Fact Check: Joe Biden Claims ‘I Am Not Banning Fracking’

CLAIM: Joe Biden claimed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: “I am not banning fracking.”

VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. Biden has promised to ban fracking — repeatedly — as has his running mate.

Biden said Monday — during a speech supposedly on violence: “I am not banning fracking. Let me say again: I am not banning fracking. No matter how many times Donald Trump lies about me.”

The problem, for Biden, is that he explicitly promised to ban fracking during the second Democratic Party presidential primary debate on July 31, 2019, in Detroit, Michigan.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked him the question directly:

Bash: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Just to clarify, would there be any place for fossil fuels, including coal and fracking, in a Biden administration?

Biden: No, we would — we would work it out. We would make sure it’s eliminated and no more subsidies for either one of those, either — any fossil fuel.

Joe Biden just claimed he doesn't want to ban fracking.

But a few months ago he said there would be no place for fracking in a Biden Administration: "we would make sure it's eliminated."pic.twitter.com/gLSIZEnwP8

— Abigail Marone (@abigailmarone) August 31, 2020

This was Biden’s consistent position through March of this year. In the final debate of the primary, when he faced off against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Biden promised: “No new fracking.”

It was not the only time Biden made similar commitments.

He later tried to backtrack, telling Philadelphia-area ABC affiliate WNEP in July: “Fracking is not going to be on the chopping block.”

But his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), wants to ban fracking — everywhere.

Politicians can change their views, and it’s possible that Biden has flip-flopped on the issue, but his selection of Harris was widely seen as cementing his anti-fracking stance.

It’s not Donald Trump that told voters Biden was against fracking. Biden told voters himself.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.