During Tuesday night's heated presidential debate, Kamala Harris's stance on fracking was called into question by Donald Trump.
Trump alleged that Harris would ban the practice if she won the election, stating that "if she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one."
However, Harris said she would not ban the drilling technique, stating: "I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as Vice President of the United States. In fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking."
Harris had previously stated during her 2019 presidential campaign that she would ban fracking if elected. However, she told CNN's Dana Bash in a recent interview that she feels the U.S. "can increase a clean energy economy without banning fracking."
She said in last night's debate that while her "values have not changed", she now feels that "we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil."
"We have had the largest increase in domestic oil production in history because of an approach that recognizes that we cannot over-rely on foreign oil," she said.
What Is Fracking?
Fracking, also known as hydraulic fracturing, is a method used to extract oil and natural gas from deep underground rock formations.
A well is first drilled into an area where oil or gas is rich, and then a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is pumped into the well at very high pressure. This pressure causes the surrounding rock—often shale, sandstone, limestone, or carbonite—to crack and fracture, creating fissures in the rock. After fracturing, the pressure is reduced, allowing the oil or gas to flow out of the rock and up the well to the surface. The sand in the mixture serves to "prop" the cracks open once the pressure is reduced—without the sand, the cracks would close back up, trapping the oil or gas in the rock.
Fracking has been around in its current form since the 1940s but has boomed in the past few decades. Around one million wells were fractured between 1940 and 2014 in the U.S., about one-third of which were fractured after 2000.
Fracking is a controversial practice due to its impacts on the environment and the potential hazards posed to human health by the chemicals used in the water mixture.
Firstly, fracking uses an immense amount of water, with the USGS estimating that a single well can use between 1.5 million and 9.7 million gallons of water. This water is often taken from groundwater and surface water resources, which are becoming increasingly scarce in areas of the country being scorched by droughts, such as Texas and other southwestern states.
Additionally, the chemicals used in the fracking fluid are potentially harmful to our health. These chemicals can include methanol, ethylene glycol, and propargyl alcohol, all of which are toxic to humans. The health effects of many of the other chemicals used in fracking are also understudied and therefore unknown.
This fluid may leak and contaminate groundwater supplies, leading to toxic chemicals seeping into nearby water aquifers used for drinking water. According to an EPA report, there were 151 spills of fracking fluids between 2006 and 2012, with 10 percent of these spills ending up in rivers and other water bodies.
Fracking also produces large amounts of wastewater contaminated with these chemicals, which must be treated, stored, or disposed of, as it is often also mixed with hazardous natural materials like heavy metals or radioactive elements from underground. Fracking sites occasionally experience spills or leaks of wastewater and chemicals, which can pollute local land and water resources: a North Dakota wastewater pipeline break in 2015 resulted in three million gallons of contaminants spilling into a nearby creek.
Fracking is also a major source of atmospheric pollution, releasing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other air pollutants into the atmosphere, contributing to smog and respiratory problems for nearby communities. It also releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is 28 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2.
Fracking may also lead to earthquakes. The disposal of wastewater from fracking into deep underground wells has been linked to increased seismic activity, or small earthquakes, particularly in areas like Oklahoma.
Despite these dangers, fracking is supported by many, as they argue that it reduces dependence on foreign oil, lowers energy costs, and produces cleaner-burning natural gas.
So, for now, it seems that fracking will be sticking around no matter who wins in November.
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