With Vice President Kamala Harris doing a 180 on her administration’s oil production and fracking stance, one industry leader explained why many Democrats are changing their tune on the topic.
“They know we need fossil fuel energy. It’s going to be prevalent all the way to 2050, 2060 and beyond,” United Refining Company Chairman and CEO John Catsimatidis said Wednesday on “Varney & Co.”
“[Democrats] are starting to recognize… fossil fuel energy is not made by dinosaurs. That’s all a fallacy. The planet Earth makes crude oil,” he continued, “to liquefy it. And that’s the truth. It’s not fossil fuels.”
According to a report, Vice President Harris no longer supports a fracking ban, in a change in her stance during the last presidential election, her campaign said on Friday.
Before she dropped her bid for president in 2019 and joined President Biden’s ticket, Harris said in a CNN town hall “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.”
However, Biden’s campaign and his administration have not backed banning fracking despite Biden once saying during a primary debate, “We would make sure it’s eliminated.” His campaign later clarified that he “supports eliminating subsidies for coal and gas and deploying carbon capture.”
“I believe during election years, everybody flip-flops. And I do business in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is a great state, and there’s fracking going on in Pennsylvania,” Catsimatidis noted. “The people on the Pennsylvania side of the border with New York State are driving Cadillacs. The people on the New York State side of the border are driving ’55 Chevys. I mean, it’s just crazy.”
Over the last three years, the Biden-Harris administration heavily pursued a green energy agenda and sought to combat rising energy prices by ramping up government spending on clean energy alternatives. In April, energy costs were up more than a third since Biden took office.
“Wind energy is not going to work. Solar cells, it’s not going to work. You’re not going to run the United States of America on windmills and solar cells. That’s obvious,” the oil CEO and chairman said.
“The future of America is a transition from 100% oil to maybe 50% oil over the next 20 years, over the next 30 years,” he added. “If you want to know the truth, that’s the truth. And everything else is garbage.”
FOX Business’ Hillary Vaughn caught up with Democratic senators on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, where they responded to Harris’ old campaign promises.
“I’ve endorsed Vice President Harris,” Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said. “I said I don’t know what she said on fracking. I am working on my state and an all-of-the-above energy policy.”
Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., also chimed in: “She’s the vice president, and in an administration that has contributed greatly to our development of new energy sources.”
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