One of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ climate advisors claimed Wednesday that Harris does not promote expanding fossil fuel production, despite the Vice President boasting about opening new fracking leases.
Harris embraced fossil fuels during the September presidential debate, touting that she “was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which opened new leases for fracking.” However, in an interview with Politico Pro, Harris’ “climate engagement director” Camila Thorndike stated that the Democratic nominee does not support fossil fuel “expansion,” but rather just opposes an outright ban on fracking.
“Just to be clear, Vice President Harris hasn’t said anything that the administration hasn’t already said,” Thorndike told Politico Pro. “She is not promoting expansion. She’s just said that they wouldn’t ban fracking and the fact that anyone could look up is that the IRA required leases, and that was not something that she promoted.”
Harris said in 2020 that there is “no question” fracking should be banned, but her campaign asserted in July that she no longer wanted to do away with the practice. The Vice President then went on to claim she’d actually disavowed the position since 2020 during an August interview with CNN host Dana Bash — a claim one of the network’s fact checkers disputed after the interview.
“Well, let’s be clear. My values have not changed,” Harris responded during the interview when asked why she changed her position on fracking. “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.”
Within weeks of the inception of the Biden-Harris administration in 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive ordereffectively prohibiting oil and gas leases on federal lands.
Moreover, the IRA — the White House’s signature climate law — mandated the federal government hold 60 million acres worth of offshore oil and gas leases in order to hold more offshore wind lease sales. The Biden-Harris administration then finalized the most restrictive oil and gas five-year leasing schedule in American history in December 2023.
Harris has been backed by a slew of hardline environmental groups that oppose fracking, including Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, Climate Hawks Vote, Clean Water Action and the Green New Deal Network.
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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