TTwo years ago, President Biden signed the world’s largest climate change spending plan, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). At the time, it was estimated to provide $370 billion in support for programs that reduce emissions.

During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris praised the law for a very different claim: It cleared the way for more oil and gas drilling.

It was just one of several statements in which the Democratic presidential candidate argued that, in addition to promoting clean energy technologies, she would also boost domestic production of fossil fuels. She said early on that she now supports fracking, a technology used to drill oil and gas wells, after saying in 2019 that she favored banning it. She celebrated the “largest increase in domestic oil production in history” during the Biden administration. “We need to invest in diverse energy sources so that we reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” she said.

At the same time, former President Donald Trump attempted to put his opponent on the defensive on the issue, saying that if Harris is elected, “oil will be dead” and returning to the issue unprompted at several points during the debate.

On the substantive level, the debate represents little departure from the longstanding contours of the policy debate in Washington. Biden has spent heavily and used the government’s regulatory power to promote clean energy, while calling for more oil and gas production as those technologies continue to grow. Republicans have generally called for policies that would be even more favorable to oil and gas.

But rhetorically, Harris’ departure could hardly have been more striking. In addition to reversing her previous support for a fracking ban, Harris built her profile as California’s attorney general in part by investigating oil companies.

It’s an indicator of how much the politics of energy and climate have changed in the past four years. The oil market has been turned upside down since the 2020 presidential election, when oil prices collapsed amid the COVID pandemic and the industry appeared to be in dire financial straits. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked panic as fears mounted that Russia, a major oil exporter, could cut supplies. In response, Biden called on U.S. companies to produce more oil.

At the same time, instead of trying to push through a new, sweeping climate policy platform, Democrats should now be on the defensive to protect the rules they’ve put on the books over the past four years. A future Trump administration would focus on the piles of environmental regulations that have been passed down from the Biden administration. administration. And all eyes would be on the IRA, as some Republicans would seek to end the Clean Energy Act’s tax breaks and claw back funding that has already flowed to federal agencies.

Asked how she would address climate change, Harris offered little forward-looking vision. Instead, she praised the IRA, saying it had created manufacturing jobs and spurred investment in the U.S. auto industry. “During my time as vice president, we’ve invested in clean energy to the point where we’re opening factories all over the world,” she said.

And then there’s the political calculation that keeps everyone talking about fracking: Pennsylvania is a must-win swing state, and fracking played a major role in spurring drilling in the state’s Marcellus Shale. Supporting a ban on fracking is widely seen as a dangerous position, given the importance of oil to the state’s economy.

But to focus too much on the fracking debate would be to miss the forest for the trees. For starters, presidents don’t have the power to unilaterally ban fracking. And, more broadly, the oil industry is driven far more by markets than by policy.

Voters should be aware that the most important climate action Harris would take as president would likely be to continue implementing existing laws.