Once an advocate of a complete ban on fracking, Vice President Kamala Harris reversed course when she became the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee.

The 2024 election hinges on Pennsylvania voters. Fracking, the extraction of natural gas and oil from bedrock, makes up a critical part of Pennsylvania’s economy, supporting more than 100,000 jobs in the state, according to a recent analysis. 

The discovery of the potential for thousands of tons of lithium to be extracted annually from wastewater generated by fracking in the Marcellus Shale leaves proponents of a green energy future at a crossroads, Republicans said Thursday.

Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh have discovered a large amount of lithium located in Pennsylvania, saying it could eventually supply more than a third of America’s needs for the mineral.

Researcher and study lead author Justin Mackey told CBS Pittsburgh in an article published Wednesday that the wastewaters of the Marcellus Shale gas wells could cover “somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the current U.S. national demand.”

The Biden administration issued a federal plan Thursday to remove all remaining oil and gas infrastructure located off the California coast once they stop producing.

Along a parched stretch of La Salle County, Texas, workers last year dug some 700 feet deep into the ground, seeking freshwater. Millions of gallons of it.

The water wouldn’t supply homes or irrigate farms. It was being used by the petroleum giant BP to frack for fossil fuels. The water would be mixed with sand and toxic chemicals and pumped right back underground — forcing oil and gas from the bedrock.

It was a reminder that to strike oil in America, you need water. Plenty of it.

As he campaigned for president in 2020, Joe Biden responded to a New Hampshire town hall question unequivocally, adding repetition for emphasis.

"No more drilling on federal lands," he said Feb. 9, 2020. "Period. Period. Period. Period."

Biden repeated his stance a month later, saying at a presidential primary debate: "No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends." 

President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday recommended a scaled-down version of a major oil drilling project in the North Slope of Alaska, taking a step toward approving the $8 billion Willow plan that climate groups have long condemned.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management released an environmental analysis that proposes lowering the number of drilling sites from five to three under the project, which is led by ConocoPhillips, Alaska’s largest crude oil producer.

Senate candidate John Fetterman, D-Pa., previously signed pledges to ban fracking in Pennsylvania and new fossil fuel leasing nationwide.

Fetterman, Pennsylvania's current lieutenant governor, agreed to co-sponsor the Keep It In The Ground Act — federal legislation banning new oil, gas and coal leasing on federal lands — and support a complete moratorium on fracking in Pennsylvania, according to an April 2016 Facebook post from Pennsylvania Voters Against Fracking.