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Fact Checking Kamala Harris’ First Campaign Interview
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Fact Checking Kamala Harris’ First Campaign Interview

Getty Images U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August 2024Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has given her first interview since entering the race, alongside her running mate Tim Walz.

BBC Verify has investigated claims she made in the CNN interview about fracking, the Biden administration’s record on child tax poverty and investments in clean energy jobs.

What is Harris’ position on fracking?

CLAIM: In Thursday’s interview, Ms. Harris said she would not ban fracking and insisted she “has not changed that position.”

PRONUNCIATION: This needs context and can be misleading, as Ms Harris has changed her public stance on fracking. In 2019, she said she was “for banning fracking”.

The following year, in the 2020 vice presidential debate When she was on the Biden ticket, Ms. Harris said, “Joe Biden will not ban fracking,” and, “I repeat, and the American people know this, Joe Biden will not ban fracking.”

Pressed about her 2019 statement during the CNN interview on Thursday, Ms. Harris responded: “I made that clear on the debate stage in 2020, that I would not ban fracking. As vice president, I did not ban fracking. As president, I will not ban fracking.”

In the debate, Ms. Harris referred to President Joe Biden’s policy plans. She did not indicate whether her own views at the time differed from this position.

Getty Images A worker in Pennsylvania cleans a fracking machine.Getty Images

In 2019, Kamala Harris said she was “for a ban on fracking.”

Has child poverty fallen by more than 50%?

CLAIM: “If we do what we did in our first year in office, which is extend the child tax credit, we can reduce child poverty in America by more than 50 percent.”

PRONUNCIATION: This is a bit of an exaggeration and needs context. Child poverty rates did fall, but not by “more than 50%” and rose again the following year, so the impact was only temporary.

The Supplementary Poverty Measure (SPM) is a measure of poverty in the US and shows that the child poverty rate fell by 46% between 2020 and 2021.

However, after the Covid-era increase in the child tax credit ended, the record-low child poverty rate rose from 5.2% in 2021 to 12.4% the following year, according to 2022 Census Bureau data.

Americans who earn less than $200,000 a year (or $400,000 for joint filers) can, under the current child tax credit, get $2,000 a year for each of their children under age 17.

This amount was increased by President Biden during the Covid pandemic to a maximum of $3,600, but was reduced back to $2,000 in late 2021.

Kamala Harris has said that as president she wants to reinstate the child benefit and give families $6,000 per child over the first year of a baby’s life.

How many jobs have been created in the clean energy sector?

CLAIM: “What we have already done is create more than 300,000 new jobs in clean energy.”

PRONUNCIATION: It is true that a large number of jobs have been created in the clean energy sector under the Biden administration, but the exact number is uncertain.

Kamala Harris points to the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act – a law signed by Joe Biden in August 2022 that introduced major investments in clean energy and climate-related projects.

The claim of “over 300,000 new clean energy jobs” comes from a recent report from Climate Powera climate communications organization.

It was reported that since August 2022, companies have “announced and promoted 646 new clean energy projects, creating a total of 334,565 new jobs.”

Yet not all of these new jobs have actually been created. Moreover, it is difficult to attribute all of the increase in climate-related employment to the Inflation Reduction Act, while clean energy is gaining popularity around the world.

Other groups give different numbers. E2, an economics and environment group, estimates approximately 109,000 jobs in clean energy have been created or announced since the Inflation Reduction Act.

According to the US Department of EnergyBy 2023, clean energy employment will grow twice as fast as the U.S. economy as a whole and the rest of the energy sector.

Getty Images US President Joe Biden attends a rally at the White House celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in September 2022.Getty Images

In 2022, the Inflation Reduction Act went into effect, allowing for investment in clean energy projects.

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