Anti-Fracking Groups are Desperately Dumping Cash into Kamala’s Failing Campaign
Money trail indicates the vice president’s anti-fracking benefactors are unfazed by her “flip-flops.”
Anti-fracking activist groups have unleashed tens of thousands of dollars in the form of independent expenditures benefitting Kamala Harris and her presidential campaign in just the past few months, according to campaign finance records.
Standing out from the pack is a $50,000 donation funneled through a political action committee of the Natural Resources Defense Council that was used to fund digital ads directed against Donald Trump, the former Republican president running against Harris.
The NRDC is a well-endowed environmental activist group with $180 million in assets that frequently propagandizes against fracking and has worked to halt the process in Pennsylvania and other states. The fact that NRDC, and other green groups, doubled down on their independent expenditures just as Harris began to flip-flop on her prior support for a ban on fracking suggests that her green benefactors know full well she has not changed her stripes.
Independent expenditures provide outfits like the NRDC with considerable flexibility since they are not subjected to any campaign finance limits, unlike contributions directly to a candidate’s committee, but are overtly partisan.
The $50,000 ad buy from NRDC Action Votes was dispersed in October on the heels of fresh comments from Harris indicating she won’t ban fracking. Other notable expenditures include a $13,672 donation from the Sierra Club Independent Action in September to promote the Harris campaign. The Sierra Club is on record stating it wants fracking “ended entirely” while claiming there are “no clean fossil fuels.”
Full of Gas
Before her 2020 presidential campaign imploded, Harris famously told CNN viewers “there’s no question I’m in favor of banning fracking.” The NRDC and the Sierra Club appear convinced that was the real Harris. The NRDC Action Fund as a glowing tribute to Harris on its website, while the Sierra Club remains motivated to attract “swing state voters” to the Harris campaign.
But in a state like Pennsylvania that depends on the “Natural Gas Revolution” made possible through fracking in the Marcellus Shale region of the state, swing voters might be more inclined to support pro-energy candidates like Trump. Since Harris has been backpedaling away from her stated support for a ban on fracking, she appears to be making this calculus.
Engineers who take part in fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, inject water mixed with sand and chemicals into a well at high pressure, producing a fluid that fractures the rock and releases oil and gas deposits that are otherwise unreachable. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents companies operating in the Marcellus Shale region, has detailed stats on the jobs and revenue that have flowed into the Pennsylvania thanks to the natural gas industry and the innovative drilling techniques that have made it possible to access what Trump describes as “liquid gold.”
The most recent independent expenditures from green groups targeting Pennsylvania indicate they know which candidate is most likely to do their bidding.
(RELATED: Kamala’s Fracking Ban Will Cost Pennsylvanians $41 Billion—In Just One Year)
