Voters in battleground Pennsylvania aren't buying Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s promise to not ban fracking, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
The last time Harris ran for president, in 2019, she was a vocal advocate of outlawing the practice, saying, "There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking" during a CNN town hall. As a senator, she also sponsored the Green New Deal, which includes a ban on fracking.
Harris’s new campaign, without explaining the candidate’s shift in thinking, said the vice president will not ban fracking, but swing-state Pennsylvania voters—whose livelihoods largely rely on the state’s fossil energy industry—aren’t buying her change of heart.
Emanuel Paris, a Pennsylvania resident with a sustainability degree whose family owns a 400-employee construction firm, told the Post he will be voting for former president Donald Trump this November, calling Harris’s fracking flip-flip a "grab for votes."
"It’s not like we can just shut off everything else and switch to solar and wind," Paris told the Post. He also condemned numerous Biden-Harris administration policies he believes are hampering growth in the local energy sector, such as permit restrictions and unmanageable regulations.
The natural gas industry in Pennsylvania has heavily enhanced the state’s infrastructure and public works in areas that had earlier been in steep, steady decline. Fracking efforts in the state employed 121,000 Pennsylvanians working in 2022, according to an industry-funded study by FTI Consulting, with an average salary of more than $97,000, the Post reported.
Other Keystone State natives expressed their distaste for Harris’s fracking sentiments and questioned her energy policy.
"Whether she likes it or not, she said it, and that gets remembered," Jeff Nobers, executive director of a coalition of union and business leaders, told the Post. "There’s already uncertainty with just what does she believe, what she would do," he said. "And if she doesn’t support a ban on fracking, what is her energy policy plan?"
"Banning fracking?" Dave Hunter, owner of Smokin’ Steer BBQ in Ellwood City, added. "Why would you ever be talking about that?"
Pennsylvania is seen by many political analysts as a "must-win" state for Harris this November. Harris, a Californian with a long record of fighting the oil and gas sector, will likely have a harder time in Pennsylvania than President Joe Biden, who only won the state by 81,000 votes in 2020.
Harris also passed over tapping the state’s governor, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate. Instead, she opted for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who signed a law mandating that his state’s electricity grid run entirely on green energy by 2040.