HOW TOWNSHIP, Pa. – John Stewart, vice president of Cameron Energy Co., and Robert Bair, president of the Pennsylvania State Building and Construction Trades Council, are on opposite sides of the presidential race. But they are on the same side on fracking, a key energy and environmental issue that is the biggest battleground in the election.
A comfortable majority of Pennsylvania voters support fracking, according to multiple recent polls. While former President Donald Trump’s base is drawn almost entirely from this side of the question, Democrats like Vice President Kamala Harris and Pennsylvania’s governor and senators must balance a coalition of supporters and opponents of key industries in the state.
For Harris, that means getting support from people like Bair, who represents 130,000 union construction workers in Pennsylvania and says the U.S. can’t function without division, as well as Katie Blume, political and legislative director of Pennsylvania Conservation Voters. , told NBC News that he believes Pennsylvania lacks strong regulations and that fracking is not critical to modern society, praising the Biden-Harris administration’s historic climate legislation.
For Trump, it’s simpler: Pennsylvania is sitting on “liquid gold” and he needs to “dig, baby, dig.”
Meanwhile, Harris has changed his stance on the issue since his first presidential campaign in 2019, saying he has now made it “clear” he will not ban fracking.
Stewart’s company operates about 1,800 oil wells in northwestern Pennsylvania. According to him, business was better when Trump was in office.
“We could actually budget and know we could meet it with some predictability. The past few years have been incredibly unpredictable. “Inflation is just killing us,” Stewart said.
In addition to inflation, Stewart added that the Biden administration’s ban on liquefied natural gas exports has shut down the global market, causing natural gas prices to fall and creating an “immediate impact.”
Stewart said he believes that substance is missing from conversations about fracking, and that the issue of whether to ban fracking is the “boogeyman” out there.
“The question is, can we live without breaking in our modern society?” The answer is no. …We cannot do without our oil and gas products. We just can’t,” he said.
Bair agrees that fracking is necessary. But he and the union endorsed the Harris-Walz ticket.
Bair said Harris was “very upset” to hear the Trump camp “beating this drum” that he wants to end fracking.
“He’s not going to ban fracking. He has already made this statement public.” “He was ready to listen to us and rethink this position. You know, it’s very easy to be part of the problem. The hard work is when you decide you want to be part of the solution.”
He said the Biden-Harris administration has brought union jobs to Pennsylvania’s energy industry.
“Fossil fuel should be included in the energy policy of this country in the near future. There is simply no way out of this.” he said, then added: “Fracking and gas will be part of it, and our members will be the ones who do it and build it.”
Fracking, short for hydro fracturing, is the process of pumping water and sand into the ground under pressure to “break” rock. The sand keeps the fractures open, allowing the oil and gas trapped inside the rock to be released. Oil and gas are ultimately extracted from the ground using an oil well.
The actual process of fracking takes about a day. An oil well built on top of a successful frac job can provide oil and natural gas for 40-50 years.
Devon Johnson, 23, a floor foreman on a frac rig at Cameron Energy Co., supports Trump because of his “drill, baby, drill” message. Johnson said Trump has “never shut down any pipeline like Biden did at the beginning of his presidency,” referring to the Keystone XL oil pipeline that was supposed to run from Canada to Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Frank Gray, who works for Steamfitters Union Local 449 of Pittsburgh and teaches students how to lay pipe for fracking, sits on the other side. He backed Harris and said he was confident he wouldn’t do anything “to hurt the fracking industry.”
“In 2020, he was the deciding factor for the vote in the Senate [Inflation Reduction Act] draft law. And part of the IRA bill opened up more land for fracking. So he voted for someone who was against cheating,” he said.
Blume of Pennsylvania Conservation Voters was also full of praise for Harris’ record — but he focused on the Biden-Harris administration’s new spending on renewable energy funding.
“Natural gas is a major contributor to climate change,” Blume said, adding, “Whether you agree with fracking or not, the markets are completely changing right now, and we need to step up to make sure we have as diverse an energy portfolio as possible, which is what Biden-Harris is all about.” climate finance is something [legislation] they did.”
Gray is aware of the environmental effects of fracking if not done safely, including polluting the environment, contaminating water supplies and causing tremors in the Earth’s surface. Nevertheless, he said he believes it is possible to break it down and make it safe for the environment.
Some companies, like Stewart’s, are mindful of their environmental impact; it caps its wells, recycles the fractured water, and ensures that all exposed oil has new vegetative growth.
As voters head to the polls, the common sentiment among those working in the industry is a disconnect between public perception of fracking and what they describe as the public’s need for it. Products such as petroleum jelly and fertilizer are examples of substances that use oil extracted from fracking.
For many voters, the process required to produce energy is often invisible.
“People don’t have to go out there and get their hands dirty. That’s a very, very good thing on the one hand, but it’s a disconnect,” Stewart said. “If you’ve never seen what it takes to get this energy out of the ground or these products or this food onto our table, you won’t understand how it’s done. You will not be able to make good political decisions about it.”
Gray’s message to fracking ban advocates: “Go without gas. Spend the winter here without heat. Look how much you have for it.