Kamala Harris tries to navigate the convoluted politics of oil and gas
Drill, Democrats, drill?
Jonathan Thompson
September 26, 2024

During the Sept. 10 presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris not only walked back her 2020 vow to “end fracking once and for all,” but seemed to embrace the technology, bragging about record oil and gas production under the Biden administration’s watch.

It was a sharp blow to climate advocates, whose reactions ranged from outright dismay and bewilderment to deflated resignation. Was Harris saying this in a clumsy attempt to appeal to a wider range of voters? Or had four years in the executive branch genuinely moderated her views?

Either way, it displayed the treacherous nature of oil and gas politics, especially for progressives. Republicans can please their base simply by chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill,” as meaningless as the mantra might be. Democrats, however, must walk a fine and wavy and often contradictory line to avoid alienating environmentalists, their oil-state colleagues and the voting public.

The debate was held in Pennsylvania, one of the nation’s largest natural gas producers and both a beneficiary and a victim of what’s come to be known as “fracking,” a combination of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing that targets previously unrecoverable oil and gas in shale formations. So it makes sense to see Harris’ about-face on the issue as a “sprint to the center” to appeal to voters in the battleground state. That was surely part of it, anyhow.

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