‘I guarantee, I guarantee we are going to end fossil fuel…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Former Vice President Joe Biden said recently that he would not “shut down” fracking if elected president, despite saying he would not let the oil industry “continue to drill” in March, KDKA reported.
Jon Delano of Pittsburgh’s KDKA spoke with Biden about the future of energy production in the United States and President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus.
Delano asked Biden what his policies would be in regard to the Shell petrochemical plant and fracking industry.
“If you are are elected president, would you shut down this industry?” he asked.
“No, I would not shut down this industry,” Biden responded.
“I know our Republican friends are trying to say I said that. I said I would not do any new leases on federal lands,” he clarified.
Biden insisted that the ban would thus constitute only a small fraction of the overall drilling and exploration.
“Ninety percent of the leases are not on federal land to begin with,” he said. “I would make sure … the water is not being contaminated. But I would not shut it down, no.”
This answer raises new questions about the answers he has given during the past few months of the Democratic Party primary.
Biden has oscillated between promising an oil ban, to saying that oil should be phased out, to saying that he will not shut down the oil industry.
His comments at CNN’s March 15 Democratic Party presidential debate may clarify what he said to Delano.
He said there should be “no more—no new fracking.”
“No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period.”
As early as September 2019, Biden said, “I guarantee, I guarantee we are going to end fossil fuel.”
At a Jan. 24 campaign event in New Hampshire, a voter asked him, “But like, what about, say, stopping fracking … and stopping pipeline infrastructure?”
He responded “yes” to both questions, Americans for Tax Reform reported.
At a Feb. 8 campaign rally in New Hampshire, Biden bragged about how the Obama administration “wiped out—no more coal plants.”
In response to left-wing protesters demanding an end to fossil fuels, Biden expressed his solidarity.
“That’s OK—these guys are OK,” he said. “They want to do the same thing that I want to do, they want to phase out fossil fuels, and we’re going to phase out fossil fuels.”
A Familiar Pattern…
Biden notably admitted in a 1974 interview, during his first term as a U.S. senator, that he was willing to “prostitute” himself to the highest bidder.
“You run the risk of deciding whether or not you’re going to prostitute yourself to give the answer you know they want to hear in order to get funded to run for that office,” he told PBS.
Over the course of his five-decade career in Washington, such reversals have become something of a trademark for him, as ubiquitous as his routine gaffes and uncomfortable physical contact.
While continuing to frame himself as a “moderate” during the Democratic primaries, Biden has embraced one of the most radical leftist platforms in history, said former President Barack Obama while endorsing him.
One particularly hot topic has been Biden’s off-and-on relationship with China, which has been accused of covering up the origin and early scope of the coronavirus pandemic.
In less than two months’ time last year, between May and June, Biden flipped from downplaying the Asian superpower’s economic threat to the U.S. to fearmongering over Trump’s “dangerous” Chinese trade war.
Biden’s son Hunter, while accompanying his dad on state business during the Obama administration, was revealed to have partnered with China’s communist government in 2013 on the $1.5 billion BHR Equity Investment Fund.
He remained on the company’s board until facing pressure to step down last October. However, Chinese records as of last December continued to list him as a board member.
Wow! Hunter Biden is being forced to leave a Chinese Company. Now watch the Fake News wrap their greasy and very protective arms around him. Only softball questions of him please!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2019
During a recent interview, Biden tried to swing at Trump over the president’s coronavirus response using a page from Trump’s own playbook.
“He has been so slow getting out of the gate. Talk about slow, this is slow-mo Trump,” Biden said. “I mean, everything is like it’s in slow motion. They’ve got to move. People are getting hurt badly.”
He then accused Trump of being too soft on China.
“Way back in January, I said he should step and challenge China,” Biden claimed. “They are engaging in an activity that they are not being truthful with the rest of the world about.”
When Trump restricted travel from China, the mainstream media chorus called him xenophobic.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.