BEIJING, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- The swing state of Pennsylvania has become a political chess piece in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, not for its people but for its vast reserves of natural gas.
The competing interests of the two major parties have turned the controversial practice of fracking, or shale gas extraction, into a political bargaining tool, with little regard for the economic or environmental consequences faced by Pennsylvanians.
In a stark departure from her party's previous environmental commitments, U.S. Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has recently softened her stance on fracking, pledging not to ban the practice despite its risks.
Republican candidate Donald Trump, on the other hand, has long embraced fracking, emphasizing its supposed economic benefits for local communities and its role in achieving U.S. energy independence.
However, for all the promises, evidence shows that the economic gains from shale gas extraction have not met expectations, with job creation and local wealth generation far below what was originally projected.
POLITICAL CALCULATIONS
The Democrats have historically promoted green environmental policies as a response to climate change, while the Republican Party supports traditional oil and gas energy. Recent polls indicate that Pennsylvania voters are divided on the issue of whether or not to ban fracking, but there is widespread support for stronger environmental regulations.
While in office, Trump vigorously promoted the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) based on shale gas. He considers that making the United States a net energy exporter is one of his top achievements.
He has promised to slash household energy bills by 50 percent, claiming: "If Kamala is re-elected, your costs will go up and your lights will go out."
He has also depicted the Biden-Harris administration's push for environmental policy as a "scam," which he claims "caused tremendous inflationary prices, in addition to the cost of energy."
Trump has pledged to end the inflation crisis, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy.
Meanwhile, Harris has responded to his accusations by asserting that "I have not banned fracking as vice president of the United States, and in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking."
Nevertheless, in the Democratic primary for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Harris and left-wing Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren led the call for a national fracking ban.
Then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden refused to go along with a ban, saying instead that he wanted to invest in clean energy to move the country away from fossil fuels.
When Harris joined Biden's campaign in 2020, she changed her position, repeatedly insisting that his administration would not ban fracking.
"What I have seen is that we can grow and we can increase a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking," Harris said, explaining her change of mind.
Republicans see Harris's shift as an attempt to strike a balance between voters who advocate for fighting climate change, and those who support the oil and gas industry. Without supporting fracking, it will be hard to secure a victory in Pennsylvania, which holds a significant number of 19 Electoral College votes.
In fact, both parties have benefited from fracking. The shale gas revolution began in the later years of George W. Bush's presidency, with the number of wells peaking during Barack Obama's administration.
The surge in shale oil and gas production allowed the United States to achieve energy independence and become the world's largest producer of oil and gas, attempting to leverage LNG exports to gain control over global market pricing.
The Biden administration also benefited from the EU's sanctions on the Russian energy sector due to the conflict in Ukraine, by shifting the EU's energy dependence from Russia to America.
POLITICAL SHOW
In any case, the U.S. president does not currently have the authority to directly regulate drilling on private land, where the vast majority of oil production takes place, lawyer Wayne D'Angelo told Politico.
"A president cannot issue an outright ban on fracking. In authorizing the executive to manage federal lands, Congress statutorily required that federal lands be managed in a manner that allows for a mix of uses, including resource extraction," D'Angelo explained.
A ban on fracking can only be achieved through legislation from Congress. However, given fracking's important role in U.S. oil and gas production, it is highly unlikely that Congress will pass such a law, meaning that a ban on fracking is a pseudo-proposition.
The fact that this proposition has been hyped as a focal issue in the presidential election shows that candidates are more concerned with gaining votes by politicizing issues of economy and livelihood than considering the needs of the people, said Sun Chenghao, an assistant researcher at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University.
Diao Daming, a professor at the School of International Studies at Renmin University of China, said Trump's accusations against Harris had exposed her biggest weakness -- "having no policy." As Biden's successor, Harris has been constrained by limited time and opportunity to develop her own policy agenda.
Diao added that both Trump and Harris have been criticized for their campaign statements on policy propositions, which have been perceived as lacking specific details, and being primarily focused on attacking each other.
U.S. presidential candidates are often criticized for not representing the national interest, instead prioritizing the interests of key states, Diao noted.
Pennsylvania's annual natural gas production now ranks second only to Texas, surpassing that of Qatar or Canada. The auctioning of public land for drilling has brought substantial financial revenues to the local government while renting out land has allowed some struggling farmers to turn their fortunes around. Meanwhile, shale gas extraction has brought temporary prosperity to some economically distressed towns.
However, recent research released by the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI) shows that the economies of Appalachian shale communities have fared worse than comparable communities not reliant on fossil fuel extraction.
The economic benefits brought by shale gas extraction are not as significant as claimed by oil and gas industry groups. In March this year, the state of Pennsylvania reported 16,831 direct jobs in the industry, less than 0.5 percent of all jobs. In comparison, direct construction jobs account for around 260,000 jobs in the state, while manufacturing currently provides 566,800 jobs.
"The natural gas industry is among the major economic sectors in the U.S. economy. It is the least job-intensive, only about 0.08 out of every dollar that the industry earns or that's invested in the industry goes to support labor jobs. And so there aren't very many jobs to begin with," said Sean O'Leary, a senior researcher at ORVI. ■