The politics of the Biden administration’s restrictions on liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports could cause serious problems for an incumbent Democrat senator and potentially cost Democrats control of the Senate in November, political pundits and strategists told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey [pictured] is up for reelection this cycle, and his state was the second-largest natural gas-producing state in the country in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. [emphasis, links added]
The Biden administration’s January decision to pause approvals for new LNG export terminals could drag Casey down with voters in working-class communities that depend on the natural gas sector, an outcome that could spell trouble for Democrats given that two losses in this year’s Senate races will ensure that the chamber is under GOP control for at least the next two years, the political pundits and strategists told the DCNF.
“I think this pause is actually the worst of both worlds for Senator Casey. It’s very likely to hit Pennsylvania’s working-class voters in the pocketbook, not only by leading to job losses in the state but also by driving up energy costs and continuing the inflation that has been one of the top issues since President Biden took office,” Jon McHenry, a GOP polling analyst who works for North Star Opinion Research, told the DCNF.
“On the other side, he and Senator Fetterman issued a weak statement saying, in effect, ‘If this hurts Pennsylvania, we’ll have to have words with Joe Biden.’ That statement is too weak to demonstrate any independence, but by questioning it at all, Casey may have aggravated some environmentalists who may not turn out to support him in November.”
The oil and natural gas sectors directly support more than 90,000 jobs and indirectly support hundreds of thousands more in Pennsylvania, according to the American Petroleum Institute, and organized labor interests have a considerable stake in the state’s natural gas industry, according to Politico.
Pennsylvania produced about 20% of the country’s natural gas in 2022, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Environmentalists and climate activists have touted the LNG pause as a major victory, but it remains to be seen whether blue-collar communities are as disaffected as the environmental left is excited.
President Joe Biden earned approximately 81,000 more votes in Pennsylvania, which has a total population of about 13 million people, than former President Donald Trump did in the 2020 election, according to Politico.
Climate activists and organized labor are both poised to be key support bases for Biden and down-ballot Democrats in the 2024 cycle.
Republicans running to represent Pennsylvania in federal office are likely to use the LNG pause and the friction it generates inside the Democrats’ coalition to their political advantage as the 2024 cycle heats up, a National Republican Senatorial Committee official familiar with the potential strategy told the DCNF.
Casey and fellow Democrats “want their cake and to eat it too by trying to placate both the radical greens and the unions working in the gas fields,” Matt Brouillette, the founder and CEO of the Pennsylvania-focused entrepreneurial chamber Commonwealth Partners, told the DCNF.
“They have clearly shown that they are on team green rather than team gas,” he continued, adding that the decision is likely to accelerate the ongoing shift of the state’s working-class away from the Democratic Party. …
Because the GOP only needs to win just two seats from Democrats to regain control of the Senate, and since Republican West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice looks to have all but locked up the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the stakes are high in Pennsylvania and other swing states.
The GOP also figures to be competitive in toss-up Senate races in Montana, Ohio, and Arizona, according to an analysis from the Cook Political Report. …
Casey plans to rebut any incoming fire from Republicans on this issue by touting green energy investments and jobs in Pennsylvania attributable to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Biden’s signature climate bill that became law in 2022 without a single Republican vote, according to Politico.
Read full post at Daily Caller
These “Climate Activists” don’t give a damn about regularly people, period. After all, living the middle class life style is a sin. I just hope these regularly people don’t exercise “habit voting” and instead vote the candidates that are in their best interest.
These “Climate Activists” don’t give a damn about regularly people who are employed by natural gas (and the rest of those working in “fossil fuels”). Those blue-collar worker mean not a damn things to them.
The Democ-Reats deserve to lose big in November and Biden as well