When it comes to politicians who support fracking bans, former President Donald Trump appears to have selective hearing.
For weeks, Trump has criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, for saying in 2019 that she favored a ban on fracking — a position she since has recanted.
“She’s against fracking, she’s against oil drilling, she wants everybody to have one electric car and share it with the neighbors,” Trump told supporters during a campaign stop earlier this summer in Pennsylvania.
But Trump’s support of fracking — and his opposition to its critics — doesn’t seem to be a make-or-break issue for the Republican presidential nominee.
Trump recently named two politicians to his transition team who previously have spoken out against hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, a controversial technique for fossil fuel extraction that typically involves blasting sand, water and chemicals underground to help access oil and gas deposits.
One of those politicians is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the presidential race last month and endorsed Trump. The other is Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic member of Congress who left the party two years ago and now supports Trump.
Last month, after they each appeared with him on stage, Trump named Kennedy and Gabbard as “honorary co-chairs” of his transition team, which has outsize influence in setting policy and hiring personnel.
It’s unclear what role, if any, they would have in setting his agenda.
“President Trump is building a historic unified movement to make America great again, as evidenced by his recent endorsements from RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “While they might not agree on everything, RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard understand that our country cannot endure four more years of Kamala Harris.”
Neither Gabbard nor Kennedy responded to a request for comment.
Kennedy advocated against fracking for years when he was an environmental activist. He pushed former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — his former brother-in-law — ahead of the state’s ban in 2015. During his failed presidential campaign, Kennedy told POLITICO’s E&E News that he wanted to ban liquefied natural gas exports outright, a position to the left of Biden and Harris.
Also during his campaign, Kennedy said he would “ban” fracking then softened that to say he would “phase out” fracking by cutting fossil fuel subsidies.
The Trump campaign previously has attacked Kennedy as a climate radical in part because of his fracking stance.
In 2017, Gabbard introduced climate legislation in Congress that would have dramatically ramped up clean energy while banning fracking. The bill was far more aggressive than anything Harris and Biden have passed into law. The “OFF Fuels for a Better Future Act” called for utilities to be powered by 80 percent renewables in 2027 and 100 percent by 2035. Car emissions would have to be cut to zero at the same time.
“We must do all we can to end our addiction to fossil fuels and deploy the technologies that will put America on the path toward a clean, sustainable energy future today and in the years to come,” Gabbard said at the time.
This story also appears in Energywire.
