Harris does not support fracking ban: Campaign official

by Rachel Frazin - 07/26/24 5:59 PM ET

Vice President Kamala Harris will not seek to ban fracking if she’s elected president, an official with her campaign told The Hill on Friday.

Harris’s position not to support a ban on fracking differs from where she stood when she was running for president last cycle.

While she was one of several Democrats vying for the 2020 nomination, she told CNN, “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”

However, since that time, she joined the Biden campaign and administration, neither of which supports a ban on fracking

Since Harris became the party’s likely nominee after Biden dropped out of the race, Republicans, including former President Trump, have highlighted her 2019 stance.

“She wants no fracking,” Trump told supporters this week during a rally in Charlotte, N.C. “You’re going to be paying a lot of money. You’re going to be paying so much. You’re going to say ‘bring back Trump.’”

A spokesperson for Harris’s campaign pushed back, saying, “Trump’s false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.”

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“The Biden-Harris Administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation and under their leadership, America now has the highest ever domestic energy production,” the spokesperson said in an email. “This Administration created 300,000 energy jobs, while Trump lost nearly a million and his Project 2025 would undo the enormous progress we’ve made the past four years.”

Project 2025, a plan from the Heritage Foundation think tank, is not directly affiliated with the Trump campaign. Though portions of it are written by former Trump administration officials, Trump has sought to distance himself from it.

Fracking is a technique for extracting oil and gas that has been linked to water contamination and other pollution. Candidates’ positions on the issue may impact their standing in Pennsylvania, a key swing state that is also a major gas producer.