Last month, left-leaning writer Matt Yglesias noticed something interesting: World leaders are recalibrating their approach to climate and energy policy.
In Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney axed his nation’s carbon tax and is building new oil and gas pipelines. In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum aims to revitalize her country’s state-run oil company and possibly start fracking for natural gas. Labor parties in Norway and Australia are likewise moving away from rigid energy mandates. And in the U.S., Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York recently approved a new gas pipeline and is pivoting toward a more balanced energy strategy. This comes as Bill Gates has acknowledged the need to focus on making energy both cleaner and more affordable.
Such retrenchments would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. As consideration for the fiscal 2026 energy spending bills begins in Congress, U.S. representatives should likewise recognize that making energy more affordable is just as important to their base — if not more of a priority — as is making it cleaner.
Thanks to the fracking boom that began in the 2010s, the U.S. is now the world’s No.1 producer of both crude oil and natural gas. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that hydraulic fracking alone boosted America’s gross domestic product by an entire percentage point between 2010 and 2015. That’s tens of billions of dollars into Americans’ pockets in just five years. That doesn’t mean we should rely on fracking exclusively, but it does signal that it would be foolish to write it off completely.
What of claims that fossil fuels are dirty and contributing to climate change? U.S. carbon emissions have actually declined in recent years; the Energy Information Administration calculates that clean fossil fuels are responsible for 61 percent of that decrease. Importantly, the GDP gains we’ve realized by extracting natural gas and oil through hydraulic fracking were often felt in the most economically overlooked areas of the country.
As a former congressman from Pennsylvania, I have seen the positive economic impact in places like Pittsburgh and Bethlehem — former industrial hubs that have steadily lost population and economic resources but have benefited from the natural gas boom. Energy production is one way to give blue-collar towns a fighting chance at economic revitalization.
Natural gas extraction has created tens of thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania alone. Even better for some Americans is the royalties they receive from allowing oil or gas extraction on their land, which in the Keystone State averaged $154,000 in 2014. Pennsylvania has received such a windfall from fracking that, in 2015, more than a dozen New York towns threatened to secede into Pennsylvania over New York’s fracking ban. To them, that state border looked more like a Berlin Wall.
Fossil fuel extraction has also brought major advantages abroad. The U.S. is now a net oil and gas exporter, which has helped strengthen our national security. Some of the world’s other petroleum-producing nations, such as Venezuela, Russia and Iran, tend to be unstable and less reliable. These countries wield outsized influence in the world largely because there is so much demand for their oil and gas. By becoming a fossil fuel producer, the U.S. has helped diminish that influence and increase America’s energy independence.
At the same time, oil and gas drilling is rescuing our allies. After European nations cut themselves off from Russian natural gas following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, American producers stepped in to fill the void. The U.S. is expected to supply an astonishing 70 percent of European liquid natural gas by 2029 — a windfall for Americans, a lifeline for Europeans.
There is an old axiom that good policy translates into good politics — it just takes time. This is what many Democrats are realizing as they come around to supporting America’s fossil fuel industry after years of reflexive opposition.
Democrats have always supported giving the working class a fair chance: creating jobs right here in America, making sure life’s essentials are affordable for all, supporting our allies abroad, and leaving our children a clean and sustainable planet. A practical, all-of-the-above energy strategy helps achieve all of those goals.
In today’s political environment, Democrats can no longer be the small tent party of elites and ideological checklists. If they want to start winning elections again, Democrats will have to reconnect with everyday Americans. A step in that direction would be to begin to embrace America’s oil and natural gas economic engine.
Jason Altmire is the former Democratic U.S. representative for Pennsylvania’s 4th congressional district. He chaired the Small Business Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and served on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
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