In its 2016 platform, the Democratic Party has veered too far to the left, abandoning its support for natural gas energy generation, Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the Institute for 21st Century Energy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary last week. “[T]he final language stops short of calling for a nationwide fracking ban but incorporates a raft of anti-energy provisions, such as promising new Environmental Protection Agency rules on fracking, instituting a Keystone XL-like ‘climate test’ for future federal permitting, and generally discouraging the use of natural gas,” the op-ed says.
Harbert pointed to the competition between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and newly named Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the platform drafting process as producing more liberal policies. When the drafting process began in June, neither candidate had secured the needed number of delegates to clinch the nomination so both were given representatives on the platform drafting committee.
“These divisions trace to early spring, when Sen. Sanders worked to distinguish himself as the candidate most committed to stringent climate regulations and new federal rules to halt fracking. The tactic rallied environmental activists, and Mrs. Clinton responded with a leftward drift that inched ever-so-close to the Sanders position,” Harbert wrote.
