Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s unexpectedly strong anti-fracking comments at Sunday’s presidential primary debate rattled industry supporters but failed to win over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The Green New Deal sponsor tweeted that the Biden campaign’s $1.7 trillion climate-change initiative was “not enough,” adding that “[i]nadequate climate plans are a form of denialism over how bad this problem really is.”
At the same time, she gave a shout-out to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has released a $16.3 trillion climate plan, saying that he “takes climate change seriously. Other policies do not.”
Mr. Biden prompted double-takes during the one-on-one CNN debate by declaring “no new fracking” after Mr. Sanders said that his primary opponent wanted to “continue fracking.”
“No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry,” Mr. Biden said. “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period. Ends.”
While Mr. Sanders has called for a ban on hydraulic fracturing, Mr. Biden has not, although he does support halting oil-and-gas production on federal lands.
His campaign later indicated that his policy had not changed, but fossil-fuel advocates said voters should be skeptical.
JunkScience’s Steve Milloy, part of the Trump EPA transition team, said that a fracking ban would “cause economic, social and geopolitical chaos.”
“Although Biden’s campaign is trying to walk back his vow to ban fracking, voters should take the promised ban seriously,” Mr. Milloy said in a statement.
“There is no question that the same radicals who destroyed the coal industry during the Obama Administration would target fracking for destruction under a Biden administration.”
Biden is enfeebled & has little idea of what he is saying.
The radicals who would actually control his administration would do to fracking what Obama did to coal.
Any Democrat administration would certainly work to end fracking.
Economic and geopolitical disaster would ensue. https://t.co/2Pxti1edMr
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) March 16, 2020
$1.7T is not enough to tackle climate change.
Inadequate climate plans are a form of denialism over how bad this problem really is.
My generation & future ones will have to contend with the horrifying mess that the cowardly leadership of previous ones left us. It’s a betrayal.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 16, 2020
Wow. @JoeBiden has been pushing #fracking across the world since 2008.
One intense exchange with @BernieSanders and he reverses his position & says “no new Fracking”
That’s why you vote for Bernie. That’s why leadership matters. That’s why a grassroots movement supports Bernie.
— Josh Fox EndFossilFuels (@joshfoxfilm) March 16, 2020
Hydraulic fracturing, a 70-year-old oil-and-gas extraction process, is used in the production of nearly all U.S. natural gas, which has supplanted coal as the nation’s primary energy source for electricity generation.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, said that the United States has become the “number-one producer of oil and natural gas in the world,” and that ending fracking would “kill a major source of economic power and surrender geopolitical strength to Russia and Saudi Arabia.”
“I’m glad to hear Vice President Biden has walked back some of those extreme comments, but the fact that they were even said underscores a sentiment that is divorced from economic reality and a lack of understanding of what powers the country,” she said.
Mr. Biden has walked a fine line on fracking, seeking to reassure the Democratic Party’s staunch environmental wing without losing voters in swing states with robust fossil-fuel industries like New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Larry Behrens, Western states director of Power the Future, said that oil-and-gas revenue in New Mexico funds nearly 40% of state government and provides more than 100,000 jobs.
“Leaders in Santa Fe are always all too happy to spend revenue from the energy industry and now they need to stand up and condemn Biden’s plan to destroy it,” said Mr. Behrens.
While the U.S. leads the world in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, thanks in large part to the increased use of natural gas made possible by hydraulic fracturing, environmentalists argue that only renewable energy can produce the dramatic declines needed to avoid climate-change catastrophe.
“I’m talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can,” said Mr. Sanders.
Read rest at Washington Times
Biden sounds like he was dropped on his head once too often he needs to have his head examened before he loses his marbles
Imagine dealing with everything we face right now, then throw in intermittent green electricity.
Bernie and AO-C would not flinch.
They’d wrap themselves in self righteousness. They promise free everything to everyone, but they got nuthin but lies.
Nothing is enough for the eco-facists. Total control is all that is acceptable to them.
Biden is a idiot he sounds like has been dropped on his head a lot his anti-fracking makes no sense but he is a typical liberal democrat all mouth and no mind and probibly a Globalists as well
“…typical liberal democrat all mouth and no mind…”
“Mega dittos” – if you remember the phrase.