Bill McKibben, perhaps America’s leading environmentalist, advised his fellow progressives to give Vice President Kamala Harris a break on the issue of fracking to help her chances of becoming president, according to Bloomberg News.
McKibben, an ardent opponent of fossil fuels, urged progressive voters to look past Harris’ newfound support for fracking because Pennsylvania — where natural gas plays a major economic role — will be a crucial battleground in the 2024 election, according to Bloomberg News. As a candidate for the presidency in 2019, Harris was adamant that she supported banning fracking, but she has pivoted away from that position in the weeks since she became the de facto Democratic nominee in July.
Where Does Kamala Stand on the Fracking Issue?
‘Cleaning Up Kamala’ exposes how the media flip-flopped for Kamala Harris just in time for the 2024 Presidential election.
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“Look, it doesn’t make me happy, but it’s obvious why we need to cut her slack here,” McKibben said Tuesday in Rhinebeck, New York, Bloomberg News reported. “This election’s going to be decided most likely in Pennsylvania. That’s an accident of history that Pennsylvania also happens to have a lot of fracking in it.”
McKibben joins a growing list of hardline anti-fracking environmentalists that are backing Harris despite her change in position, a trend that indicates she could end up doing what they want if elected, pundits and energy experts previously explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Pennsylvania produced more natural gas than any state in the country other than Texas in 2022, according to the Energy Information Administration. The natural gas industry directly and indirectly supported about 123,000 jobs in the state as of 2022, according to an August 2023 report prepared by FTI Consulting for the Marcellus Shale Coalition.
Harris has repeatedly touted her tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as evidence that she supports fracking because the bill included some provisions that essentially require oil and gas development on federal lands and waters. However, the administration slow-walked or undercut the oil and gas leasing that the law requires in exchange for progress on green energy leases, while federal bureaucrats made multiple moves to crack down on oil and gas development across large swaths of the country.
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