I was shocked in the presidential debate that Harris gave staunch support for fracking. I was under the impression that democrats are against fracking, and remember people being critical of Fetterman for supporting it.
I also grew up in an area that was heavily impacted by the pollution from fracking. People who worked in the field were seen as failures of moral character who chose profits over the health of their children. How is it that both major parties are now in support of it? I feel like I must be missing a piece of the puzzle.
It’s because of the electoral college. Most states give all their electoral college votes to whomever wins the state rather than dividing the votes equitably. This means Pennsylvania – a swing state – will go either all-red or all-blue. The state has a lot of fracking, and a lot of people making money off it, so Democrats are trying to appease pro-fracking to get votes.
The people getting harmed by fracking are stuck without anyone on their ‘side’, but will presumably be more likely to vote blue because that side favors more regulation and pro-environment stuff. Note that all Harris said was she wouldn’t ban fracking. She didn’t say she wouldn’t make it difficult to do. My guess is any attempts to make it cleaner will get crushed by Congress and the Corrupted Supreme Court that has sided against Unions, workers, citizens, and the planet – all to favor of their sugar daddies. So even if the next President wants to do something about fracking, it would be a hard to actually do anything.
That and because there are Democrats who are bought by the oil companies, just like Republicans.