New York and Washington. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has avoided detailing her positions on several issues to date, but on one she decided to be very clear: “As president, I will not ban fracking,” she told CNN, confirming reports that she had reversed the position she expressed in 2019 on the extremely polluting method of oil extraction.

While this about-face is primarily aimed at attracting votes in the key state of Pennsylvania, it has also given hope to the fossil fuel industry and billionaires who are now lobbying intensively to try to modify and/or soften some of the Democratic Party’s positions on a range of issues – from expanding oil exploration in the United States to imposing new taxes on the ultra-rich.

This election cycle is projected to cost more than $7 billion, with more than $1 billion of that total donated by just about 100 individuals. “It’s too early to tell what effect these mega-donations will have on the next president’s policies, though big-money contributions have influenced policymakers in the past,” Barron’s magazine, a financial magazine, coolly notes. “While Harris and [Donald] Trump delights in highlighting support from small donors, it’s fair to call the 2024 election a battle of the billionaires [con fortunas mayores de mil millones]”.

The business weekly, part of the Wall Street Journal publishing group, offered a list of those ultra-rich, including executives at Blackstone, Renaissance Technologies, cryptocurrency magnates Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and speculative capitalists Marc Andressen and Ben Horowitz among others supporting Republican Trump, “Democrats have their own billionaires” supporting him, In fact, Barron’s estimates that the wealthiest donors could invest as much as more than $10.8 billion in political advertising during this election.

“Research shows that billionaires’ political views do have an impact on which policies are implemented,” Barron’s reports. Craig Holman of the consumer rights organization Public Citizen told the magazine that “billionaires are fundamentally changing the entire political environment. They have a lot of influence and seem to be asking for specific favors in return for their money.”

The lobbyists are not hiding their mission. “Based on what we know about her positions in the past, the bills she has pushed and her statements in the past where she had taken a fairly aggressive position against the energy industry, against the oil and gas industry,” explained Anne Bradbury, director of the American Exploration and Production Council, in an interview with the Financial Times last week, the objective is to lobby Harris to overturn measures implemented by President Joe Biden freezing oil drilling and the construction of more liquid natural gas plants.

By the way, US oil and gas production has reached record levels under the Biden administration, and Harris herself did not focus on climate change during the Democratic Convention, all of which is of concern to the environmental movement. But in her CNN interview, Harris sought to explain her new perspective on the issue, saying that her four years as vice president have convinced her that it is possible to create new clean energy jobs without eliminating jobs generated by the continued exploitation of fossil fuels such as fracking. Harris is proceeding with “strategic ambiguity” on this and other issues, according to some of her advisers interviewed by Reuters.

Harris argues that in the dispute over this and other issues in the race against Trump – who has repeatedly called climate change “a hoax” – there is no doubt for environmentalists about who to vote for and, in fact, some of the largest environmental organizations have announced that they will allocate tens of millions of dollars in support of his campaign.

But the biggest lobbying effort around Harris is being driven by big business and the ultra-rich, seeking to convince Harris to abandon some of the proposals her boss, President Biden, has promoted, especially measures to increase taxes on them. Trump, as president, along with the Republican-controlled Congress, enacted a series of massive tax cuts for the wealthy that will expire in 2025 — the former president has promised to renew them if elected, even though that would increase the federal deficit by almost $5 trillion.

Harris argues that instead of renewing those cuts, she will propose raising taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals and not raising taxes on families with annual incomes under $400,000. The Democrat’s proposal is the target of an intense lobbying effort by business leaders during this election cycle.

While Harris’s campaign publicly says she is committed to her proposal, privately some of the millionaire donors express optimism that she will change her position. “In my interactions with them, [veo] “The key is that she will focus on her values ​​but she is not an ideologue on particular programs,” said billionaire Mark Cuban in an interview with the New York Times. “From what I am told, everything is on the table, nothing has been decided yet,” something that other wealthy people agree with.

His spin on issues like fracking also offers hope to business leaders. “There is optimism that it is not possible that [su propuesta fiscal] “it’s real,” Anthony Levie, chief executive of the cybersecurity firm Box, told the Times.

While much of the media coverage is about the extensive relationship between billionaires like Elon Musk and other speculative investors, Trump sometimes obscures the reality that Harris also comes from Northern California, the capital of speculative capitalism and high technology. In fact, Harris’ campaign just launched a new group called “venture capitalists for Harris.”

The exercise of democracy is becoming more and more expensive.