Posted on 10/26/2020 6:07:25 AM PDT by EyesOfTX
This has never happened before. The oil and gas business - the industry, its health and its impact on inflation and consumer prices - has always played some small role in presidential politics, at least since the oil shocks and embargoes of the 1970s. Most times in the past, the key issue surrounding oil and gas has related to the price of gasoline and what the candidates planned to do about it.
The issue of oil and gas has only arisen whenever gas prices were considered to be too high, never when consumers were benefitting from them being historically low, as they are today. Yet, suddenly this year, this key industry is playing a huge role in the 2020 presidential politics, and it is wholly unrelated to anything having to do with prices at the pump.
The issue in this election campaign is fracking, and whether or not it will remain legal should Democrat candidate Joe Biden become our next president. While this longstanding and well-regulated industrial process has hovered around the periphery of presidential politics since 2008, when the anti-development lobby decided to politicize it with a focused and highly-organized demonization campaign, it has suddenly become one of a handful of crucial issues that dominate the political landscape this year due to its job-creating and economic impacts in a single swing state: Pennsylvania.
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What is unusual about Monday, though, is that all three of the Trump rallies will be held in Pennsylvania, which has become perhaps the single most crucial swing state in the 2020 election. Biden is also paying special attention to the Keystone State, holding events there on Friday and Saturday, and sending both ex-President Barack Obama and Senator Bernie Sanders there to campaign on his behalf over the weekend.
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Pennsylvania was certainly a key swing state in 2016, but its importance was equaled by Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina as the race played out. This year, though, it has become increasingly difficult to see how either major candidate can prevail in the Electoral College without having Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes included in his total.
All of which explains why the issue of fracking and its continued legal deployment has become so elevated in the national discourse this year. Pennsylvania is, after all, the fulcrum for the development of the enormous Marcellus Shale/Utica Shale resource plays, the largest natural gas reserve in the Western Hemisphere.
The oil and gas industry - which would wither and die in Pennsylvania were fracking to be outlawed - accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact in the state, all of which would be jeopardized under the Biden energy/environment plan. That plan was developed in large part by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Sen. Sanders, both, along with vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, sponsors of the Green New Deal.
The other reason the issue has become elevated, of course, has been the repeated promises to do away with fracking - not to mention oil and natural gas in general - made by both Biden and Harris during the course of the Democratic Party’s nominating process. Both Democrats have made several efforts to backtrack from those promises during the general election, but each time Biden in particular has attempted to do that, he has just ended up creating more confusion.
The most recent example came during last week’s final debate, when Biden again promised to “phase out” oil and gas entirely during the debate, and then vainly attempted to clarify his pledge afterwards. At some point, when a promise gets made so many times, efforts to backtrack and clarify start to fall on deaf ears.
It is largely the result of Biden’s utter inability to communicate clearly on this single issue that Pennsylvania now stands as the single most crucial swing state in this presidential election. With just 8 days remaining before Election Day, America may be about to experience its very first Fracking election.
Stranger things have happened in presidential politics over the years, but not many.
And it is about fracking time!
Fracking is merely the surface issue of the left’s wanting to get rid of all fossil fuels in general.
It’s like chipping away at 2A rights, just one chunk at a time and maybe no one will notice.
After all fracking is as evil as that assault rifle many of us own. We do not want our children murdered with assault rifles any more than we want them to die from water poisoned by fracking or breathing air tainted by oil related pollutants.
Then, as Joe said, we will “transition” away from oil & gas.
This transitioning is ongoing in Kalifornia, and is sure working our great for them. When I visited my 83 yo sister in California last year, they could not turn on the AC until the room temp was 100. It was unbearable for someone like me used to 72-75 degree AC cooling.
Antifa and BLM will likely transition into local war lords operating the black market gasoline supplies. Something similar is going on in Venezuela right now.
Biden’s people tried damage control after the debate claiming that he meant he’d phase out subsidies and not production/consumption of oil & gas, but that won’t sway anyone who saw the debate. Trump’s question he responded to obviously wasn’t about subsidies, so that’s obviously a lame attempt on their part to stuff the genie back in the bottle.
Sleepy Joe threatened to “transition” the oil industry and then called Pennsylvania voters who didn’t support him “chumps”. Keystone State, you know you can do better than this.
Here in Western Pa Everyone’s calling each other, that’s in business saying,...”Ok folks we’re on the last rung and time to get out our Trump signs and flags if they’re not already!”.....It’s very exciting!... even my landlord is calling all his business friends!”
Went to our Republican Headquarters for signs and they were out last week!!!!....Also Gov Wolf tried to prevent Trumps rallies at his venues here....thank God for Trucking Companies that came through for Trump!
Writing this so people understand Pennsylvania Citizens KNOWS we gotta do this!..and we’re fighting hard!!!
GO Pa! GO!
With their ploy to try ban ammunition to get around their gun confiscation plot, they can try to ban frac sand as an environmental danger. /s
Jeesh, these Democrats sure hate Pennsylvania, especially the western part of the state. After Barack was here campaigning in his election against Hillary, he slammed us at a fundraiser in San Francisco saying we were suspicious of outsiders and were bitterly clinging to our guns and religion. Now Biden wants to wipe out an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians.
Then the jerk said the Boilermakers Union endorsed him for president. Not so said one of the spokesmen for the Pittsburgh local of that union. That guy was disgusted with Biden as he explained on Fox how the petrochemical industry is basic to everything—synthetics, plastics, fertilizer, even makeup. Without cheap, reliable energy we have no industry—no steel, no aluminum, no nothing. Pennsylvanians know this. It’s Pennsylvania coal and natural gas that is keeping the light and heat on in New York City and the east coast. Without us, Biden is dead. I’m hoping we turn out in such numbers we rub Biden’s nose in it.
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