Her flip-flops are like oil and water.
Vice President Kamala Harris threatened to carry felony expenses towards Huge Oil firms throughout her 2019 White Home run however is now giving the business excessive marks for its booming output.
Her dramatic shift in help for home oil and gasoline manufacturing is one in every of a number of coverage flip-flops which were uncovered since Harris changed President Biden on the 2024 Democratic ticket.
“You have to be actually ready to take a look at a severe nice or be charged with against the law,” Harris informed a South Carolina city corridor attendee again in November 2019, when requested whether or not she would examine the function oil firms play in local weather change.
The then-California Senator went on to accuse oil firms of partaking in a cover-up – likening them to cigarette producers.
“And, not not like the tobacco firms, after years — ’trigger they’d executed the analysis — they knew the hurt that their product was inflicting,” Harris mentioned on the city corridor, in keeping with CNN. “They had been making a lot cash that they stored that secret — identical factor with these large oil firms.”
“And they should pay the value,” she added. “So sure is the reply.”
CNN found greater than a dozen mentions of “prosecuting Huge Oil” on materials from Harris’ 2020 marketing campaign, with the specter of local weather change being the impetus.
“They’d executed the research they usually knew of the hurt that their product was creating, however they nonetheless pushed their product ’trigger they had been making a ton of cash. That’s the identical factor with Huge Oil,” Harris mentioned at an Iowa marketing campaign occasion in 2019, in keeping with the outlet.
“They’ve recognized for a very long time what they’ve been doing – that’s destroying this God-given planet,” she mentioned, as soon as once more evaluating Huge Oil to Huge Tobacco.
Throughout her first White Home run, Harris additionally falsely touted having “sued” ExxonMobil – the most important home oil firm within the US – as Legal professional Common of California.
Harris launched an investigation into the oil big, over allegations that it misled the general public and shareholders about the specter of local weather change, however she by no means filed a lawsuit.
Harris’ tough-talk on oil performed properly with different far-left positions on power that she trumped in 2019, together with help for the Inexperienced New Deal, banning fracking and outlawing gasoline-powered automobiles.
All the above are insurance policies that she has disavowed in her newest presidential bid.
“We now have had the most important enhance in home oil manufacturing in historical past due to an method that acknowledges that we can not over depend on international oil,” Harris mentioned at a Philadelphia marketing campaign occasion final month.
Her marketing campaign web site additionally promotes the “file power manufacturing” from the oil and gasoline industries beneath the Harris-Biden administration, describing it as “guaranteeing America’s power safety and independence.”
Nevertheless, the current surge in US oil manufacturing has largely been attributed to higher drilling know-how and market forces fairly than Harris-Biden administration insurance policies.
There isn’t any point out of prosecuting Huge Oil firms on her web site, however Harris does tout the “tens of thousands and thousands in settlements” towards the business throughout her time as Claifornia AG and he or she vaguely vows to “ maintain polluters accountable.”
The Publish has reached out to the Harris marketing campaign for remark.
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