In the opening questions from Harris’ first interview as presidential nominee, CNN repeated a right-wing narrative about fracking as an electoral issue

Fracking, which can pollute the air and groundwater, is a controversial drilling technique that injects water and chemicals underground at high pressure to extract oil or gas that is otherwise difficult to access. The process has made Pennsylvania the second largest natural gas producing state in the U.S., and its status as a swing state has elevated the issue of fracking as an election year issue during the past decade.

Right-wing media in particular have pushed the narrative that support for a ban on fracking is a major political liability, despite contradictory evidence suggesting that its role in determining elections has been overblown.

Now, as part of the conservative campaign to brand Harris as a “radical” ahead of the November election, right-wing media have falsely claimed that she wants to ban red meat and repeatedly cited her past support for the Green New Deal and a ban on fracking, which she said she would support in a 2019 town hall appearance. Harris later walked back her support for a fracking ban in 2020 after becoming Joe Biden’s running mate, and her 2024 campaign stated in July that Harris’ current position no longer reflects her 2019 stance.

During last week’s joint interview with Harris and running mate Tim Walz, one of the first questions from Dana Bash was about her position on fracking, with the CNN anchor describing it as “a pretty big issue, particularly in your must-win state of Pennsylvania.”

In her response, Harris explained, “As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.” She further noted, “I cast the tie-breaking vote that actually increased leases for fracking as vice president,” adding that “we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking.”

As MSNBC’s Joy Reid pointed out, the question on fracking was among the many “Republican attack lines against the Democratic ticket” that consumed the majority of the interview, and illustrated one of the ways legacy media elevates right-wing talk points during an election season.

Repeating right-wing talking points, mainstream cable news networks have suggested that Harris’ stance on fracking is a litmus test for Pennsylvania

Speaking to a Harris campaign surrogate on August 18, MSNBC’s Alex Witt said, “The Associated Press says the vice president’s reversal on policy issues like fracking, that are important to the people of Pennsylvania, opens the door to attacks by Republicans. How will the campaign handle these challenges?”

On The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN correspondent Eva McKend noted Harris’ “evolution on some key policy issues,” including fracking.

“So when she ran for president [in 2019], she advocated for banning fracking,” McKend said the day before Harris’ interview. “We understand from her team that that is no longer her position. Especially for Pennsylvania voters, she's going to have to explain why.”

After the CNN interview, Bash appeared on Anderson Cooper 360, where she was asked to address “major points of criticism against the vice president” for “how she has changed some of her past policy positions.”

Bash noted, “I asked her about some of those key policy positions, those that really matter to voters — not just here in Georgia, but particularly voters in the must-win state for her of Pennsylvania. Issues like fracking, the Green New Deal, and also her changes on immigration.”

The next day on Inside Politics with Dana Bash, guest anchor Manu Raju invited Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin to respond to Harris’ answer, noting that “one of the big questions that Kamala Harris faced last night was how she has reversed her stance on some key issues, like the issue of fracking.”

Mullin instead moved the goalposts, claiming: “There's several ways to ban fracking. I mean, you can ban fracking outright. What she said in 2019 — and by the way, all her actions and everything she's done the last 1,300-plus days she's been in office has shown that she's not in favor of the oil and gas industry at all.”

In fact, the fossil fuel industry is producing record levels of oil under the Biden-Harris administration. But this context and much more was largely left out of mainstream cable news coverage of Harris’ stance, which instead framed the issue around the 2024 horse race.

This election season, cable news coverage should include this important context when discussing fracking as a campaign issue:

• Presidents cannot ban fracking on private and state land where the vast majority – 90% – of fracked gas production is done. “While there are several ways Harris, if elected president, could halt fracking on federal lands using executive power, she wouldn’t be able to unilaterally ban it on private land,” Bloomberg explains. “Under a 2005 law, the Environmental Protection Agency has almost no regulatory power over fracking. Changing that would require an act of Congress.” [Bloomberg, 7/27/24; PolitiFact, 8/31/20]
• Under the Biden-Harris administration, U.S. oil and gas production is at an all-time high – including in Pennsylvania — and its policies are supporting major clean energy projects. As reported by Axios, the state is “part of the multibillion-dollar hydrogen ‘hubs’ program under the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law,” and the “EPA announced nearly $400 million in grants for climate projects there under the Inflation Reduction Act.” [Reuters, 3/28/24; U.S. Energy Information Administration, accessed 8/2/24; Axios, 7/23/24]
• Support for fracking in Pennsylvania is not a given. After Harris’ recent CNN interview Pennsylvania-based journalist Nick Field wrote, “I can not emphasize enough that - unless they happen to work in the fracking industry - Pennsylvanians don't care about fracking.” A 2020 survey conducted by YouGov found support for fracking in the state was evenly split, though Pennsylvanians who live in rural areas or identify as Republican were more likely to back it, and there was simultaneously a tectonic shift in the overall reporting to argue that the issue’s role in determining the outcome of the election was overblown. But this insight never reached cable news which continued to push the same right-wing framing of the issue through Election Day. [YouGov, 10/19/20; Twitter/X, 8/29/24; Media Matters, 11/19/20, 9/3/20]
• Real issues with fracking are almost entirely ignored in election horse race coverage. During the 2020 election cycle, cable news coverage failed to meaningfully cover the well-documented environmental and climate issues associated with fracking. Media also ignored that the industry was suffering financially and not delivering the wealth that had been promised to many communities burdened with fracking wells. [Media Matters, 11/19/20; Environmental Health News, 2/12/21]