During an interview with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) on the September 22 edition of NBC's Meet the Press, anchor Kristen Welker raised the issue of Kamala Harris’ and Fetterman’s position on fracking — an issue that has been relentlessly litigated by national TV news networks under the false pretense that fracking is a defining political issue for Pennsylvania voters.
To support raising the issue yet again, Welker used an industry jobs report that claims that fracking “supported 120,000 jobs in 2022.” A local journalist, WHYY’s Susan Phillips, recently pointed out in a fact check aimed at a Trump campaign fracking ad that the 120,000 figure refers to an industry study that combines direct jobs in fossil fuel extraction and “estimates for jobs that the authors claim … would not exist if not for oil and gas production.”
Phillips goes on to explain:
The state of Pennsylvania reported about 26,000 direct jobs in the oil and gas industry in 2020, less than 1% of all jobs in the state. Four years later, that number is even smaller. Despite an increase in production post pandemic, jobs in the industry have not kept up, according to a recent report from E&E News, which cites the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in which direct oil and gas production jobs in Pennsylvania was about 12,000 in 2023.
An early study on job creation from Penn State University, published in 2010 and paid for by the industry, said that by 2020, industry jobs would top 200,000 – it’s unclear if the study intended those to be direct or indirect. But six years later, another study from Penn State, with different authors, reported about 26,000 direct industry jobs, half of which were filled by out-of-state residents.
In fact, not only has the industry “shed thousands of workers in the state since 2019,” but it also has failed to deliver the wealth promised to many communities burdened with fracking wells. Meanwhile, “clean energy industries employ more than 8 times more PA workers than the state’s gas industry.” The focus on fracking also belies the fact that presidents cannot ban fracking on private and state land, where the vast majority – 90% – of fracking production is done.
KRISTEN WELKER (ANCHOR): Let me talk about a big issue, another big issue I should say in your state, the issue of fracking. … Vice President Harris, as you know, once supported a ban on fracking when she was running for president in 2020. She even sued the Obama administration to prevent fracking off California's coast. Now she says she will not ban the practice as president. Why should voters trust that that is really what the vice president believes?
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): So strange why we just keep talking about fracking. Back in 2020, I said that might be an issue but it's not going to be a defining issue, and now in 2024 we're still trying to talk about fracking. And now the other side's been talking about eating cats and geese and dogs and saying absurd things and talking about how if Trump doesn't win, he said that you have to blame the Jews on that and just absurd things. You know, like having a serious policy conversation when the other side is just absolutely on fire and here's where we are, but — and here we are — also that it's going to be very close in Pennsylvania and it's not going to be defined by fracking.
WELKER: Well we are talking about it because of course it supported 120,000 jobs back in 2022.
