tried to distance himself from it, several former Trump administration officials helped create Project 2025.
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