Critics of Biden’s energy policies say Harris’ climate agenda could turn out to be even worse

President Joe Biden campaigned for the 2020 election on a promise to end fossil fuels. During his time in the White House, Biden and the Democrats, according to the Institute for Energy Research, have taken more than 200 actions that made it more expensive and difficult to produce oil and gas in the U.S. 

On Sunday, Biden announced he is not seeking a second term and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, which Harris said she would pursue. In some ways, Harris has aligned herself with an even more radical climate policies than Biden. 

“I think that she has the potential to be even more hostile to the oil and gas industry. At least as bad as the current administration, but I expect her to align herself more closely with the fringe elements of the left,” Tom Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told Just the News. 

Policy statements

She was one of the original sponsors of the "Green New Deal." Originally introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., the Green New Deal presented an ambitious Democratic plan to transform the entire U.S. economy through a centrally planned transition to an economy powered almost entirely without fossil fuels.

This included net-zero emissions by 2050, EV mandates, high speed rail buildouts to decarbonize transportation, and “building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food.” In March 2019, the measure failed in the Senate 57-0. 

During the second Democratic primary debate in 2019 when Harris was running for president, she criticized then-President Donald Trump’s energy policies, arguing he “doesn’t understand the science.” 

“We must have and adopt a Green New Deal. On day one as president, I would reenter us into the Paris Agreement, and put in place so we could be carbon neutral by 2030,” Harris said, referring to the 2015 international agreement to reduce emissions. As president, Trump had pulled America out of the agreement, and Biden signed the U.S. back onto it on his first day as president. 

During the first Democratic primary debate, Harris called climate change an “existential threat.” She then pointed to her efforts to “take on the big oil companies” as attorney general of California. 

As California’s attorney general, Harris sued the Obama administration in 2016 over plans to use hydraulic fracturing – called "fracking" – off the California coast. Thousands of wells over the past couple of decades have used the technique to get at oil and gas in hard rock deposits, called shale, thousands of feet below the surface. The development of the technology has led the U.S. to be the largest producer of oil and gas in the world. 

In a statement on the lawsuit, Harris called fracking a “threat to the health and well-being of California communities" and said that "we must balance our energy needs with our longstanding commitment to protecting our natural resources and public health.”

During a 2020 CNN town hall presentation, Harris was asked if she would support dietary guideline changes to reduce the consumption of red meat. While Harris said there were limits to what the federal government can do, she said she would support such a policy. She also restated that she would support a ban on fracking. 

Harris, in her role as vice president, also broke the Senate's tie on the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained some of the provisions of the failed Green New Deal and provided billions in funding for Biden's climate agenda.

"No friend" to energy workers

These positions that Harris has taken over the years have raised concerns among supporters of the oil and gas industry, who say she’ll continue, if not expand, Biden’s climate policies, which they say led to record-high energy cost inflation. 

"Make no mistake: whoever emerges from the ashes of the Biden-Harris ticket will be no friend to America’s energy workers,” Daniel Turner, executive director of Power The Future, an energy advocacy group in favor of fossil fuels, said in a statement. 

Tim Stewart, president of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association, said that, with Harris following in the energy footsteps of Biden, the prospect of a Harris administration doesn’t bode well for American energy and its workers. 

“Without a doubt, the Biden Administration has been the most hostile to the oil and gas industry of any Administration in history. It took a real concerted effort but they successfully instigated the most negative regulatory and legislative environment we have ever faced,” Stewart told Just the News. 

Environmental activists: "Vice President Harris would kick ass against Trump.”

Anti-fossil fuel activists are cheering on the potential for a Harris administration. Jamie Henn, a climate activist who works for a group called Fossil Free Media, argues on a blog by Common Dreams, an anti-fossil fuel group, that Harris could get the federal government involved in prosecuting oil companies for allegedly deceiving about climate change. 

As many have pointed out, oil companies' researchers knew no more than anyone else about carbon dioxide emissions’ impact on the climate, and they had as much uncertainty as all other researchers about the issue. Oil producers say the debate they had was common and not part of a conspiracy to deceive. 

Gina McCarthy, who served as head of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama and later as a national climate adviser to President Biden, said in a statement to the New York Times that Harris “will fight every day for all Americans to have access to clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment. Vice President Harris would kick ass against Trump.”

Collin Rees, political director at Oil Change International, told E&E News that Harris may be stronger on climate than Biden. “I think we’ve seen her be willing to go further on going after big oil and fossil fuels in particular,” Rees said. 

Not a positive, some say

Stewart agrees, but he said, far from being a positive for the country, it will mean higher energy costs and more job losses. 

“Historically, the transition of power from a president to a vice president is designed to signal continuity.  This won’t be the case, because a Harris administration will be much worse," Stewart said.

"She is on record opposing everything from hydraulic fracturing to offshore production, and if she is as successful on energy policy as she was on border policy, she’s from California and the Californication of US energy policy will be disastrous. Instead of $5 per gallon gasoline, if she had her way it would be $14 per gallon gas. If there is any continuity, it will be ‘How can we make something that is bad even worse?’” Stewart added. 

Before Harris can roll out her own climate agenda, she has to win the nomination and the election. The energy policies of other names thrown out as potential Democratic nominees don’t look much better. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has overseen the state with the most aggressive renewable energy policies in the country, and residents of the state pay some of the highest gas prices and electricity rates. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has been accused of trying to “out green” Newsom.

Should Harris get the nomination, polls are showing the race between Trump and Harris to be close. Whatever happens to energy policy after November, the outcome of the election will have far-reaching impacts on energy policy.