By Jarrett Renshaw
ERIE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Drillers in energy-rich Pennsylvania this week called on Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris to detail her position on natural gas, a fuel the energy industry bills as clean but which climate activists say is a global warming menace.
President Joe Biden put a freeze on new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export permits in January to study its environmental impacts, in an election-year move aimed at making gains with the party’s green voting blocks.
But it is now Harris squaring off against Republican rival Donald Trump, who has said he would immediately lift the permit freeze if elected.
If she wins, she will likely be tasked with unwinding the pause and incorporating any new recommendations from the promised review, which the administration says is expected to land after November’s election.
Pennsylvania, a must win state for both Harris and Trump, is the nation’s second largest producer of natural gas. The state’s natural gas is tightly locked in shale rock and requires fracking to extract. “We need more details,” said Dave Callahan, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, whose members gathered in northeast Pennsylvania this week for an annual conference. Reuters talked to a dozen natural gas and drilling executives who attended the conference, all of whom said they are still guessing about Harris’s energy policy.