With the ongoing debate around Kamala Harris and whether (or not) she still supports a ban on fracking, it’s time to review what a ban on fracking would mean. The jobs it would kill. The harm to our economy. The danger to our national defense. How it would strengthen our enemies. And, importantly, it’s not necessary.

Kamala Harris has repeatedly supported a ban on fracking and would enact one if she became President. And anytime some campaign staffer — let alone Harris — tries to tell you that she’s made a sudden, 180-degree “policy shift” with no explanation, just tell them “that’s malarkey.”

When she was a candidate for President in 2020, Kamala Harris committed repeatedly to support a ban for fracking. (This is what happens when the Democratic Party has been taken over — in part — by radical climate ideologues who demand immediate, absolute action, or else!) In fact, she pledged to act on “day one.”

Recall that candidate Biden (and she was his partner) pledged to “end fossil fuels.” (In essence, Biden heard of Harris’s pledge merely to ban fracking and said: “hold my ice cream.”)  

And on “day one,” they did institute a 60-day moratorium on new oil and gas permits — and have never returned to the Trump era’s policies that had America on the verge of energy independence. They have put more and more land off-limits, and have denied or slow-rolled countless permit applications. Call it “fracking ban lite.”

Lastly, as it relates to politics, Harris’s alleged “reversal” on banning fracking was announced on social media by an unknown staffer. This possible “policy shift”…ahem…came about as she is now running for president and was trailing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and other industrial states when she became the anointed nominee.

To put this to rest: Kamala Harris supports a fracking ban, and has for years — and has said so loudly, repeatedly and proudly.  No “tweet” from a junior staffer changes that.

As to what a fracking ban would mean, in short; an economic and national security disaster. It would ruin our quality of life, our life expectancy and make Americans dependent on our enemies.

In 2020, the Department of Energy published a report that there were 12.3 million jobs in the oil and gas industries. A ban on fracking would eliminate millions of jobs in the gas and oil industry — and, even more in the industries that support them. And when you add in the harm to the communities where these folks live, the impact would be devastating for millions of families and create economic depression zones.

In just Pennsylvania alone, a Marcellus Shale Coalition report in 2023 stated that over 123,000 people worked in or directly supported the natural gas industry. That doesn’t include the restaurants, diners and coffee shops where they eat; the service stations that they use; the grocery stores, clothing stores, pharmacies and hospitals etc., where these workers go as they work and help raise their families. And, the industry average salary is $97,000. 

Pennsylvania has more BTUs in gas than Saudi Arabia has in oil, and we are the swing state. In 2016, Trump won by under one point. In 2020, Biden carried it by just over one point. Pennsylvanians rightly wonder about Harris’s alleged “policy shift.”

With an American ban on fracking — no serious person thinks that China, Russia or the Middle Eastern nations would ever impose a ban on accessing any form of their own energy — inflation would cripple our then-weakened economy. America would have reduced the world’s supply; yet, there will always be growing demand. Reduced supply and growing demand equals inflation. (See: 1970’s and 2021-present) America’s inflation will run even higher because we will have to import oil and gas from other nations: something will have to power our hospitals and factories and keep the lights and heat on when it’s too cold, cloudy, or when there’s not enough wind. (By the way, many wind turbines have diesel engines in their bases to keep them running on low wind days.) 

If driving millions of people to the unemployment line, crushing local economies and causing double-digit inflation doesn’t already have you screaming “no” to a fracking ban, realize that without natural gas (and oil) there are literally thousands of daily items that could not be made — many vital to our daily lives. From aspirin to IV bags, from computers to fertilizer, Biden/Harris’s own Department of Energy’ information reminds us that a fracking ban would destroy our quality of life — impacting over 6,000 products. 

Assuming we could find a way to live and thrive without farmers, medicine and computers, recall that the oil and gas we would need to survive comes from our enemies, assuming that they would sell the energy to us — and assuming we could afford it. 

Moreover, in a world of “green energy” — which is not only not green, not dependable, and is expensive — we also make our enemies stronger. Many of the precious minerals needed to make batteries come from China or African mines owned by China, and often mined by teenage African boys and girls. (We do have many of those minerals here, but, environmental extremists won’t allow us to access them.) And most of the solar panels that we use and would need in America are produced in China. (And, they require natural gas to be made.) 

Lastly, in a fanatical, harmful and unnecessary quest to have America ban fracking, we not only empower our enemies, but we also encourage our enemies to produce more fossil fuel energy. They will use oil, gas and even coal. (China is building the equivalent of two coal-fired plants each week. They constructed so many in 2022 and 2023 alone that their new plants could have supplied electricity to all of Brazil.)

Guess what happens to air quality when China builds coal-fired plants (as are Germany and Poland) and Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia increase oil production?

So, when Kamala Harris talks about banning fracking, she’s not only risking votes. Harris is risking our economy, our quality of life and our national security — and making the air worse.

Banning fracking would kill millions of jobs — over a quarter-million in Pennsylvania alone. It would create out of control inflation, and make energy more expensive for our cars, homes, factories and farmers. It would lower our quality of life as thousands of products would not be able to be made or would soar in cost. And it would make us more dependent on our enemies as China builds coal plants to make our solar panels and we would have to import more oil from Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Ironically, banning fracking in America would actually make the world’s air dirtier.

Her own words tell us that a President Harris would ban fracking — because she believes it deeply and her fanatical base demands it.

Anyone not caring about the obvious harms from that ban is, in a word, “weird.”

Guy Ciarrocchi is a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation. He writes for Broad + Liberty and RealClear Pennsylvania. Follow Guy @PaSuburbsGuy.