by Valerie Richardson
Washington Times
Data for Progress survey shows 16-point decline before and after debate
Support for a fracking ban declined significantly among Democrats after the first presidential debate, prompting foes of hydraulic fracturing to urge Joseph R. Biden to stop talking about the issue.
A Data for Progress survey released Wednesday showed that Democratic support for banning fracking fell from 65% to 49% in polls taken shortly before and after the Sept. 29 debate, as the former vice president continues to counter President Trump’s insistence that he would prohibit the oil-and-gas extraction process.
“Earth to Biden: Stop Talking About Fracking,” said the headline on the Data for Progress analysis in The Nation, a leftist publication…
Steve Milloy, founder of the skeptical JunkScience website and a former member of the Trump EPA transition team, said that “now the radicals even want Biden to stop talking about fracking in fear of losing more support for a ban.”
The Data for Progress analysis said that only Congress, not the president, could ban fracking, which has driven the U.S. shale boom, while Mr. Milloy said the executive branch has other industry-snuffing methods at its disposal.
“While a President Biden couldn’t ban fracking, he could kill fracking the same way Obama-Biden killed the coal industry — by bringing the weight of the entire federal government down on the industry to destroy it financially,” Mr. Milloy said. “Voters deserve to know whether a President Biden would wreck our economy with reckless action against fracking.”
