The Harris campaign unveiled an explanation of her positions on energy issues on Monday, and the euphemistic language used signals that she has not truly moderated her views, according to energy experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
After Vice President Harris and her team mostly avoided divulging specifics about her policy stances for weeks, the campaign’s website debuted an “issues” page the day before the only scheduled debate of the 2024 presidential race. The energy section of her “issues” page does not include a single specific policy position and instead features a heavy dose of vague, euphemistic language meant to disguise her views on energy and environmental issues as more moderate than they truly are, energy experts told the DCNF.
The campaign’s explanation of Harris’ energy views is “the sort of political gibberish designed to muddy a record,” Dan Kish, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF. “Instead of trying to please everyone by being obtuse, she should just level with voters about her record, and hers is a record of making energy more expensive, less reliable and pushing to ban the kinds of energy we use the most because it meets people’s needs and family budgets. Her energy plan isn’t working in Europe, California or anywhere else it’s being pushed by politicians, no matter what she says.”
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In a section of her issues page describing her plans to “Lower Energy Costs and Tackle The Climate Crisis,” the campaign states that Harris wants to “unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis” while building upon President Joe Biden’s energy agenda.
“As Attorney General, Kamala Harris won tens of millions in settlements against Big Oil and held polluters accountable. As Vice President, she cast the tie-breaking vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate action in history,” the website reads. “This historic work is lowering household energy costs, creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality clean energy jobs, and building a thriving clean energy economy, all while ensuring America’s energy security and independence with record energy production.”
“As President, she will unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis as she builds on this historic work, advances environmental justice, protects public lands and public health, increases resilience to climate disasters, lowers household energy costs, creates millions of new jobs, and continues to hold polluters accountable to secure clean air and water for all,” the website continues. “As the Vice President said at the international climate conference, COP28, she knows that meeting this global challenge will require global cooperation and she is committed to continuing and building upon the United States’ international climate leadership. She and Governor Walz will always fight for the freedom to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live free from the pollution that fuels the climate crisis.”
The issue of fracking is notably absent from the Harris campaign’s section on energy. Harris endorsed a fracking ban in 2019 while running for president the first time, and she told CNN host Dana Bash that she no longer wants to outlaw the technique during her first and only sit-down interview to date since becoming the de facto Democratic nominee in late July.
“I think it really goes to the first thing she says there, that ‘this historic work is lowering household energy costs.’ There is no example anywhere of anything in the Inflation Reduction Act reducing any costs anywhere,” Steve Milloy, a senior legal fellow at the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, told the DCNF. “Wind and solar don’t lower electricity costs. They have only raised electricity costs, and that’s just a historic fact … where is her position on fracking? Because it’s not in here.”
Other specific left-wing positions she has taken on environmental and energy issues prior to her second run for the Oval Office include co-sponsoring the Green New Deal as a senator, calling for the abolition of plastic straws, suggesting she’s open to adjusting dietary guidelines to try to get Americans to eat less red meat and supporting a carbon tax.
The Harris campaign did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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