What is fracking and why is it a big deal in the Harris-Trump battle?

Vice President Harris’s past stance on fracking has garnered significant attention since she became the Democratic nominee for president.

Running in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019, Harris said she wanted to ban fracking, but she told CNN in a Thursday night interview with vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) she does not want to anymore.

Fracking, short for hydraulic fracturing, is an oil and gas extraction technique that involves injecting rocks with a mix of water, sand and chemicals.

But why is it a big deal? Here are five things to know:

Fracking paved the way for the U.S. to become a leading oil and gas producer

Prior to the advent of fracking, U.S. oil production was on the decline, but the new technology turned that around. It kicked off the “shale revolution” giving producers the ability to get oil and gas from shale rocks which they couldn’t before.

The U.S. hit record-low oil production in 2008, producing around 5.1 million barrels per day. Today, with the help of fracking, the U.S. produces more than 13 million barrels per day.

“The bulk of our oil production is from tight oil formations, which basically comes from fracking” said Jeff Barron, petroleum industry economist at the Energy Information Administration, an independent federal energy statistics agency.

Barron said that about two-thirds of U.S. oil production today comes from fracking.

“If you did not have this technological advancement … United States oil production would probably be a lot lower,” he said, noting countries belonging to a group of oil producers called OPEC, which includes Saudi Arabia, would probably make up a larger share of total world production without fracking.

He said it’s difficult to say whether fracking has brought down oil prices for consumers because oil is traded globally, and it’s difficult to say if oil not being produced by the U.S. without fracking would have been produced elsewhere.

The same goes for climate change, Barron said — it’s hard to say if the oil that’s warming the planet would be produced elsewhere without U.S. fracking.

However, he said, “there’s an argument to be made that domestic natural gas prices are probably lower than they might otherwise … be, had hydraulic fracturing not been a technological advancement” as gas can be expensive to ship.

Pennsylvania, a swing state, is a significant fracking location

Fracking is a hot presidential topic not only because it’s an important policy matter, but also because of one key state where it’s common.

While it’s used across the nation — including North Dakota, Texas, California, Colorado and New Mexico — it gets a lot of political attention for its use in Pennsylvania, a big swing state with 19 electoral votes. Harris and former President Trump are hotly contesting the state.

Barron said Pennsylvania “wasn’t a big natural gas producing state until the advent of [fracking].”

Pennsylvania’s energy sector represented 4.6 percent of its total employment in 2022. The state had nearly 18,000 people working in mining and fuel extraction that year.

Political strategists recently gave The Hill a mixed picture about whether supporting or opposing a fracking ban would make a difference with Pennsylvania voters.

Some argued that, politically, candidates should support fracking because it’s important to the state’s economy, while others said Harris’s path to victory probably would not include many hardcore oil and gas supporters regardless of her stance.

That said, Harris’s retreat from calls to ban fracking has widely been seen as political and linked to Pennsylvania.

Fracking has been linked to childhood cancer, water pollution and earthquakes

The practice of fracking has been linked to significant health issues in communities that live nearby, ranging from asthma to cancer.

“There’s a robust body of evidence demonstrating that communities that live near fracking wells have a greater risk of a range of health outcomes, and the evidence is strongest for health impacts to children,” said Nicole Deziel, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health.

A 2022 study from Yale University found that Pennsylvania children who lived near fracking sites were more likely to develop leukemia. A 2023 study from the University of Pittsburgh linked it to lymphoma.

“The actual hydraulic fracturing or fracking step, involves millions of liters of water, chemical and sand, being injected underground under high pressure … creating these fractures in these deep rocks. Once released, that allows the oil and gas, to flow up the well,” Deziel said.

But, she added, “accompanying that is all this ancient water that’s also trapped deep below ground and that contains many contaminants, like lead, arsenic and radioactive material” noting that this creates a wastewater problem and the potential for water contamination.

However, Deziel noted living near traditional oil and gas drilling also comes with health risks.

“There have been a number of studies that have looked at both conventional and unconventional oil and gas development … and the health impacts have been fairly consistent,” she said. “Many of the same environmental hazards are released from both types of processes: the volatile organics and air pollutants, diesel exhaust from construction equipment.”

In addition, studies have linked fracking to water pollution and earthquakes, drawing concerns from opponents.

Harris has changed her position on the issue

When she was on the campaign trail in 2019, Harris said: “There’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”

The Hill first reported that Harris was now taking a position against a fracking ban, which the candidate confirmed in a CNN interview.

She said Thursday night, “As vice president, I did not ban fracking; as president, I will not ban fracking.”

She said this has been her stance since 2020. At that time, she was the running mate of President Biden, who opposed a fracking ban.

Asked to explain her change in position, Harris said: “What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

Republicans are attacking Harris over her past fracking stance

Republicans, with an eye on Pennsylvania, have criticized Harris over her past fracking stance.

“She’s against fracking, she’s against oil drilling, she wants everybody to have one electric car and share it with the neighbors,” Trump recently told supporters in Pennsylvania.

Dave McCormick, a Republican who is running for Senate in Pennsylvania, posted on the social platform X earlier this week about Harris’s past fracking position as a criticism of his Democratic opponent, Sen. Bob Casey (Pa.).

After Harris’s interview, the Republican National Committee insisted in a post on X that Harris still supports a fracking ban, writing “Democrats are having a really tough time spinning Kamala’s position on fracking — which is that she wants to BAN it.”

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