Harris claims she is not against gas drilling, but campaign member says she won’t expand fossil fuel

New York: Trying to match former President Donald Trump’s popular call for US energy independence, Vice President Kamala Harris has said she is dropping her demand to ban drilling for gas, but a campaign adviser says she won’t promote fossil fuel.

Harris has appointed Camila Thorndike, who worked as climate engagement director for an activist organisation Rewiring America which campaigned for even banning gas stoves, as her campaign’s climate adviser.

Thorndike has been on its staff from 2022 to last month.

Sensing the nation’s mood on getting more fossil fuels, Harris has said that she is dropping her demand for banning an economical method of drilling for natural gas known as fracking.

But Thorndike threw doubts about her sincerity telling Politico in an interview that Harris “is not promoting expansion (of fossil fuel drilling). She’s just said that they wouldn’t ban fracking”.

The head of the American Energy Institute, Jason Isaac, accused Harris of harbouring hostility towards several energy sources.

He told Fox News Digital that Harris’ decision to bring on Thorndike “underscores her administration’s hostility towards American energy sources that power our economy and support millions of jobs”.

Thorndike admitted in the Politico interview that “everyone wants their energy bills to go down. Everyone wants the electric grid to keep the lights on”.

However, banning or restricting fossil fuel expansion will lead to higher prices, a point Trump has been making.

With the slogan of “Drill Baby, Drill”, he has said that he would expand drilling for gas and oil so that the abundant supply would bring down energy prices, which would have a cascading effect on the prices of all other products as they depend on energy for manufacturing or transportation.

Gas used for cooking is less polluting than many other fuels, including electricity produced with coal or oil.

However, groups like Rewiring America target gas as polluting, even though the US relies on coal — which is highly polluting — for 16 per cent of its electricity which in effect ends up more polluting than gas.

The group is called a “dark money” organisation because its financial structure limits disclosures of most sources of funding.

According to Fox Digital, it was founded by those with financial interests in wind and solar.

–IANS