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What Was Said and Left Unsaid on the Debate Stage

Author

Jeff Luse
September 11, 2024

Welcome to Grid Brief! Here’s what we’re looking at today: recapping what was said about energy during the presidential debate.

What Was Said and Left Unsaid on the Debate Stage

Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty

Last night Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced off in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center for their first—and possibly only—debate of the 2024 presidential election. The debate primarily focused on the economy, immigration, and reproductive rights. Disappointingly for this author, the issue of energy and grid reliability was hardly mentioned despite the important role that energy has in the economy and energy prices play in determining inflation.

Still, the topic was brought up a few times so let’s dig into what the candidates said.

On fracking, Vice President Harris said:

“I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as Vice President of the United States. And, in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking. My position is 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.”

There are a few things to clarify here. Yes, the Inflation Reduction Act “opened new leases for fracking,” but Harris’s statement oversimplifies the bill. The IRA advanced offshore oil leases in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico that were already conducted but held up in court after NGOs sued the Department of Interior over its environmental assessment of these leases. The IRA also increased offshore and onshore oil and gas royalties on federal lands and tied offshore wind leases to oil and gas leases.

Her point on the U.S. having the largest “increase in domestic oil production in history” also deserves some context. Yes, oil and gas production is at record highs but there are a few things to consider. First, it can take as long as 10 years for a well to navigate the permitting and exploration phase and begin producing oil. At least some of the wells that are producing today were likely permitted in the Trump—and maybe even Obama—years and have just now begun to produce oil. Second, record oil and gas production is happening in spite of the Biden administration’s decisions to slow-walk oil and gas sales, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, and pause future LNG exports (which didn’t hurt current production but did harm confidence in the industry).

In response to Harris’s statement above, Trump said:

“If she won the election, fracking in Pennsylvania will end on day one. Just to finish one thing, so important in my opinion, so, I got the oil business going like nobody has ever done before…They got it up to where I was because they had no choice. Because the prices of energy were quadrupling and doubling. You saw what happened to gasoline…But if she won the election, the day after that election, they'll go back to destroying our country and oil will be dead, fossil fuel will be dead. We'll go back to windmills and we'll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out. You ever see a solar plant? By the way, I'm a big fan of solar. But they take 400, 500 acres of desert soil. These are not good things for the environment that she understands.”

As with most statements from the former president, this one needs context, clarification, and correction.

First, an outright ban on fracking would require an act of Congress. Presidents can enact Executive Orders to slow down lease sales and the Executive Branch can introduce new regulations—which would be tricky to navigate now that Chevron is dead—but they can not fully ban fracking. Second, gasoline prices hit record highs under the Biden administration but there are many reasons for why this happened, perhaps the most important of which is COVID-19 . During the pandemic, refineries shut down because global oil demand plummeted (at one point, a barrel of oil was being traded for negative dollars). As economies began opening up in 2021 and 2022 the world’s refinery capacity was inadequate and supply was not able to keep up with demand which led to higher prices. There are other factors to consider too, including OPEC’s role and the fact that oil is a globally traded commodity so its price is determined by global markets.

Yes, the Biden administration’s rhetoric and Day 1 policies didn’t help, but they’re not solely to blame, either. The point about solar’s land footprint is right, however, and should be discussed more regularly in public debates.

Vice President Harris also touted the administration’s investments in clean energy. President Trump responded by talking about manufacturing in Mexico, China, and Hunter Biden.

Unfortunately, neither candidate used their platform to talk about the work that both administrations did to advance nuclear power or articulate how they would address concerns about meeting future grid demand.

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