A fracking fracas on the debate stage?

Sep 09, 2024

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Donald Trump, a drilling rig in Springville, Pa and Kamala Harris

Fracking has suddenly leapt to the front burner ahead of tomorrow’s presidential debate.

No, not the curse word from a certain well-known sci-fi series. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both seized on the shorthand for hydraulic fracturing as they prepare to square off in Philadelphia and win over voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania.

Most paths to winning the presidency include the state’s 19 electoral votes. And fracking is important to Pennsylvania’s economy, not to mention its unions.

Harris says she no longer supports a fracking ban, which she called for in 2019 during her short-lived presidential campaign. Trump has seized on that reversal to accuse Harris of flip-flopping, while Harris has asserted that Trump is in the pocket of Big Oil and corporate donors.

But as I write today, fracking as rhetoric doesn’t really have much to do with fracking in reality. And as Ben Lefebvre notes, it’s become a stand-in for a much wider debate about energy and climate policy.

First, it bears noting here that the president can't ban fracking. That would require an act of Congress, which has not shown any interest in taking that step, not even when Democrats are in charge.

Fracking is also not a type of drilling; it's part of the process of building an oil and gas well. And it’s not new: The oil industry developed the process in the 1940s, though new fracking techniques fueled the oil and gas production boom of the last decade or so.

But as ClearView Energy Partners' Kevin Book explained to me, the political debate over fracking isn't really about the process of shoving water, sand and chemicals down a pipe at extremely high pressure to crack open rock and release oil and gas.

“The issue of a ban is really more of a symbolic statement,” said Book, managing director at the consulting firm. “What we’re really asking is, ‘What is the Harris position on oil and gas?’”

The next president will be deciding whether to slam the brakes on President Joe Biden's fight against climate change. That's what Trump wants to do — frack, baby, frack.

For Harris, any fracas onstage tomorrow night about fracking could yield some sought-after clues.

Biden made it clear in 2020 he wasn't for banning fracking. And Harris adopted his position after becoming his running mate. Now that she's at the top of the ticket, does she plan to follow Biden's approach on the broad array of energy policies — massive incentives for clean sources such as wind and solar coupled with tightened regulations on an oil industry that boasts record output? Or would she take steps that would accelerate a clean energy transition so quickly that it crimps oil and gas production??

Tune in tomorrow night to (maybe) find out.

It's Monday — thank you for tuning in to POLITICO's Power Switch. I'm your host, Mike Soraghan. Arianna will be back soon! Power Switch is brought to you by the journalists behind E&E News and POLITICO Energy. Send your tips, comments, questions to msoraghan@eenews.net.

Listen to today’s POLITICO Energy podcast

Today in POLITICO Energy’s podcast: David Ferris talks about the electric vehicle divide in Georgia and what it means for the presidential election.

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President Joe Biden speaks to guests during an event at the Vernon Electric Cooperative in Wisconsin.

President Joe Biden speaks to guests during an event at the Vernon Electric Cooperative on Thursday in Westby, Wisconsin. | Scott Olson/Getty Images

More green for electric co-ops
The Biden administration's $7.3 billion in clean energy funding for electric cooperatives is the culmination of a yearslong effort to move rural communities away from coal.

Five years ago, green groups and a handful of cooperatives started holding meetings aimed at identifying ways to pay for a green transition, Ben Storrow writes. In 2022, coal accounted for 30 percent of co-ops’ power generation compared to 20 percent nationally. That owes in part to their financial structure. Co-ops that borrow money to build power plants are reluctant to close a facility before the debt is paid off. And as nonprofits with no tax liability, they were unable to access federal tax credits for wind and solar power.

To help overcome those obstacles, Congress included a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that allows the government to pay co-ops directly to transition to renewable energy. That was seen in part as a way to keep co-ops from having to raise rates to pay for retiring coal plants.

Co-ops in Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and Arizona were among the recipients of 16 grants.

The Harris plan... sort of
Harris published a policy platform today that pledges to “tackle the climate crisis” but comes with few policy details, Timothy Cama reports.

The platform — dubbed “A New Way Forward” on Harris’ campaign website — promises to defend the Inflation Reduction Act, warning that it is at risk if Trump wins. Trump has promised to roll back environmental regulations en masse and increase oil and gas production.

"As President, she will unite Americans to tackle the climate crisis,” reads the platform. It nods to building resilience to climate disasters and lowering household energy costs.

Congress and the final stretch
Congress’ last three weeks in session before the November elections will be dominated by a scramble to extend government funding. Last-ditch efforts on energy and the environment are also expected, Andres Picon and Marc Heller report.

House Republicans intend to target Democratic energy and industrial policies, reports Emma Dumain. On the House floor this week, Republicans plan to debate H.R. 7980, which would impose a near-total ban on federal tax incentives for electric cars that contain battery materials from China.

In Other News

Electric fight: The nation's largest public utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority, is coming under fire for plans to build eight new natural gas-fired power plants as the Biden administration works to ramp down the grid's carbon pollution.

Here comes the sun: The U.S. has nearly quadrupled its capacity to produce solar panels since the Inflation Reduction Act was enacted, a new report finds.

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A flare burns excess methane from crude oil production at a well pad.

A flare burns excess methane from crude oil production at a well pad east of New Town, North Dakota, on May 18, 2021. | Matthew Brown/AP

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The oil and gas industry faces a bill of as much as $750 million when it starts paying a tax on methane next year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is driving a utility-scale solar boom, hosting more than half of the country's new solar capacity in recent months.

A major Nevada power line project designed to move solar power won approval from the Bureau of Land Management.

The president of National Grid New York talks about his three decades with the utility and its progress on emissions reduction.

That's it for today, folks! Thanks for reading.

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