Fact-checking Kamala Harris’s first campaign interview

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has given her first interview since coming into the race – a joint dialog alongside working mate Tim Walz.

BBC Confirm has appeared into claims she made within the CNN interview about fracking, the Biden administration’s document on youngster tax poverty and funding in clean-energy jobs.

CLAIM: In Thursday’s interview, Ms Harris stated she wouldn’t ban fracking and maintained that she has “not modified that place”.

VERDICT: This wants context and may very well be deceptive as Ms Harris has modified her public place on fracking. In 2019, she stated she was “in favour of banning fracking.”

The next yr, within the 2020 vice presidential debate when she was on the Biden ticket, Ms Harris stated “Joe Biden is not going to finish fracking” and: “I’ll repeat, and the American folks know, that Joe Biden is not going to ban fracking.”

In the course of the CNN interview on Thursday she was pressed on her 2019 assertion, and Ms Harris responded: “I made that clear on the controversy stage in 2020, that I’d not ban fracking. As vice-president, I didn’t ban fracking. As president, I cannot ban fracking.”

Within the debate, Ms Harris was referring to President Joe Biden’s coverage plans. She didn’t state whether or not her personal views on the time differed from this place.

CLAIM: “After we do what we did within the first yr of being in workplace to increase the kid tax credit score, in order that we reduce youngster poverty in America by over 50%.”

VERDICT: That is considerably of an exaggeration and wishes context. Baby poverty charges did fall, however not by “over 50%” and so they rose once more the yr after, so the affect was solely non permanent.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) is one measure of poverty within the US and it does present that the kid poverty charge fell 46% between 2020 and 2021.

Nevertheless, after the Covid-era increase to youngster tax credit score ended, the document low youngster poverty charge of 5.2% in 2021 rose to 12.4% the next yr, in keeping with 2022 Census Bureau knowledge.

People incomes lower than $200,000 yearly (or $400,000 for joint claimants) can, underneath the present youngster tax credit score scheme, get $2,000 per yr for every of their youngsters underneath the age of 17.

This quantity was elevated by President Biden in the course of the Covid pandemic as much as a most of $3,600 nevertheless it reverted again to $2,000 on the finish of 2021.

Kamala Harris has stated that as president she would restore the kid tax credit score enhancement and supply $6,000 per youngster to households for the primary yr of a child’s life.

CLAIM: “What we’ve already finished creating over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs.”

VERDICT: It’s true that numerous clear power jobs have been created underneath the Biden administration, however the precise quantity is unsure.

Kamala Harris is referring to the roles created by the Inflation Discount Act – a regulation signed by Joe Biden in August 2022 that launched main investments in clear power and climate-related initiatives.

The declare of “over 300,000 new clean-energy jobs” comes from a latest report by Local weather Energy, a local weather communications organisation.

It reported that since August 2022 firms have “introduced and superior 646 new clear power initiatives totalling 334,565 new jobs”.

Nevertheless, not all of those new job roles have essentially begun, and it is usually laborious to attribute the entire enhance in climate-related employment to the Inflation Discount Act at a time when clear power is rising internationally.

Different teams give totally different numbers. E2, an economics and surroundings group, estimates round 109,000 clean-energy jobs have been created or introduced because the Inflation Discount Act.

In accordance with the US Division of Power, in 2023 clean-energy employment grew at a charge twice as giant because the US economic system total and the remainder of the power sector.