Fact-checking Kamala on her energy claims

October 11th, 2024

• Stay up to date on all things energy by visiting the TEA Newsroom.
• America needs Affordable, Reliable, Clean energy security.
• Ford to give away free EV home charging units.
• The Supreme Court confronts NEPA, water permits, agency power.
• Feds are sweating a Trump comeback.
• The caveat to Biden’s environmental justice legacy.
• Swing-state voters want energy answers — and more domestic drilling.
• In the battle for Pa. vote, politics of fracking involves more than fossil fuels.
• Data centers turn to pipelines for onsite natural gas generation.

The issue: The general election is three and a half weeks away. All polls show a tight race and the urgency is heightened by both parties. Choosing the next President of the United States and members of Congress will have a major impact on our nation’s energy policies for the next four years, as this opinion piece states.

Why it  matters: That’s why Nov. 5 is a critical date for America. TEA’s candidate scorecard highlights the stark differences between Democrat and current Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican and former President Donald Trump. Most noticeable is the ‘question mark’ TEA gave Harris on continuing the use of hydrocarbons. She’s simply had too many flip-flops and mixed messages when it comes to energy policy.

But even Harris and her running mate Tim Walz reluctantly have acknowledged the importance of oil and natural gas. It’s a subtle switch in messaging, signaling that they know the truth despite their green-at-any-cost rhetoric.

Consider: The Energy Security-ARC has four important goals.

• Energy Security: Energy sources that are primarily produced within the U.S. and infrastructure that will reduce our reliance on foreign nations for critical materials and manufacturing.
• Affordability: Energy sources with stable pricing that can cost-effectively provide heating, cooling and electricity generation around the clock.
• Reliability: Energy sources that are available 24/7 with little or no interruptions in order to stabilize the electrical grid.
• Clean: Redefine “green” energy as an energy source that reduces air pollutants to the standard set by pipeline quality natural gas, (those emitted by residential gas stoves).

Bottom line: This year’s election will have a major impact on the nation’s energy policy for the foreseeable future. An overwhelming majority of Americans want candidates who will support American Energy Security – check out our Energy Scorecards to learn who those candidates are!

The issue: Kamala Harris would have voters believe that the Inflation Reduction Act aided natural gas and oil companies by opening up leasing on public lands. But the fact is that it made it exceedingly more expensive for domestic energy producers.

Why it  matters: Harris, throughout her campaign for president, has flip-flopped on fracking and been vague on energy policy in general. In April President Biden’s administration finalized a range of reforms designed to boost returns and address environmental harms from drilling on public lands, a move that will increase fees for oil and gas companies that operate there. Many of the changes by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management formalize provisions in Biden’s landmark climate change law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

Harris cast the deciding vote to pass the costly IRA, something she continually brags about. So she is squarely to blame for rising costs encountered by our nation’s domestic energy producers.

Consider:

• The legislation just made drilling more expensive, and those costs are passed onto consumers, as Fox Business Network financial journalist Charles V. Payne wrote on X.
• Royalty rates will rise to 16.67% from 12.5%, and the minimum amount companies can bid at oil and gas auctions will increase to $10 an acre from $2.
• The rental rate for a 10-year lease will double to $3 an acre for the first two years, eventually rising to $15 per acre in the final years.
• The fees can’t be adjusted for inflation until after 10 years.

This administration has had a plan for American energy: make it harder to produce and more expensive to purchase. Since Biden and Harris took office, their administration, and some of their allies have taken over 250 actions deliberately designed to make it harder to produce American energy, as the American Energy Alliance documented.

Bottom line: Kamala Harris is misleading voters by claiming she opened up more fracking leases. Not only have lease sales slowed under her leadership, the IRA also made fracking more costly for producers, and those costs get passed to consumers.

Gas prices went up a few cents over the past week, mainly due to Hurricane Milton driving up demand and depleting regional supply in areas that were hit the hardest. Currently, the national average for a gallon of gasoline sits at $3.21, 3 cents more than last Friday.

FERC Open Meeting: On Thursday, October 17, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold an Open Meeting of the Commission.

“Fracking is a necessary part of our ‘all the above’ energy solution going forward. I am very much a proponent of other sources of energy being in the mix as well, but until we get to a point where we have a renewable source that is completely reliable and affordable, I think that natural gas is going to be a part of what our nation needs to be energy independent.”

—  Lisa McManus, VP of legal and general counsel
for Pennsylvania General Energy.