Energy is on the ballot this November, and the chickens are coming to roost for Democratic policymakers who’ve backed President Biden’s hostility toward our fossil-fuel industry.
With utilities, consumer goods and food prices 30% higher under Biden, driven in part by climbing gas prices, Democratic senators like Montana’s Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown — both of whom represent Republican-majority states — are rightfully nervous.
Yet none more so than Pennsylvania’s three-term Democratic senator, Bob Casey.
After 18 years in the Senate, Casey has had a remarkably unimpressive legislative career.
Pressed, few could point to piece of legislation or a floor speech where he stood out.
And he’s now overshadowed by his fellow Democrat, the junior Sen. John Fetterman.
The hoodie-wearing freshman has earned unlikely admirers on the right for his willingness to stand up to his party’s antisemites, and he’s won a populist appeal Casey never could.
Consider their home state of Pennsylvania, one of the leading producers of natural gas through fracking.
During his 2022 campaign, Fetterman’s shifting views on fracking came under fire. Ultimately, he backed it. Credit where credit is due.
Fetterman may have been a Bernie Sanders backer in 2016, but his Keystone State is home to Titusville, which — as the site of the first commercial oil well drilled by John D. Rockefeller in 1895 — played a key role in our nation’s development as a global superpower.
Today, the state’s oil and gas industry employs nearly half a million of Fetterman’s constituents and contributed $75 billion to the economy in 2021.
In February, Fetterman split with the White House over its ban on approvals for liquefied natural gas exports.
Actually, even Casey felt compelled to join him on that.
Yet Casey’s opposition was more the exception than the rule. And it highlights the dilemma.
Since taking office, Biden has leveraged every tool in his regulatory toolbox to make good on his 2020 campaign promise to “end fossil fuel.”
He canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on Day 1.
He banned new oil and natural-gas leases on public lands and waters.
Last week, Biden ordered oil and gas companies to pay more to drill on existing federal lands.
Yet along the way, the silence from Senate Democrats — including from Casey, as well as Brown and Tester, who also represent fossil-fuel-rich state and energy workers — has been deafening.
Not only did they all support the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, billed by the White House as the “largest climate investment in history”; they’ve stood idly by as Biden’s regulatory assault has tried to crush the industry.
Casey even once labeled the Green New Deal, the brainchild of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “worthy of review.”
Facing a middling 39% approval rating and a strong challenge from George W. Bush staffer David McCormick, Casey is now eager to cloak himself in some of Fetterman’s hooded magic.
Yet his voting record remains a millstone — 98% of the time he sided with another (purported) Pennsylvanian, Joe Biden.
Biden will likely spend a lot of time in his former home state.
This week, he kicked off a three-day tour to Scranton, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.
Biden’s presence in the state puts Casey in a bind: The senator can’t campaign with Biden outside of Democratic strongholds, where the president may be unpopular thanks to his fossil-fuel record (and where the corralled audience might be wondering: Who’s that with the president?).
Yet Casey needs to campaign in places where McCormick has growing support from a frustrated electorate.
Ironically, the senator’s successful 2006 victory over then-Sen. Rick Santorum (full disclosure: I worked on the Santorum campaign) involved linking the incumbent to another unpopular president, then-President George W. Bush.
Casey was fond of saying, “When two politicians are agreeing 98% of the time, one of them isn’t necessary.”
That strategy may come back to haunt him, given his near-total support for Biden.
Yes, energy is on the ballot, and energy workers in Pennsylvania, Montana and Ohio could become the new coveted demographic, like “soccer moms.”
If candidates focused on these voters’ issues, not only would they win elections, but the entire nation, and quite frankly the world, would be better off.
Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs.
daniel@powerthefuture.com
