U.S. Oil Boom Turns Kamala Harris Into an Unlikely Fracking Supporter…But For How Long?

Kamala Harris has a claim to serving in one of the greatest presidential administrations for the US fossil fuel industry in history. Domestic oil and gas output, refining margins and company profits have all hit record highs during her tenure as Joe Biden’s vice president. America is currently the world’s top oil producer, pumping almost 50% more crude each day than Saudi Arabia.

All of this seems at odds with an administration that pledged a clean energy revolution four years ago and led the US back into the Paris Agreement on its first day. It’s especially surprising for Harris, who built up her political credentials by challenging Big Oil in court over environmental violations while serving as California’s attorney general. Campaigning for the Democratic nomination in the last presidential election cycle, she said there was “no question” she’d ban fracking if elected president, a position she’s since reversed.

In reality, the US government has far less control over its oil companies than its peers in Saudi Arabia, Russia and other major oil-producing countries, where state bureaucrats make the decision to turn spigots on or off. Shale, the segment of the industry that’s delivered the majority of growth in US oil output over the past decade, is dominated by companies operating on private land. States such as New Mexico, North Dakota and Texas administer most day-to-day regulation, and they tend to welcome the money and jobs that flow from oil and gas. “I would argue that the increased production in the last four years is despite Biden policies, not because of Biden policies,” says Mike Sommers, chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobbying group.

Harris has dialed back much of the anti-fossil stance that characterized her run for the Democratic nomination in 2020. She may have good reason, and not just because the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania is in the heart of the country’s biggest shale gas basin. Moves early in Biden’s term such as canceling the Keystone XL oil pipeline and halting the sale of drilling leases on federal lands and waters may have boosted the administration’s green bona fides, but they left the White House politically exposed when gasoline prices shot up nationwide after Russia invaded Ukraine, peaking at more than $5 a gallon in June 2022. “When gasoline prices go up like that, it becomes a political priority no matter which party is in the White House,” says Robert Johnston, research director at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.

Biden tried to turn the tide of public opinion by accusing the oil industry of price gouging, famously attacking Exxon Mobil Corp. for making “more money than God” when American households were enduring the highest inflation since the 1980s. But the message fell flat. Stickers picturing a gleeful Biden and the words “I Did That” began appearing at gasoline pumps around the country.

On the campaign trail, Republican candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly blamed Biden—and now Harris—for causing the inflation crisis that voters still say is their top economic concern. The former president maintains his “Drill, Baby, Drill” energy policy will increase oil and gas production further and cut energy prices in half, while under Harris “fossil fuel will be dead.”

The 2022 spike in pump prices prompted a change in the Biden-Harris administration’s attitude about policies that could hurt crude production in the short term, says Ramanan Krishnamoorti, an energy professor at the University of Houston. “There was a move away from a confrontational approach toward an understanding they need to accommodate the oil and gas industry for the health of the economy.”

Biden and Harris kept up the rhetoric against Big Oil but stopped short of adopting policies that some Democrats in Congress endorsed, such as capping oil and gasoline exports. This might have helped ease inflation in the near term—but at the risk of constraining domestic supply in the future. Instead, the White House openly pleaded with shale drillers to pump more crude and released millions of barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The strategy worked, easing not only the price of gasoline but also those of diesel and the petrochemicals that underpin vast portions of the US economy. This, in turn, helped bring down inflation, allowing the Federal Reserve to tee up the first interest rate cut in four years.

The administration’s landmark climate bill, christened the Inflation Reduction Act to ease its path through Congress, offers incentives for renewable energy and low-carbon technologies, including carbon capture, hydrogen and others the oil industry favors. Crucially, the IRA contained few punitive measures on fossil fuels. Exxon CEO Darren Woods pronounced himself “very supportive” at an industry confab in March.

“They chose the approach that typically works in the US—incentivize and promote rather than tax and penalize,” says Kenneth Medlock, senior director of Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies. The Biden-Harris administration’s decision in January to pause approvals for new liquefied natural gas export terminals is “political signaling” that will likely be walked back after the election, Medlock says. (A federal judge ruled against the freeze in July.)

Big Oil may embrace the IRA, but it isn’t ready to support Harris. Some 88% of the industry’s $129 million in political contributions in the current election cycle has gone to Republican candidates and aligned groups, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign spending.

Harris is pledging to continue Biden’s progress on building a clean-energy economy, hold polluters accountable and work internationally to build on global and national climate commitments such as the Paris agreement. Yet, notably, she repeated her support for fracking and touted the growth of fossil fuel production twice in the presidential debate with Trump on Sept. 10.

“We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over-rely on foreign oil,” she said. —With Jennifer Dlouhy and Kim Chipman