Trump and Harris spar over fracking amid America’s soaring energy needs

The president’s views on topics like fossil-fuel production and the relative importance of cheap energy versus combatting climate change are very important, and could lead to the U.S. economy taking fairly divergent paths.

“The president doesn’t have the authority to ban fracking,” wrote Philip Rossetti, energy researcher at the conservative think tank R Street Institute. “But the president can still make life difficult for energy producers if they choose.”

He noted that a president can direct agencies to “slow-walk permitting decisions, try to claw back permitting authority granted to states for wells, restrict leasing, or impose any number of other policies to build a wall of red tape.”