Opinion | This Is Not What Trump Had in Mind

Bret Stephens: Gail, I’ve never thought to ask you this, but we seem to have an occasion: Where do you stand on … fracking?

Gail Collins: Bret, is it possible you want to point out that Kamala Harris has upended her fracking position? She was totally against it as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020. Way more amenable in her current role.

Bret: Surely, it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that fracking has helped make Pennsylvania the second-largest natural gas producer in the country.

Gail: Fracking is deep, deep drilling for oil or gas that can reduce the cost of energy. It can also really mess up the environment and contribute to global warming. I say no, let’s just get focused on those electric cars.

Bret: Electric cars that run on batteries made of cobalt, lithium, nickel, graphite and other minerals that have to be mined in ways that are neither cheap nor clean? And which, in turn, depend on an electric grid powered, for the most part, by hydrocarbons?

Gail: I have faith we’ll get to a better version.

Bret: This is one of the burgeoning number of cases where I’m happy to see Harris come around — I just wish she could have made a better case for her current position. Like, if she had noted that by producing more natural gas in the U.S., we’ve become less dependent on coal, which is good for the planet. Or that, by producing more oil in the United States, we’re also less dependent on the Middle East. Or that, by becoming more energy independent, we can do more to ensure that we are extracting the energy in an environmentally sound way — something we can’t do when the oil is coming from Venezuela or Iraq.