Dear Pennsylvania: Harris 100% Supports Fracking (Unless She Doesn’t)

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In most of America, fracking isn’t a kitchen table issue except maybe when gas prices are rising — and that’s a pretty hard maybe. The typical American family probably doesn’t care much how the oil comes out of the ground as long as gas is under $3.

But that’s not true in Pennsylvania, where fracking and related industries generate billions in revenue for the state, billions more in wages, and support something like 450,000 jobs, directly and indirectly. Fracking in Pennsylvania is a kitchen table issue — and one that Kamala Harris and her campaign surrogates seem determined to flub.

So kudos to CNN’s Andy Kaczynski for catching Harris in a genuine GOTCHA! moment.

Harris campaign aide seems to be walking back her support for fracking on campaign trail – a top climate campaign staffer told PoliticoPro notes she’s not promoting expanding it and said she didn’t promote increased leases for fracking in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

But… pic.twitter.com/EqFKgNg0nR

— Andy Kaczynski (@KFILE) October 21, 2024

“But Harris has repeatedly cited the IRA leases in campaign events to shore up her bonafides on fracking,” Kaczynski added.

The Harris camp’s Climate Engagement Director (really!), Camila Thorndike, tried to walk back the walk-back: “I didn’t explain myself clearly here. Contrary to Trump’s claims, the VP has not banned fracking, doesn’t support banning fracking, and in fact cast the tie-breaking vote on the biggest pro-climate law ever, which, yes, opened new fracking leases. People know that’s her position.”

Actually, what people know is that Harris’s positions change to meet the needs of the moment: Harris supported the Green New Deal. Now, she’s promoting domestic oil drilling.

That’s the headline from a September report published by those right-wing nuts at [checks notes] the Los Angeles Times.

To be fair to Harris (as much as that pains me), this is one of those issues, like the Israeli-Gaza-Hezbollah War, where she has no easy outs. On the one hand, the Democrats’ vocal and powerful Green New Deal faction demands its daily genuflection to Gaia — including a fracking ban. On the other hand, there’s almost zero way for Harris to win without Pennsylvania.

Is she a hypocrite? Allow me to twist the words of the best man to lose his one shot at the White House, Barry Goldwater, to suit today’s Democrats: “Extremism in defense of statism is no virtue. And hypocrisy in pursuit of power is no vice.”

Another day, another hypocrisy. Pennsylvania voters know their state depends on fracking, and the Harris campaign’s clumsy attempts to play both sides can’t be reassuring.

Let me wrap this up with a broader observation, something that’s been nagging at me for a while now but finally came into focus this week.

In this business — or even just for readers like you who maybe spend more time online than most — there are few things more satisfying than catching a politician in some flagrant hypocrisy. But over the years, the thrill has become more fleeting because it quickly turns to frustration.

Because they just don’t care. “Did what I say today flatly contradict what I said yesterday? What of it? If what I said yesterday helped my pursuit of power and money and if what I said today did, too, then what’s the problem?”

The press is supposed to hound them for hypocrisies but (if you’re a Democrat) that seldom happens any longer.

We’ve rarely had more power to catch politicians in their lies and hypocrisies but it’s rarely mattered less. Small, independent outlets like PJ Media won’t let up, but we do need help.