We Got a Real Conversation About Energy Policy at the Debate

About 40 minutes into the first (and perhaps only) debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, the vice president was asked about her changing stances on a variety of issues since her ill-fated 2019 run for president — in particular, her previous vow to ban fracking.

Debating in Pennsylvania, the nation’s second-largest natural gas producer, Harris stated that she no longer supports this ban. “I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States, and in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking,” she said, much as she put it on CNN recently. She went on, though: “My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil,” Harris said. “We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot rely on foreign oil.”

The Harris campaign capitalized on this moment to post a chart on X showing the increase in average monthly energy production under the Biden administration compared to Trump’s, citing data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Trump wasn’t buying Harris’ about-face, though, claiming Harris will “never allow fracking in Pennsylvania.” He went on to say that when Democrats took over in 2020, they tried to “get rid” of oil production, tying this to the increase in gasoline prices.

The U.S. has been the world’s largest producer of natural gas since 2011 and the largest producer of petroleum since 2018. Biden’s presidency has seen a boom in all types of U.S. energy production, including renewables.

Since Harris joined the Biden ticket 2020, she has distanced herself from her previous stance on fracking, particularly her comment in a 2019 CNN town hall that “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”

Much of the increase in oil prices during the Biden administration came from supply chain disruptions in the wake of Covid, when demand and thus production plummeted, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which caused a price spike as Biden banned imports of Russian oil and natural gas. (Oil prices currently are near a three-year low.) Harris is correct that the IRA did indeed open up new leases for fossil fuels — the law now requires the government to hold auctions for millions of acres of onshore and offshore oil and gas leases prior to opening auctions for renewables. Joe Manchin, the senator from West Virginia and the deciding vote on the IRA, has even boasted that the legislation has allowed the U.S. to produce fossil fuels at record levels.

Whether or not this is something to brag about is something Democrats will have to decide amongst themselves. But for the purpose of this debate, Harris hopes it’s enough to assure swing state voters that she’s no climate absolutist — and that, as of now at least, oil and fossil fuels are far from dead.