WASHINGTON — Critics of former President Donald Trump are calling him out for shifting the conversation around abortion rights, while Trump accuses his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris of doing the same when it comes to hydraulic fracking.
Fracking is the controversial drilling process to extract oil and natural gas.
At a rally last week in Pennsylvania, Trump not only promoted the expansion of the oil and gas industry, he criticized Harris for reversing her position on fracking.
“She said, ‘No, no, I’m in favor of fracking,’” Trump said. “The people of Pennsylvania are smart. They’re not going to fall for it.”
When Harris ran in the 2020 presidential election, she was in favor of a fracking ban. Harris later abandoned that view when she became Joe Biden’s running mate and says today if elected president she would not ban fracking.
Harris was asked what changed in an interview with CNN.
“My values have not changed. I believe it is very important that we take seriously what we must do to guard against what is a clear crisis in terms of the climate,” Harris said.
“What I have seen is that we can, we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking,” she continued.
Harris’ about-face is not lost on environmental advocacy organizations.
“I think the reality is the Harris campaign is currently convinced that supporting a ban on fracking is the way to win critical states like Pennsylvania,” Kidus Girma, campaign director for Sunrise Movement, told Spectrum News.
Sunrise Movement is a youth-led campaign to address climate change. While the Dallas resident acknowledges how the Biden-Harris administration ushered in climate legislation and pushed for clean energy jobs, Girma ultimately believes that Harris should do more.
“As someone who lives in Dallas and who lives maybe 40 minutes away from fracking, is we see these this fracking infrastructure that’s built right next to schools and communities, and that’s just not how everyday people want to live. Folks don’t need to choose between their jobs or their health, and I think about black communities like folks in Chester, Pennsylvania,” Girma said.
Girma said studies show in Chester, a city outside of Philadelphia, there have been increased rates of cancer and asthma because of various industries, including fossil fuel.
The Sunrise Movement has not endorsed a candidate so far this election, but another group Food and Water Action endorsed Harris even though it was disappointed by her reversal.
“The difference between Harris and Trump on climate couldn’t be bigger,” Jim Walsh, policy director for Food and Water Action, told Spectrum News.
“The Harris administration provides opportunities to actually rein in the fossil fuel industry and help protect public health and our environment. Where a Trump administration will go full speed ahead on expanding fossil fuel production and the harms that come along with it,” Walsh continued.
Harris is the first candidate the organization has ever endorsed in a presidential race.
“We’ll continue to educate and push the Harris administration to take action against fracking and fossil fuel development in general,” Walsh said.
Trump, meanwhile, repeats a rallying cry, “drill, baby, drill!”
It is pledge to increase oil and gas production in the U.S. although the U.S. produces more oil than any other country in the world, and more than when he was president.