During Tuesday night’s debate on ABC with former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris was accused of being dishonest about her stance on energy issues. When debate moderators questioned her about her shifts in policy, Harris attempted to dodge by not addressing the question for over two minutes, including when it came to her position on fracking.

She further asserted that, as vice president, she had not banned fracking and highlighted her role as the tie-breaking vote on the ‘Inflation Reduction’ Act, which allowed new fracking leases.

However, CNN’s fact-checker, Daniel Dale, even labeled the vice president’s statement on fracking as false, noting on X that Harris did not explicitly state in 2020 that she, personally, would not ban fracking as president. Instead, Dale notes in the comments she refers to from her debate with Pence, she only reiterated that Joe Biden would not ban fracking.

None the less, five years ago, Harris said that she supported a ban on fracking. Additionally, she took her position even further by expressing opposition to offshore oil drilling during a CNN town hall that same year.

Although the vice president attempted to present the current administration as supportive of new oil and gas leases, in reality, the Biden-Harris administration has utilized every available measure to regulate fossil fuels out of existence.

For example, on his second day in office, Biden a halted new leasing and drilling permits for U.S. lands and waters. Oil and gas leasing did not resume until June 2022, following a federal court ruling that deemed the moratorium unlawful. When leases were eventually reinstated, they were limited, and Biden’s Department of the Interior had significantly increased drilling costs by raising royalty rates by 50 percent, in addition to introducing a series of new regulations.

Furthermore, the Washington Free Beacon reveals that, in its first two years, the Biden-Harris administration approved fewer acres for drilling than any president since Harry Truman. At one point, even Biden’s EPA proposed regulations that could compel the closure of existing gas power plants. The agency has also considered labeling Texas’s Permian Basin as not meeting ozone standards, which would necessitate significant cuts in oil and gas production.

Thanks to Biden’s regulatory chicanery, Americans are experiencing record-high gas prices, with the national average surpassing $5 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline in 2022 and at higher levels prior to Biden beginning his shinanegans. The administration, led by a Bay-Area regressive who supported the Green New Deal as a senator (i.e. Kamala Harris), would drive gas prices even higher as president.

This is true regardless of the vice president’s efforts to distance herself from her previous role as a prominent regulator. Like Biden, Kamala Harris doesn’t need to ban fracking. As president, she can appoint radicals, like Deb Haaland, to the appropriate agencies using the regulatory process to continue to destroy the fossil fuel industry and extraction methods, like fracking.

Ultimately, Kamala Harris can run but she can’t hide from her record. If she were truly an impressive, compelling, moderate, and as exciting as the media is currently portraying her, there would be no need for Harris and the media to completely reframe her past.